Electronically Yours

There has been much in the way of jolly Love & Dancing (and plenty of Pimms) to this brand new slice of dystopian electro from the very talented US analogue manipulator John Maus... and we absolutely adore this banger of a tune.






John is beaming 1983 Casio pulses back to the future in 2011 with 'Head for the Country' and he's throwing the 80's shapes like a modern day John Foxx. There is a delicious bleakness about this track with deep and detached vox from John whilst the synths are sequenced to the tune of pure melodica. We obviously love retro tracks here at EY but we will only write about them if if they come with a twist and Maus is ticking all the right boxes with this instant three minute pop gem.





The track really comes to life 50 seconds in after some synth stabs that will take a few of you back to The Thompson Twin's lost classic 'Quick Step & Side Kick' and it gets all hauntingly spine tingly and space age. This is a tune that will certainly appeal to those of you who love Canada's Computer Magic whom we covered a while back. There are even some buzzy Heaven 17/BEF moments in this track - something that NME were quick to point out when they awarded John's new album ' We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves' 8/10 earlier last week. The BBC have also been quick to heap praise on the Minnesotan knob twiddler describing John as 'A very clever man'.




The promo video is wonderful too with John using a few 'Quatermass' tricks to beam his electro into space and beyond from a radio telescope. Lots of 'Blake's 7' special effects set to an astonishing collection of champion synth hooks in just 3 very perfect minutes. There is obviously a lot of lovelovelove for 'Head for the Country' here at EYHQ where only the best will do...

Related links:

John Maus @ Soundcloud
Purchase ' We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves' from Amazon
John Maus @ Myspace

She's back! Crystalline Bjork

The elemental princess of nymph pop has returned with the very lovely 'Crystalline'. It's quirky, melodic and everything you would expect from the Icelandic songstress.

The album 'Biophilia' is set to be released later in the year and this track is a taster of what's to come. It has been being teased online over the last few weeks with a bonkers 30 seconds or so of Bjork driving across Iceland trying to tune a radio?

Interplay of drums, tinkling bells and esoteric percussion sits nicely with her whimsically inflected vocals. Climaxing with some glitch and quite unexpected break beat instrumentation towards the end is the part that will either grab you, or make you jump a bit.

As for the LP coming out, confused and dazed about this really; a video for each track (recently done by Polly Harvey so good) but on ipad, each song being an app multimedia blah blah. Call me old fashioned, I'm only really interested in how it sounds for now, which so far, with Crystalline, it's going to be more than just fine and sits comfortably alongside 'Vespertine'...she returns at last.

Related link:

Official Bjork site

With warm thanks to Babooshka & Alan Bryant.