ARTICLES
2006 Top 10s and 20s
2006 Artist Picks

ALBUMS
17 Pictures
Angina P
Ateleia
Benni Hemm Hemm
The Boats
Cappablack
Celer
Dead Letters Dead Words
Deceptikon
Deerhunter
Denzel + Huhn
Displayaz
Dollboy
Drone
Eluvium
Emanuele Errante
The Eternals
Fear Falls Burning
Marcus Fjellström
Fonoda
Funkstörung
Goldfrapp
Gyroscope
Robert Henke
James Holden
The Idealist
Anders Ilar
Landing
LCD Soundsystem
Library Tapes
L Pierre
Lullatone
Tor Lundvall
Mad EP
Mahogany
Melodium
Mem1
Daisuke Miyatani
Mole Harness
Momus
Monoceros
Mormo
Mothboy
Original Hamster
Pierson & Horton
Prince Valium
Radical Face
Retail Sectors / Yaporigami
Rylander & Elggren
Scott Solter Plays PIM
Sideshow
Silicone Soul
Skream
Splinters
Mark Templeton
Thread Pulls
T. Raumschmiere
Tycho
Ultre
Virculum
Xela

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
AudioArt 03
Cumulous
Dubstep Allstars Vol. 4
Eriksen / Toft / Utarm
Katapult VA Vol. 3
Let's Lazertag Sometime
Mr Geoffrey & JD Franzke
Skagen / Halvorsen / Toft
Tectonic Plates

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Gabriel Ananda
Robert Bardini
DAT Politics
Dead Letters / R. Sundin
Dogmixer
Benjamin Fehr
Fenin
HL
I Make This Sound
Zoë Irvine
Kyriakides and Moor
Lamont & 2tall
Ljud. & Piloten / Kama Aina
Jacob London
Sam Mcqueen
Miskate
Ryo Miyashita & Hiiragi_
[nara]
New Faces
Of / Greg Davis
Charlemagne Palestine
Phon.o vs Litwinenko
Portable
PostPrior
Samarah
Nicholas Sauser & Ditch
Someone Else
Hannes Teichmann
Tractile
Andy Vaz

IMAGES
F.S. Blumm

Mahogany: Connectivity!
Darla

After a five-year gap, Brooklyn octet Mahogany returns with its second full-length Connectivity!, a cathedralesque collection of dazzling dreampop that merges the celestial shoegaze pop of Cocteau Twins with the retro-future-lounge style of Stereolab and energized bass and drum attack of New Order. A Spector-like ‘Wall of Sound' production style amplifies Mahogany's already gargantuan sound to an even higher galaxial plane. Teeming with softly-chanted male and female vocals, chiming pianos, and anthemic wail, a given song moves at light speed before abruptly exiting three minutes later. “One Plus One Equals Three or More” exemplifies the vibrant character of the album's arrangements, as voices struggle to be heard over a glorious din of handclaps, glockenspiels, and crystalline guitars. In “Renovo,” waves of strings and muffled horns evoke an almost classical feel until a delicate Julee Cruise-styled voice enters, lulling the listener into a trance with equally ethereal lyrics (“Can you find the edge / Of this vast and complex land? / Even then, it won't compare / To our strange and mental sands”). The hazy psychedelia of “My Bed is My Castle,” on the other hand, tends to camouflage the unsettling portrait of a reclusive agoraphobic (“Oh Joie, don't you know she self-maligns / She dreams of suicide / And all the different ways to hide in curtained rooms”). In the paradisiacal closer “Springtime, Save Our Country,” female vocals arc over tribal trance before a magnificent coda exits with the hopeful thought “In time, the blight will subside.” All this plus a bonus CD containing alternate mixes of three songs (an extended “Supervitesse,” “My Bed is My Castle,” featuring the vocal debut of Lucy Belle Guthrie, the daughter of Cocteau Twins Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Frazier, and “Domino Ladder Beta” which adds epic Valhalla guitar by Robin Guthrie) and three videos (“Supervitesse,” “Neo-plastic Boogie-woogie,” “One Plus One Equals Three or More”).

January 2007