Articles
Slow Six
Label Profile: Fällt
Alexander Turnquist

Albums
4 Bonjour's Parties
AGF
Atlas Sound
Autistic Daughters
Baja
Evan Bartholomew
Sylvain Chauveau
Destroyalldreamers
DoF
Dot Tape Dot
Fessenden
Floriana vs. Màcro
Florian Hecker
I Am A Vowel
Jaermulk Manhattan
Steve Jansen
LabField
Liar's Rosebush
Eliot Lipp
Luminous
Mojib
Monocle
Nicolay & Kay
Panda Riot
Ghislain Poirier
Prosumer & Murat Tepeli
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Sambassadeur
Starting Teeth
Carl Stone
Strings of Consciousness
Suite Crude Revue
Text Adventure
Alexander Turnquist
Valet
Viirus
Willits + Sakamoto
Yaporigami

Compilations/Mixes
Armin Van Buuren
Caroline
Goodbye Said the Rain
Sieben Mal Solo
A Weevil in a Biscuit

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
0>1
A Setting Sun
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen
Myungho Choi
Deadbeat
Entsounds
Itosha
JDSY
l'Objet
Noah Pred
Repair
The Retail Sectors
Socks & Sandals
Someone Else
Trembling Blue Stars
.xtrak

Trembling Blue Stars: Exploring the Shadows EP
Elefant

The material on this four-song EP is so strong, one is left feeling confounded as to why Trembling Blue Stars (the name taken from Pauline Réage's The Story of O, specifically the line “her eyes were like stars, trembling blue stars”) isn't more popular. Though the group's been issuing material since 1996, Exploring the Shadows sounds very fresh indeed. Exploring the Shadows' material was recorded during the album sessions for the group's recent sixth album, The Last Holy Writer, but sounds like anything but leftovers.

Titled after a phrase from Andy Warhol's book From A To B and a portrait of an Edie Sedgwick-like character (“She'll be anything you want her to be / Rich girl, poor girl, beggar girl, thief), opener “Beautiful Blank” is an infectious slice of pop song magic that drapes Beth Arzy's soft voice in glockenspiels and swooning harmonies. The breezy guitar pop of “As Easy As Being Alone” finds Bob Wratten leading a gorgeous melodic segue into the chorus, after which tinkling percussion and Wratten's hushed voice deepen the atmosphere of the intimate folk ballad “Outside Looking Elsewhere.” The gloomy ambiance of “And Then Silence” comes as a surprise after the spirited uplift of the other songs and the abrupt end (“silence…nothing”) is jarring, too. Though lyrically the song makes for a natural closer, it seems a shame to end the disc on such a downtrodden note. A minor caveat, however, all things considered.

February 2008