On The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, the duo of M.C. Physical objects have always played a central role in Matmos' music. The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast The whole album, ragged at the edges and bloody with tone, is swollen in the best way, and it crests from peak to peak across 13 tracks that are at once meditative and eruptive. Despite nominally four-to-the-floor cadences, Allien and Apparat layer long phrases in a way that creates a sense of suspended animation, with morphing tones extending to the horizon in undulating waves- with the exception of one dubstep-inspired cut and Apparat's bashful foray into balladry, both of which usefully break up the record's horizontal sprawl. With both artists working at their moody best, the Bpitch Control label's typical stridency is tempered by an uncommon attention to warm, electro-acoustic sounds- resonant strings, harpsichords, voices and analog synthesizers. More assured than Ellen Allien's solo work and more immediate than Apparat's, Orchestra of Bubbles is at heart a pop album, albeit one cloaked in techno's urgency. Or at least, not quite: For those who didn't find exactly what they were looking for, or those who simply aren't content to quit exploring, Pitchfork closes out the year with its annual list of the year's finest full-lengths. And yet, between 60s girl group revivalism, lovesick Swedish pop, and more homemade, meat-and-potatoes indie rock than anyone knew what to do with, perfect, chiseled melody remained the magnetic force that kept us crawling back for more.Īnd it's not over yet. Instead, it was a year of true independence, in which listeners pursued broader palettes, spread music by word of mouth, and openly welcomed increasingly forward-thinking approaches to songcraft.Įven the artists seemed to approach the new year as a clarion call to abandon tradition and realize their own unusual visions: From Joanna Newsom's feudal harp odysseys and Scott Walker's claustrophobic night terrors, to the Knife's raven-black horror house and Boris' juggernaut grind, 2006 was a banner year for boundary-breaking. 2006 wasn't easily characterized by distinct seismic shifts in independent music's ever-changing topography, or by a select handful of burgeoning new genres.
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February 2023
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