News Tracks: Nine Inch Nails, Fuck Buttons, Beck And More

Very merry Friday and a happy weekend to you all!

Whether you’re bogged down with exams this week or looking yearningly out of the office window at those blue skies, boy have we got some treats for you this week. As if comebacks from Beck and Nine Inch Nails weren’t enough to leave you bouncing off the ceiling, we’ve hooked you up with a free (FREE!) EP from the lovely David Byrne & St Vincent. and scoured the internet for yet more brand spanking new musical treats. There’s some blindingly good stuff here, so go on, press play, and give everything a listen below. If you’re meant to be working, we promise we won’t tell on you!

Nine Inch Nails - Came Back Haunted

With five years without a release under the guise of Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor has found himself in the one of the most active hiatuses in musical history. While he picked up new threads in his career, the music world lost its most consistent innovator. Now an old master returns. He’s still painting with the same paints, but he’s creating masterpieces that bring the walls of the gallery down around them. The haunted swaying disco is torn to shreds by the industrial sawmill riffs that NIN is known for, across the five minutes the music accumulates more and more recognisable tropes from each era of the band’s existence. It’s a fantastic achievement to seamlessly blend the Numan-ish origins of debut album ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ with the glitch synths of ‘Year Zero’ while maintaining the ferocity and tension of ‘The Downward Spiral’. This triumphant piece of composition sees each familiar element fall and rise with grace and swagger but in new ways and new combinations. (Matthew Davies)

Fuck Buttons- The Red Wing

The music Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Pow make as Fuck Buttons shouldn’t be as catchy as it is. At its core it seems brutal, aggressive, harsh and confrontational. But then when you hear their music soundtracking the Olympics opening festival or you see them live you realise how universal and visceral it is. ‘The Red Wing’ is another slice of bombastic, brutal electronic mindfuckery. It has a swagger to it and almost sexy roboticness – at times it feels almost like a HEALTH disco number. Almost immediately the swirling sax-like noises and the power and thrust of the metallic percussion take hold; the disparate elements start to meld together in your mind until three quarters of the way through it blasts off and you can feel the walls of your brain shaking. It’s not welcoming but, god-damn it, all you can do is give in to it. (Danny Wright)

David Byrne & St Vincent - Cissius

Between them, David Byrne and Annie Clark are responsible for two of the finest oddball albums of the past 3 years; St Vincent’s ‘Strange Mercy’, and then of course, their collaborative release ‘Love This Giant’. Making brass weirdly palatable alongside sinister lyricism and off-kilter time signatures, Byrne and Clark had done more than enough to deserve a holiday, perhaps even a stint on the Caribbean island that gives Clark her namesake. Thank god they didn’t jet off to the sun-loungers. Instead, the pair have reunited to record the ‘Brass Tactics’ EP - which you can get for diddly-squat here. And if you needed any convincing whatsoever that it’s a good idea, here is the magnificent ‘Cissius’. With richly resonating clarinet and twinkling percussion creeping through the silver keys, Clark and Byrne’s vocals eventually become enveloped in regal brass, and it’s a triumphant return for these two loveable giants. (El Hunt)

Beck- Defriended

There’s no doubting Beck Hansen holds a special place in the high chambers of music. One of those characters who can retain influence regardless of the volume of their output, in recent years he’s really tested his standing. In the five years since his last studio record - 2008’s ‘Modern Guilt’ - Beck has done everything but release fully realised new material. Not anymore. Like buses, it appears two Beck albums may be coming along at once - one acoustic, one studio. More than just words, Hansen is giving us something to get our teeth into, even if it won’t appear on the record, just to prove he’s good on his word. ‘Defriended’, if taken as a taster of where a mooted full length later this year may take Hansen, is at the very least interesting. It’s not a ‘Devil’s Haircut’; instead off kilter beats, bass and sparse electronica make a track that’s more about ideas than it is immediacy. It almost certainly won’t be anyone’s favourite Beck song, but it’s almost certainly a good sign, proving in his time away Hansen has still been trying out new things. (Stephen Ackroyd)

Sigur Rós - Kveikur

Even if you close your eyes tight and ignore the live show visuals for ‘Kveikur’ you’ll quickly get the sense that Sigur Rós have travelled to another Earth, in another time and watched it implode. Incredible moments of discord between the percussion, reverse reverbs and huge industrial feeling drums create a sense of impending and unavoidable doom. An overwhelming feeling of inevitability looms over the listener; entirely fitting when you find out the title translates to ‘Candlewick’ in English. Sigur Rós don’t often descend into the darker side of music, but when they do they immerse us deep into a whirlwind of drones, incredible rhythms and lead lines that leave you haunted with an excess of goosebumps. The new album, ‘Kveikur’, is due out on June 17th in the UK, so thankfully we don’t have long to wait to get our ears around the rest of their latest effort. (Joe Dickinson - @DickinsonSound)

Mirrorhall - Cadmium II

When listening to Mirrorhall, a bedroom based duo from the West Midlands, it feels as though you are sitting inside their minds, witnessing a live-feed of their inner most abstract thoughts. ‘Cadmium II’ ,a highlight from their ‘Horrorscope’ EP, best sums up the sounds that this project is making. The lo-fi production of the recordings acts as an accompaniment instead of a hindrance to the song. The variety of instruments keep the song ticking along nicely and the eccentric delivery of the vocals make Mirrorhall an intriguing listen. (Jack Parker)

Cadmium II by Mirrorhall

Forest Swords- Thor’s Stone

Matt Barnes’ return with ‘Thor’s Stone’ is a drawn out piece of ethereal electronic tinkery, with a strange otherworldly melody that sounds like a cross between ancient panpipes and the call of a whale recorded onto one of those relaxation CDs ready for purchase at a garden centre. Pentatonic chimes start to emerge, along with ritualistic vocal stabs, and those hollow rhythms that propel the whole track forward. Forest Swords’ latest transforms cacophony bleakness into rich, hopeful and cohesive piece of music, with the ease of a Norse god giving one casual waft of a hammer and sending thunder and lightning crashing earthward. This is spellbinding and heavenly stuff indeed. (El Hunt)