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SoundsXP Presents

Pictures from some recent gigs we've hosted:

29 March 2013 - Brixton, London

Viv Albertine, VuVuVultures, Left Leg, Mickey Gloss, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love (Pictures)

8 March 2013 - Lexington, London

R.Ring, Golden Grrrls, Slushy Guts and Equinox (Pictures)

On Our iPod

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (album)

Antony Harding - Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear (album)

Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (album)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (album)

Still Corners - Strange Pleasures (album)

Savages - Silence Yourself (album)

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Can’s Ege Bamyasi played by Stephen Malkmus and Friends(album)

Victoria and Jacob - Festival 7"

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (album)

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Part II 7”

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

Robyn Hitchcock - There Goes The Ice (2x 12")

Latest Forum Posts

Album Review

Diva
Moon Moods Critical Heights

Article written by Ged M - Oct 13, 2012

Listening to the digipop pulses, the video game samples and the synthy r&b of Diva Dompe’s second album - where r&b seems to stand for “robotic and bionic” - you’re wondering whether to subject her to a Voight-Kampff empathy test. That seems to be the only possible conclusion when hearing her hymn to forbidden love between human and android, ‘Cyborg Sweetie’. But this Los Angeles performance artist and ex-Pocahaunted member is the daughter of Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins and the human pulse of the music is discernable, albeit in a highly treated form, on the record. She comes across as part Numan, part Grimes and a little bit Sun Araw on songs that are a strange melange of trippy electropop, smooth r&b, Lynchian croonpop and 50s exotica.

There are different themes and styles, from the minimal spooky melodrama of ‘Inverted Image’ to the bubbly, occult-themed and Talking Heads-ish 'Feline Divine’ and the Les Baxter-style exotic torch ballad ‘Moon Moods’. The record deflates a bit after the initial rush and it can be bland rather than bold, some tracks crying out for a more experimental, psychedelic approach. ‘Smooth Ride’ is MOR lounge jazz with a slightly hippy request: “let’s all ride this cosmic ship/ smoothly into paradise” while her voice tends to sound better when propped up by all manner of electronic effects. But the human bones shine through the synth sheen enough to make this a soundtrack for parties, albeit off-beat and off-world ones.

Links:
http://divaprojections.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.criticalheights.com/index.php?page=release&released=00000000881
http://www.myspace.com/divaprojections