New album Bits With Byte coming this month!

Sneaking in as #10 in my top albums for 2010 – Zola Jesus was an entirely new singer/songwriter to me late on last year. Conatus was her release that pushed her into spotlight.

The atmospheric “Swords” slides you into her industrial clinic electronic before “Avalanche” introduces you to Zola’s sumptuous voice that cuts like a knife but also it holds a certain depth. Matched with the darkness of the ambient electronic swirling around you it feels like a much darker Cocteau Twin vibe, or should you say Lisa Gerrard is an Angel, Zola would be the devil. The Cocteau vibe hits hardest with “Vessel” where the song flickers and merges on vocal loops over itself into a blurred frenzy in a fantastic stand out single.

“Hikikomori” is a builder track where the keyboards and vocals slowly build over the same few chords and patterns to its triumphant finale before “Ixode”‘s pumping kick beat turns the dark dampness of the depths of Zola’s soul into a mild dance track. You don’t necessarily understand what is being sung but it’s like emotion is being transposed into a vocal sound. It feels strangely enlightening. ”Seekir” takes this one step further with a more straightforward dance-esque track full of lifeless instrumentation and Zola’s flowing voice soaring over the top.

“In Your Nature” for some unknown reason reminds me of a 90′s M-People track Zola style! It’s has a hook that’s actually quite joyous and harmonious and is the first really uplifting song with its strident beat and chords. “Like The Palm of the Burning Handshake” is a very broken and disjointed track which does work well but takes a couple of listens to appreciate it’s very stilted approach to piano playing and keyboard synths. The ending section is very anthemic though and makes up for it if you’re not a fan of that style of song. “Shivers” is a wonderfully constructed track of mini percussive elements of clicks and scrapes before an insanely catchy chorus takes over. A personal highlight.

“Skin” is a very minimal piano / vocal / cymbal shimmering track that is delicate, eerie and beautiful before the album closes with “Collapse” which is like a buzzing healing energy that washes over the rest of the album to try and cleanse all the hurt that you’ve travelled through to get there.

“Conatus” is in many ways a simple album. The songs have a similar sound, structure and poise. It’s the overall feeling and setting of everything though that makes the album far more than the sum of its parts. It’s uplifting, its dank, its a bloodied scream of pain that calls you in like a siren. That is Zola Jesus.

Opener “Water Wears the Rock” is a big statement track. Huge rip-roaring choruses, loud drums, piano solos with guitar overtures and a distinct energy that flows from start to finish. “You Became A Ghost” feels like a cinematic pop rock anthem. There’s enough pauses, drum rolls and elating guitar solos to rival a Queen track. It’s fun and approachable and a good starting point to delve into Levinson. “Love You Goodbye” features Gregory Douglass although they are sparsely used. The song itself feels a little clunky as if its been autotracked a bit too tightly for its own good but the melody itself is pleasant enough.

“Let You Go” features Will Dailey and is a sweet rock ballad with some lovely celtic flairs to it which make it quite whimsy while the cabaret brass added to “Bar Scene” is playful while Justin lazily pub sings his way through the song. There’s an annoying bar chat sample that overbears some of the great brass work however. This is why “I’ll Be Ok” works better as it brings all the rough edges together into a playful, wonderful, joyous explosion of music. It’s just one of those infectious songs it’s hard to offended by or dislike.

A wonderful waltzing duet “I Was So Wrong” features Liz Longley gets its country on. Liz’s vocals remind me of Tanya Donelly and the guitar twangs and harmonicas add to create a distinctly different song from the rest of the album. “Million Tears” is a very traditional rock ballad in the Beatles style and showcases Justin’s vocals at its best with various octaves, styles and ranges. “Say What Your Gonna Say” is very 70′s in many ways with its clean guitars, sultry brass and light choruses that slightly shimmer. The album closes with “If You’re Happier” which is another classic Beatles style ballad.

This Side of Me, This Side of You has excellent production values. Everything feels full and explosive. Justin’s vocals sometimes sound a bit like the weakest part of the package as they get swamped by the big songs and I’ve never been a fan of talky singing which some tracks slip into. However looking passed my own preferences I can see this being a very popular album and one that should elevate Levinson up the ranks as a well rounded and catchy album that doesn’t sell its core values.

Mars is No Fun

La France

Wet Boy

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

10) Zola Jesus – Vessel

A fantastic culmination and one of my most recent new discoveries, it just edges into the top 10 by providing me with one of the few dark and damp albums of 2011. Her voice harks back to generations of old and the electronics and dramatic song structures make it a treat to visit the darkness every time.

09) Faun – Eden

Band members have left and been replaced and while you can tell that Faun’s sound has changed forever. It still sits firmly in the Pagan Folk genre they’ve helped create but the vocals are more hymn like, English is introduced and the overall sound is one more of a forest pixie raging war on humanity. Either way, it’s still utterly superb.

08) St Vincent – Strange Mercy

St Vincent makes the most clumsy, sloppy and seemingly out of control music seem to still have order, beauty and integrity. Her third studio album is full of all the quirks, embellishments and random freak outs we’ve come to expect but in a more assured manner and with more layers than ever before!

07) Gregory Douglass – Lucid

Having watched Gregory over various live net shows introduce, change, develop and grow Lucid from a concept into a fully evolved being, it’s a fantastic dream concept album that works from start to finish. Showcasing some great technical wizardry, it features some of the most catchy numbers and some of the most heartbreaking from his career to date.

06) Amiina – Puzzle

From what I thought was a lovely, quaint but slightly one-sided debut, Puzzle lifts Amiina into a new level. The quartet have perfected their craft of weaving the most unlikely of instruments together into lullabies but now also into powerful epic seven minute masterpieces.

05) Bjork – Biophilia

Never one to sit still, Biophilia is a career spanning genre bending full flow freak out. Never compromising, always challenging – it contains highlights of Bjork’s most beautiful, most powerful and most scary moments of her musical career.

04) Tori Amos – Night of Hunters

Tori Amos remains my favourite musical artist of all time. The reason this hasn’t reached the top spot is purely because it’s an album that requires a lot of time and effort to digest and I’m not really there yet. The string arrangements are beautiful and the songs are fantastic. Many have called it a return to form but I never saw her falter. A bold new direction and one that pays off.

03) Lamb – 5

The return of Lamb was unexpected but much appreciated with the perfect blend of Lou’s own solo styles and Andy’s more electronic edges. The album is much more direct and approachable with instant hooks throughout, making it by far my favourite Lamb album to date and hopefully will give them confidence to continue  on.

02) tUne-YaRdS – W H O K I L L

Only discovering the sheer genius of this lady last year, being able to enjoy the growth from début to album number 2 was phenomenal. All the funky vocal collages are still here, as is the home ramshackle production but this time fused with brass and some more tip-top production too. It just seems like such a natural bloom. Magical.

01) Charlotte Martin – Dancing on Needles

The album that keeps giving with all the b-sides being released online, it’s a perfect merger of all Charlotte’s previous works of piano, guitar, keyboard and pounding drums. Her voice is an absolute marvel and every song is as achingly beautiful and painful as the last. Without doubt my album of the year.

Narrowly missing out were PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, Sarah Slean, The Go Team and Omodaka.

In a word – No.

The first design problem is the fact it uses 3 AA batteries. In the age where we’re used to chargeable controllers this is sad to see. Secondly the stylus pen that is attached, is attached by a very short rope – a bit like a bank pen that doesn’t quite give you enough room to go freely across your cheque book. It gets caught on the edges and generally gets in the way.

However all these could be overlooked if the actual tablet worked. It appears to be very hit and miss. The stylus needs to be absolutely vertical for it to register and I found I had to be pressing down quite hard on the screen itself. Within about three minutes I thought I was actually going to break the thing in half because of the sheer pressure I needed to use to get the pen to register. From there I read that you could use your fingers. Suddenly things seemed a lot smoother and I recommend people going straight for the finger option.

This then led to one further problem which then turned what was starting to become quite an interesting experience into a nightmare. Basically, Artist Studio did not seem to notice when I removed my finger from the canvas. This then causes lots of annoying problems of then getting the drawings to stop drawing after spending so long trying to get the thing to register you! Admittedly you can undo the last ten actions by pressing select but it suddenly gets infuriating when for the fifth time a giant red line is spray painted across your work of art.

Of the Artist Studio itself, there’s a range of features and effects – most of which work really well and it has a lot of effects stolen from adobe. There is potential for some great art but it takes a lot of dedication. There are a few tutorials and challenges thrown in for good measure too. The only down side is that by using your fingers and not the “is it working?!” stylus, the menu system is too small to navigate easily and it takes a long time to get spacial awareness around the tablet to vaguely select the right thing.

Positives

~When it works, it’s actually quite a revelation and a unique console experience

~Fingers make great art tools

Negatives

~The stylus doesn’t work and I wouldn’t trust it to not damage the screen

~Uses AA batteries

~Fiddly menu systems

~Frustrating touch sensitivity bugs make things feel laborious

~Lead me to think the whole game would work so much better with a Move controller instead

Conclusion

Out of all the add-on controllers and spins off’s I’ve bought – this is the worst. Not because it’s a bad idea – it’s a great one. It just plain and simply doesn’t work half the time and that leads to utter frustration. If this application came out with the Move controller (like a much beefier Beat Sketcher) then I’d be raving. It’s the tablet itself that ruins it and therefore will ruin any game it graces until its core issues are resolved.