Taragana Pyjarama - Tipped Bowls Review

Most of Taragana Pyjarama's first full-length album has a direct reference point in numerous other electronic albums released over the past few years. That's not a criticism. If anything, one of the best compliments I can pay Tipped Bowls is that it sounds like ten albums I've heard before, but there's no single album that sounds just like it. It is pretty, tinkly, swirly and feels as though it's all taking place in something the size of a petri dish-- disco for microbes, maybe. Four Tet's There Is Love in You, Gold Panda's Lucky Shiner, elements of Isolée and the Field, Mount Kimbie's politely stunning 2009 EPs: They're all reference points, but none of them is copied so brashly that Tipped Bowls ever feels redundant. Think of it, then, as a frame for a style that has been floating around for a few years now but never organized so carefully: a testament to the ways artists can be almost as effective when curating familiar sounds as they can when trying to create something totally new.

Let's go back to small and pretty: If you do not like small and pretty, you will probably not like Tipped Bowls. When I say small and pretty, I mean it in a fairly conservative sense. Autumn leaves, porcelain tea sets, lace dresses, tropical fish, soap bubbles: Tipped Bowls is interested in these things, and not interested in making them any more complicated than they are. What saves it from sounding precious is the way in which it uses small, pretty things to create chaos. Tracks like "Growing Forehead" or my personal favorite, "Ballibat", are filled with high-wire moments when all the pops, fizzes, and scattering melodies feel like they're about to pull apart only to come back together again. The instability in the music is what makes it exciting. It's a strategy as old as jazz. The novelty here is scale: To an ant, falling confetti must look terrifying. Being small isn't the same as being cute-- a difference Tipped Bowls mines beautifully.

Certain tracks stand out, but one of the album's virtues is that it's all of a piece-- there's even a track broken into a "Part 1" and "Part 2" if you needed guidance on how to take it in. Nothing on it bangs, but nothing drifts, either-- even the ambient passages hinge on traditional tension and release. It's good home-listening music, and even better for a car or train commute that might highlight both its natural sense of motion and the way that motion shapes the album over 45 minutes....full text Nick Eriksen is barely 21 and he’s already on his second alias. His first name, Eim Ick became a common drop in knowing circles when he was just 19. Tracks like “On On On,” and “East West” are dreamy, frothy and ethereal, but also tethered to spindly, fiber-optic funk reminiscent of Tycho’s technicolor soundscapes and The Field’s astral techno. It’s easy to hear how they became staples in more nuanced DJ sets and led to remixing indie electronic darlings like Delorean and Miami Horror.

In the year or so since his auspicious debut, the restless Danish music student who couldn’t stand formal instruction (nor the rush of acclaim), has morphed into his current persona with a Roxy Music inspired name that could drive a spelling bee champ into a murderous tizzy: Taragana Pyjarama. His first release as TP was “Girls,” a swirling, gingerly syncopated, haunted-carousel loop, reminiscent of Jori Hulkonnen’s earlier melodic, melancholy tracks. This led to a deal with France’s Fool House, who released his self-titled EP in 2011, featuring the blunted, otherworldly “Sudanese Blonde” and the skittering, ambient “Ocean.”

On his debut for Michael Meyer’s Kompakt label, Tipped Bowls, (released June 18), the music is still expansive listening, but it’s also a more kinetic experience. The precocious flash of his previous releases is muted, replaced by a more sophisticated polish. “Four Legged” opens the album with cinematic flair, building from a slow, shy pulse into a siren call from a waning galaxy. “Growing Forehead” (featuring Kiki Halmos) glows like a witchy spell by the Knife or Cocteau Twins. “Lo Ng,” is a shuffling, percolating track padded with drum rolls and swathed in misty synth notes. The title track sounds like an elfin workshop until the metronomic sparkle and cranking grinds to a meditative silence punctuated by clanging bowls....full text Copenhagen, Denmark's Nick Eriksen debuted on Fool House with a 2011 EP led by swirling, heavens-reaching tracks like "Ocean" and "Girls." The release was supported by Trentemøller and Michael Mayer, the latter of whom signed the producer to Cologne's Kompakt label. This self-titled set is the follow-up -- Eriksen's first album as Taragana Pyjarama. It's neither as spooky nor as makeshift as the cover might indicate. Instead, the majority of the material is more likely to evoke idyllic scenes with backdrops decked out in colorful thickets. The sound, however, is hardly one-dimensional. In fact, some of its sequences are paced somewhat like a set by Tobias Thomas, a DJ who released three mixes for Kompakt (Für Dich, Smallville, and Please Please Please). ...full text