Various Artists – Late Night Tales: Metronomy

Album Review by Chris Buckle | 27 Aug 2012
Album title: Late Night Tales: Metronomy
Artist: Various Artists
Label: Late Night Tales
Release date: 3 Sep

For the latest LNT mix, Metronomy’s Joseph Mount blends Southern hip-hop (Outkast) with avant-garde jazz (Chick Corea), ending up at Gallic alt-folk (Herman Dune) via nods to most that lies between. It’s a confident interpretation of the series’ brief, with curious bedfellows fluidly interlaced and locked into a twilight tempo. Even its more daring segueways sound apposite: for example, the breezy pop of the Alessi Brothers yielding freely to Autechre’s undulating, fractured rhythms, or the retro synths of Tonto’s Expanding Head Band gently washed away by a pedal-steel waltz (Pete Drake’s Forever).

For the obligatory cover version, Metronomy tackle Jean Michel Jarre’s Hypnose: understated and faithful, it slips smoothly into the mix’s folds, without overshadowing its lovingly selected surroundings. For the now-standard spoken word coda, meanwhile, Paul Morley concludes his Lost for Words piece – previously heard on the Trentemøller, MGMT and Belle and Sebastian compilations – with an enjoyably freewheeling verbosity.

http://www.latenighttales.co.uk