{"title":"CS and Kreme","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought","title":"howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt's been something of a defining year for Melbourne duo CS \u0026amp; Kreme. Better known to some as Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel, despite the wealth of problems that have faced artists in 2020, the pair finally unveiled their debut LP early in the calendar, cementing their status as two of Australia's most talented opiate-pop-dance producers. A fine starting point from which to release this double-A single.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt certainly has the confidence you'd associate with acts and outfits that have found their place in the grand scheme of musical things. \u003ci\u003eApril Fool's Day\u003c\/i\u003e is a poised and subtly tense slice of laidback suggestion, twangs of melody hanging on a feeling that's pure psychedelia. \u003ci\u003eBugged\u003c\/i\u003e takes things into funkier, break-ier terrain, all locked rhythms and head-nodding infectiousness. Downtempo goodness, to put that another way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Trilogy Tapes","offers":[{"title":"Black | 12\"","offer_id":50453128347979,"sku":"1125965","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6505ec6c-2aa3-4e12-80cb-93bfc1419dc2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727168355"},{"product_id":"snoopy","title":"Snoopy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSnoopy\u003c\/i\u003e has got under our skin with its opiated elegance and spellbinding hooks over the precious few months we’ve had the pleasure of spending in its company. Through eight immaculate songs and instrumentals, the duo’s Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel expand on the stripped-down chamber-pop of their prized 2016 debut, absorbing aspects of baroque composition, ritualist psychedelia, spiritual jazz and avant classical into their patented framework of groggy 808 bass, slow-baked vocals and none-more-effective, hypnagogic atmospheres.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere CS + Kreme’s debut 12” for Total Stasis irrevocably came to soundtrack a portion of our lives, especially its highlight \u003ci\u003eDevotion\u003c\/i\u003e, we suspect these coming years will be defined by the low lit allure and melancholy of \u003ci\u003eSnoopy\u003c\/i\u003e. We’ve already lost count of the number of times it’s seduced us to the horizontal from the first strokes of warbly organ and Conrad’s velvet croon in \u003ci\u003eSaint\u003c\/i\u003e, only to find ourselves stunned by the hypnic tear-jerk of its denouement during the final stages of \u003ci\u003eMount Warning\u003c\/i\u003e, and genuinely wondering how the fuck we got there\/what time is it\/where did everyone go?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePay a little more sober attention to it, though, and you’ll discover the most tender, sensuous body of work inside, slipping from exquisite baroque trip hop in \u003ci\u003eFaun House\u003c\/i\u003e to the divine, Coil-esque ritual prostration of \u003ci\u003eBlue Flu\u003c\/i\u003e, and enchanted neo-classical keys recalling Dominique Lawalrée in \u003ci\u003ePussywhistle Tea\u003c\/i\u003e, whereas the groggy skronk of ‘The Whale’s Tail’ recalls a smudged and psilocybic instrumental echo of Leslie Winer’s downtown ennui, and \u003ci\u003eSlug\u003c\/i\u003e could almost be a knackered Andy Stott with a dose of sleazy guilt. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe don’t say this often, but this album is practically perfect in every way. It’s like a therapist who calmly draws out your inner feelings and leaves you in floods of tears, feeling cathartic but bruised. And it may come as little surprise that CS + Kreme are intimately linked to HTRK, whose Jonnine Standish also supplies vocals secreted inside (...be kind to animals, aye), and with whom they share a deep musical pathos. If you’re still reading, you’re evidently intrigued, and we implore you to follow thru and cop the most affective album you’ll hear in 2020. We’d be very happily surprised if anyone surpasses this slab. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Trilogy Tapes","offers":[{"title":"Black | 12\" | x2","offer_id":50453198340427,"sku":"1112655","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6f991570-068c-489b-bf27-51b9469e3c69_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727169413"},{"product_id":"orange-5","title":"Orange","description":"\u003cp\u003eSnoopy is hard to follow up. The same brilliant musicality is lavished on Orange — a combination of unmistakably original, skittering drum programming, startlingly fresh instrumental interjections, creepily invocatory voices, and dubwise treatments — giddily imbued with the dark arts of ritual and seance. But Orange is more gripping, focussed and urgent, more intense and ambitious. Next level.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIts first quarter presents a trio of forays in suspense. Bassline squares up like an epic psych-funk grinder, with a moody guitar line traversed by ticking drum patterns and faint electric crackle. In no time the guitar is staggering and stammering under the duress of echo and distortion, and over-run with percussive electronics and the first of the voices massing in the music’s head. The mood has quickly become more trepidatious. We're deeper underground; it’s gloomier, wetter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShred propulsively ratchets up the tension and menace. Glazily tentative xylophone is played against slashing, nervy cello. The voices are more strangulated and sick now. Flutes and chimes evoke the same kind of beautiful, contaminated efflorescence which is pictured on the LP’s front cover.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVoice Of The Spider makes easier progress across this cavernous, shadowy, dripping terrain, with funky pads and Nasty, eighties, No Wave electric bass; woozy chimes, non-plussed keys, singing-in-tongues.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePink Mist marks an arrival, or unbottling, with annunciatory church-organ and choral voices from the off, and a newly relaxed, head-nodding kosmische rhythm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMandarin is a short, beat-less and voice-free interlude for piano and bass. It's reflective and nostalgic, ambivalent and inconclusive, with a lovely snatch of melody. A bridge half-way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWould You Like A Vampire is a triumphant, mesmerizing go at New Folk, with strummed acoustic guitar, descant song, and jazzily restless drum programming (including a tasty bass-bin trembler). Amazingly, Conrad Standish is joined at the mic by none other than Bridget St John. Together they sing 'Earth is Paradise’ so repeatedly and tremulously — and the song is cut off so abruptly at the end — it seems as if the verb is teetering on the past tense, and hymn fading into valediction and catastrophe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSimilarly Storm Rips Banana Tree begins idyllically enough, with a CS-\u0026amp;-Kreme-style raga… before something like an immense, obliterative drill starts up. Harpsichord and organ — by James Rushford — and flutes, and clapping, distant chanting and insectile percussion steadily leaven the dread, till finally all that is left is lapping water.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s an epic, deeply immersive, compelling, thought-provoking, twenty-minute finale… the coup de grâce.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Trilogy Tapes","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50485889892683,"sku":"2019287","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Orange_a80b63d2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727604537"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/cs-and-kreme.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}