little dragon - Machine Dreams
True to the promise heralded by the Fortune/Blinking Pigs single released towards the beginning of the year, this new album from Swedish group Little Dragon is characterised by sounds of a revitalised, electronic persuasion. The album's title certainly suggests that the band are aware of the shift themselves: Machine Dreams is an album full of self-consciously synthetic sounds and zeitgeisty electronic pop that follows on from their eponymous folk-soul opus of 2007, but oddly, that seems like a rather good thing given the results. While several tracks are content to languish in their mock-'80s gated-reverb, the likes of 'A New' and 'Feather' bring to mind more current acts like Telepathe. At their best however, the band manage to avoid comparisons to other artists, just sounding like a great synth-driven pop group in their own right - 'Runabout' is especially good in this sense, and Little Dragon even demonstrate some club-friendly hit potential with 'My Step'. There's probably a decent argument to be made for the best track here being former single 'Fortune', which is bravely relegated to the very back end of the album. Its magical instrumental passages sear their neon imagery indelibly into your consciousness upon first play, and without having to go so far as copy their sound, Little Dragon somehow manage to evoke that elusive aura of uneasy nostalgia Boards Of Canada specialise in. Good work.










































CD // £7.99
12" // £5.99












MP3 Download // £3.50
FLAC Download // £4.50























