THE TRAGICALLY HIP: Now for Plan A
Universal, 39 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5

The Hip was never the most musically dynamic band in the world, but they do possess a startlingly keen sense of mood. When called upon they can be funny or dark, lustful or literate, nostalgic or topical, even within the span of one album side. When they actually did try and extend that range to the sound itself — on the eclectic Music@Work (2000) — the result was a bit of a mess.

Since then, Hip albums have stuck to certain sonic criteria, to varying effect. I’d put In Between Evolution (2004) up against their best work, while the dull, dreary We Are the Same (2009) was a career low. Their 12th album Now for Plan A is a definite middle. It never reaches for the thematic ambition of Evolution or falls into the middle-aged embarrassment of We Are the Same’s “Coffee Girl.”

Immediate standouts include the shimmering title track, “At Transformation,” a rocker about fatherhood (a favourite late-period Hip subject) and the acoustic singalong “Done and Done.” Elsewhere, the band covers overly familiar territory — “The Lookahead” is the kind of song they’ve been filling out their albums with since the beginning. Still, an overall fine recovery from a serious misstep.

FLYING LOTUS: Until the Quiet Comes
Warp, 47 minutes

Rating: 4.5/5

A musical futurist he may be, but Flying Lotus does not make albums for the internet age. They’re not long but often divide into many short tracks, most of which complement and bleed into one another. He features high-profile guests (here, Thom Yorke and Erykah Baduh) but does not use them for crossover singles. Appreciating a Flying Lotus album in whole requires time and undivided attention. As hoped, his fourth album Until the Quiet Comes rewards you for it.


It’s a more ethereal record than any previous. The twitchy, restless feel of past FlyLo albums is replaced with a kind of buoyancy. Most of the tracks seems to leap back and forth from the mix, and guest appearances from Yorke, Niki Randa, and Laura Darlington add a deeper human element to his electronic soundscapes.  

To retract a bit, Until the Quiet Comes is certainly less fractured than Los Angeles or Cosmogramma. The best tracks, “Putty Boy Strut,” “Until the Quiet Comes,” and “me Yesterday // Corded” [sic] work as well alone as a part of the larger picture. And what a beautiful picture it is.

DEADMAU5: >album title goes here<

Ultra, 80 minutes

Rating: 3/5 


deadmau5 albums are like suitcases: they’re built to carry something. If not played to a crowd of dancing, exhilarated kids the music loses a lot of its purpose.

The Toronto EDM superstar’s sixth long-form release >album title goes here< is nothing new for his commercial material — it’s very long, often repetitive, and not ideal for anyone sitting at a desk with $15 earbuds. Considered as a document / blueprint of the live deadmau5 experience, however, it does the job.

He’d be wise to make an album of shorter tracks and leave the more extended suites (“Superliminal,” “Fn Pig”) in his memory banks. Songs with featured vocalists are usually stronger demonstrations of range. “The Veldt” is a glorious slice of electro-pop, far less claustrophobic than typical deadmau5 fare. While bringing in Cypress Hill seems a bit reductive, considering all the hip-hop artists the producer could work with, the collaboration “Failbait” shows how easily deadmau5 can slide between genres.

>album title goes here< never feels like a cash-in. It pushes the limit of CD length, includes a few strong singles, and features a nifty lenticular cover for its first 25,000 copies sold in Canada. But be sure to pick up a few friends and a good soundsystem before you dive into its deepest depths.