Beggars Arkive On the heels of The Frenz Experiment came this curve ball for The Fall’s eleventh (or maybe thirteenth) album. Who could have foreseen a ballet soundtrack was in the offing? Yeah, it was quite a surprise
Album review
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Figureeight Since Gyða Valtýsdóttir‘s exit from Icelandic collective Múm, she has spent her time back at the conservatoire, studying the cello and attaining qualifications both in the classical style and also in free improvisation. Since then, after journeying with artists as diverse as Damian Rice, the Kronos Quartet and Jonsi; and releasing 2016’s Epicycle, in which she re-configured classical pieces plus some of a more esoteric nature into her own […]
Transgredient Troum have been illuminating the drone landscape for over two decades now, so to celebrate their twentieth anniversary, they decided to issue a lush two-disc set where they invited friends, family and interested parties to tackle their favourite selections from the Troum catalogue.
Nicey Music Once again, that pseudonym of modern psychedelia and bedroom recording, Robert Sotelo is on the loose, this time firing out a missive courtesy of the good people at Nicey Music. This current cassette only release finds our enigmatic songwriter testing himself by writing solely on electronic keyboards
Modularfield Modularfield‘s continued campaign to highlight low-key experimental electronic music from around Europe has settled on Cologne, and particularly the latest album from Marco Petracca AKA HHNOI.
Tapete Annoyingly, when I received the CD of the latest Unhappybirthday release, the first thing that happened was for The Smiths‘ track of the same name to try and lodge itself in my brain. Thankfully, as soon as I pressed play, any thoughts of that rather lame song were sent running and were subsumed by a wash of gentle, hazy pop beauty.
Lumberton Trading Company The very healthy collaboration between noise artiste extraordinaire Philippe Petit and the gravelled voice wonder of Eugene Robinson is on its third instalment, and here the action — if you want to call it that — takes place in some god-forbidden forest way up in hills. The only way that you could possibly find yourself in these hills is to be completely lost and at […]
Disco Gecko Andrew Heath has been releasing low-key ambient works for the last seven or eight years, first coming to prominence collaborating with Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Although Roedelius is a good indication of what you may expect from Andrew’s work, I would say that it is even lower key, making a lot of use of found sounds and field recordings
Upset The Rhythm Upset The Rhythm have scored another hit with the latest from Sauna Youth, who tear through the rule book, spraying twelve tracks in our ears in less than half an hour and then heading for the pub, leaving us reeling. God knows where they have been for the last three years
Kranky Grouper is an irresistible force, but one that seems to become lighter and less substantial with each release. By that, I mean it is so ethereal in the true sense of the word that I am amazed it was even possible to catch it on tape.
Sumerian A logical follow up to Side A, Palaye Royale‘s Boom Boom Room (Side B) is exactly that, the other side of the album that didn’t quite make it to the first cut, but is still worth a listen. I find it is quite a mirror image to the first side, with the first four or so tracks being uplifting and fast, still with the ever-present angsty lyrics about […]
Thrill Jockey Thalia Zedek has spent a long time in the independent music trenches, becoming particularly well known for periods in Live Skull in the 1980s and Come in the ’90s, plying a ferocious strain of guitar-orientated indie-rock. For the last ten years however, Thalia has fronted her own band and over five albums, including this latest, has allowed life and the influences of complementary band members to […]
Glitterbeat Stella Chiweshe is somewhat of a legend in certain circles — a real global advocate for mbira music as well as a feminist icon — playing mbira at a time when colonial (then) Rhodesia forbade it, establishing a woman’s music festival in Zimbabwe, and all that good stuff. Of course this isn’t why you should buy this record. You should buy it because it’s lovely and you like […]
Fourth Dimension / Foolproof Projects Andy Pyne and Lisa Jayne, who make up the duo of Map 71, have been highlighting their hinterland that exists somewhere between myth and dreamstate since 2014. Perfectly described by Lisa’s book of words, Mutant Dreams, they inhabit and document that precious point between waking and sleeping where things appear normal, but have a touch of the surreal in the tiny details.
4AD The first track on Pixies‘ début release Come on Pilgrim takes a dump in your mind with its bad Samaritans and shamanic shears. Thirty years on, it’s still gnawing at you like a raggedy chihuahua as you stumble through the wreckage of a house party’s aftermath. Those heavy drums of David Lovering‘s really feel like there being clambered over, that slow thaw of salivary guitar eating at you as
Sub Pop There is often a sense of familiarity with Low albums. To a certain extent there exists a feeling that we have come to know what to expect when a new album drops. With Low’s twelfth full-length release, however, they have probably done the most that they can or have ever tried to do to cover the trail that the last twenty-five years has left.
Drag City It has been about eighteen months since David Pajo‘s return with Highway Songs, but what a transformation that period of time has wrought. As entertaining as that cut and paste of ideas and snippets was it, lacked cohesion and was clearly the sound of a man in flux; unsure of his place in the world or the direction in which his music should be going. In […]
Antifrost Drawing on an ancient word for witches across German-speaking Europe in the Middle Ages, Lukas Feigelfeld‘s film Hagazussa is a gloomy feast for the imagination where plague and paranoia paint an atmospheric treasure-trove of unease. A gothic feast for the eyes