Rooster There was always something so cool and approachable about The Heads. As Bristol boys, you often saw them at shows there and quite regularly were served by Hugo Morgan over the counter of Replay (RIP even after all these years) and there was always something in the music that also held that approachability. The murderous rhythms and pummelling guitars might have been trying to fry your brain, […]
Mr Olivetti
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Tier.debut Any group with a name like I Work In Communications has to be worth some of your time and with the title of Kiss My Emoji Ring, you kind of know that this album isn’t going to be anything too heavy. In fact, the album contains a veritable cornucopia of lovely if irreverent electronic-based experiments that veer all over the map, allowing the three players plenty of […]
Impossible Objects Of Desire Brighton-based Fujiya & Miyagi have been plying their unique take on electronic music for the best part of twenty years. Slight Variations is about their tenth album and the fourth on their own label, and it is an intriguing mix of ’80s electronica crossed with funk, while taking on the kind of body music with which Mute were familiar years ago, but always with […]
Thrill Jockey The recent collaboration I Get Along Without You Very Well between Ellen Arkbro and Johan Graden is something of a misnomer, as this selection of slow and dreamy minimalist masterpieces brings the strongest elements out of two vibrant and eclectic performers. The secret to the success of this album is the use of woodwind alongside Johan’s keyboard work and Ellen’s voice. Any group that chooses to […]
Thrill Jockey It has been lovely watching Glenn Jones‘s career and its slow evolution via his experimental work with Cul de Sac to his current solo direction which hints at the likes of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Somehow Glenn injects a more modern sensibility, a willingness to introduce factors to the sound that make it his own and make the listener feel as though he is leading them […]
Hubro For his first solo album in nine years, Erlend Apneseth has chosen to go back to basics, taking his love of the Hardanger fiddle, Norway’s 350-year-old national instrument, and produce a rather personal journey, scouting the wilds of his native land and depicting its solitude and wild beauty in a series of intuitive and evocative selections.
Sub Pop Over the last thirty years and ten or so albums, Built To Spill has been a revolving cast of characters, alumni of the independent music scene, and bold and adventurous musicians. Through it all though has been singer / guitarist and principle songwriter Doug Martsch, who has commanded the ship as benevolent leader or welcoming collaborator. He has woven his narrative, ever-unfurling guitar style and yearning, […]
Odin The latest release from the fourteen-piece OJKOS is an absolute joy, with its agility and pace really belying the group’s number. It is beautifully summery with a tropical beat to opener “Safari Sundowner” that allows flute, glock and horns to shift and turn at will. It seems a far cry from Scandinavia, its sunny uplands shimmering with the arcs of Henriette Eilertsen‘s flute. Even Eivind Helgerød‘s cute […]
Discus It is incredible how many albums sax player Paul Dunmall has been involved with over the years with his own name groups running from quartet to octet. Here we have the second outing for his quintet, but essentially it is the sextet without trumpeter Percy Pursglove, so the comfort with which the players interact is there , with perhaps just a little extra space for them to […]
Label Kim Myhr is such an avid collaborator, releasing an album a year since the dawn of time, that when something comes out under his own name, it is definitely time to sit up and take notice. Recruiting some fellow travellers and long-time recording artists like Hans Hulbækmo and Ingar Zach amongst others, this latest album takes the premise of 2017’s You/Me and seems to expand it, pushing some […]
10 to 1 It is always heartening to see a new release from Mark Kluzek‘s Doomed Bird Of Providence, because you know that something of historical significance will have piqued his interest and then has prompted him to gather around friends and collaborators to turn it into some sweeping musical extravaganza. This time around, The Doomed Bird consists of eleven musicians plus the fantastic artwork of Judi Dransfield […]
Leaf A welcome return from Szun Waves after a four-year break finds them in shimmering, dreamlike form; horns, synths and percussion in perfect unison, Earth Patterns conjuring up a journey through the kind of landscapes that are hard to focus on, wreathed in smoke or scattered with dry desert dust. Opener “Exploding Upwards” has the kind of slow drift that builds out of sight, with mournful horns sleepy […]
Discus This new trio, formed by Discus head Martin Archer along with pianist Pat Thomas and percussionist Johnny Hunter, seems to be as much about the spaces in between the notes as about the sounds and textures themselves. Spread over four pieces that hover in the hinterland between dreams and waking, the sounds in opener “Rotten Start” eke out of the speakers, hints of horn more breath than […]
Tenor-Vossa After the relatively recent reissues of Glass Bead Game and Between Happiness And Heartache, the time has finally come for new material from Breathless. Their gaps between album make the Blue Nile look prolific, but seriously each outing is worth the wait. Having prepared songs for this release, not only did they have to cope with lockdown delays but close to the time of recording, drummer Tristram […]
Happy Robots Barely six months since Mood Taeg‘s sophomore album Anaphora, the pan-continental collective returns with an album of mixes that uncover the hidden corners and unexpected perspectives of some of those tracks. A few have been dealt with in house, while others have been loaned out and then returned with a little electronic surgery that renders them familiar yet different, certainly enough to justify this little outing.
Discus It has been a long time since the previous Army Of Briars release; sixteen years to be precise, but it does feel as though they have never been away. Coalescing around the quartet of Julie and Tim Cole, Martin Archer and lyricist Keith Jafrate, they ply their unique blend of folk, jazz and impressionist abstraction on Made From A Broken Star, leaving the worries of the day-to-day […]
Kranky Jacob Long‘s third release for Kranky as Earthen Sea finds him further cocooning the listener in his simple but effective web of shimmering soundscapes, soundscapes sent from a distant outpost their lazy beats laced with tingling textures. A rush and a sigh, a sense of plaintive motion, slowly rippling air and a feeling of inexorable forward motion. Sometimes submarine, the bubbles passing a smoky porthole, that gauzy […]
Diatribe Dutch violinist Diamanda La Berge Dramm has been playing since she was four, and although classically trained and a member of various ensembles, her first solo outing is a rather personal journey through avant-minimalist pop, taking lyrical cues from the work of European Poetry Festival founder Steven J Brown. Accompanying herself with sounds that are generated solely by Moog and violin, she manages to strip the backing […]