Odin The latest album from Norwegian drum powerhouse Gard Nilssen involves sixteen players, so it is not for nothing that the band is called the Supersonic Orchestra. If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours is a veritable feast for lovers of the Scandinavian jazz scene; but perhaps best of all, there are three drummers and three bass players, so although it mines elements of jazz, there is […]
Mr Olivetti
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Hubro The Christian Wallumrød Ensemble has been trading through various line-ups for the best part of twenty years. After five albums with ECM, they arrived with Hubro and this is album number two for them after 2016’s Kurzsum And Fulger.
Happy Robots Happy Robots is perhaps the perfect label name for the latest release from Roman Angelos. Spacetronic Lunchbox is a vehicle for NY-based composer Rich Bennett to go all library music wibbly on us, and I defy anybody to come out the other side of this eleven tracks in eleven minutes (yes, you read that right) extravaganza without a great big smile on their face.
Freaksville For the follow up to 2018’s compilation of instrumental tracks Quand La Nuit Tombe Sur l’Orchestre, Benjamin Schoos has divested himself of the ’70s theme tune rollneck and opened his shirt buttons to embrace his inner yacht God.
Upset The Rhythm Once again, Upset the Rhythm brings a report right from the coalface of the UK underground music scene. This time, the trio in question, Handle, extract a twisted and angular take on the bass, drums and vocal lineup with something that could be a guitar at times, could be a keyboard, but causes conniptions whatever it is.
Upset The Rhythm Upset The Rhythm are touching base with a lot of happening female artists at the moment, none more so than London four-piece Es, whose synth-heavy dystopian take on post-punk would have sat very happily on 4AD in 1983, or even Merciful Release, such is the primal vibrancy of the bass guitar.
Opa Loka Philippe Petit‘s double-CD album Do Humans Dream Of Electronic Ships is all over the place, exhaling a sci-fi softness the type Louis and Bebe Barron sculpted back in the ’50s. A gouging cello bursting in somersaulting capillaries, chased by an errant black’n’decker rub that casts some scary shadows. A patchwork bounce of . The nostalgic blur of copulating shapes owling on the tap of empty skipping […]
KrysaliSound As well as running KrysaliSound for the last ten years, Francis Gri has been recording soundscape art, producing thought-provoking and atmospheric pieces that, while they tend to head in an ambient direction, have far more depth. Here, due to personal experience, he has tried to capture through a suite of four soundscapes the loss of memory and how one interacts with the world around them when this […]
Nonplace The latest release from Wolff Parkinson White is an intriguing proposition. The alias of German drummer Jochen Ruckert is put in use when radical electronic ideas need a vent and the latest album Favours and particularly the tracks chosen from that album for the Nonplace EP are pretty radical.
Mute (Europe) / Fat Possum (North and South America) / Bloodlines (Australia) Rowland S Howard is one of the heroes of the post-punk musical landscape, and possibly the most innovative and unique guitarists to ever venture forth from Australia. As a member of The Birthday Party, his razor-scarred, angular guitar swathes traced the routes for Nick Cave‘s messianic vocals. After they split, he passed through the dust-ridden gothic […]
three:four French saxophonist Clément Edouard has enlisted some friends to produce this most extraordinary and atmospheric suite of pieces for three:four. With him on electronics, Linda Olah and Isabel Sorling on vocals, and Julian Chamla on cymbals and harp bass, you kind of know that Dix Ailes is going to be something special.
Ipecac What a mouth watering prospect: two parts Cop Shoot Cop, one of whom was in Swans; one part Swans and one part Unsane. You just know that Human Impact is going to be one of those slinky New York vengeance bands that prowl the darkened streets, an eye out for trouble and a savage way of dealing with any they come across.
Jazzland After 2019’s Dark Star Safari, Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang once again find themselves back in the studio and still pushing the boundaries of recognised musical form. Although it doesn’t quite have the subliminal quality of that album, Snow Catches On Her Eyelashes is heading in a different direction, still exploring space and texture, but paring the sounds down to electronics, samples and guitar — although you […]
Tapete In a world that seems to have gone completely crazy, it feels like the perfect time to welcome back Bobby Conn after too long away. Tapete clearly felt that the world wasn’t the same without him and on his debut album for them, and first since 2012’s Macaroni, he has wrapped himself up with his regular collaborators and boy, do those guys really bring the funk when […]
Peeler Collectress have been experimenting with their twenty-first century chamber music for the bet part of twenty years. Since the release of 2014’s Mondegreen, the group no longer find themselves within the Brighton orbit, and that distance plus life’s other opportunities, has found them slightly changing the way they work. Snatching opportunities where they came, they would reconvene to thrash out the bones of the pieces here on […]
City Slang I remember first listening to Tindersticks‘ extraordinary Marbles EP on the strength of a Melody Maker review back in 1993, and falling love with their slightly shambling but immensely textured and moving songs.
Disco-ordination The idea behind The Fantasy Orchestra is one of enthusiasm, inclusion and love that has drawn two groups of people together, one based in Bristol and one in Paris, with the intention of giving an orchestral update to some of the more unusual and unexpected songs in the world canon. Started by Bristolian Jesse Vernon of the much-missed Liftmen, amongst others, the orchestra has embraced amateur players […]
Subcontinental Indian pianist Aman Mahajan has been working on the pieces that make up his album Refuge since 2005. It is a musical diary of sorts, and one that reflects the personality of this idiosyncratic player. There is an inner sense to his playing that, although it nods to jazz, Indian folk and classical, very much breathes with its own life.