Thrill Jockey Ryley Walker has been leading any interested parties a merry dance since his career started in earnest with 2015’s Primrose Green. I was talking to somebody who had taken a friend to see him this year at The Fleece in Bristol, expecting the pretty psych-folk of that album and ending up with the post-jazz extrusions of The Dave Matthews Band, which flies in the face of […]
Mr Olivetti
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Figureight After 2017’s EP Recôncavo was re-issued on Phantom Limb, people have obviously been awaiting a full-length album from Louisville-based JR Bohannon and here it is, a rare release on Shazad Ismaily‘s Figureight label. The rich musical history of Louisville in Kentucky, from Appalachian finger-picking to the post-rock vibes of the likes of Slint, are all filtered through in the DNA of JR’s music to create a hybrid that […]
Rocmusic It is great news that the first three R.O.C albums are finally back in print. It has been many years since the listening public received the unexpected assault on the senses that was the first, self-titled album. That juxtaposition of Karen Sheridan‘s angelic, dreamy vocals with Fred Browning‘s more bitter, vitriolic vocal attack, all couched in a series of dramatically diverse musical backdrops that all three band […]
Glacial Movements Algida Bellezza is Alessandro Tedeschi‘s seventh album for Glacial Movements and it is another release that fits perfectly into their oeuvre. Over five mistily submerged tracks, a bleak, monochrome landscape is evoked through the slow moving actions of Netherworld‘s electronic drones and mysterious unseen sounds that lurk in the flailing snow storms that envelope the fractured pieces on offer here.
Discus Considering how long and varied the careers of Alex Maguire, Martin Pyne and Mark Hewins have been, this is the first time that the three have played together, and Discus is the perfect home for their meeting of musical minds as MPH. The CVs of the three members include an incredible variety of musical styles that seems to have culminated in a freedom that is quintessentially pastoral, […]
Bureau B Kreidler have been going for twenty-five years now and are on their twelfth or thirteenth album, let alone all the other projects that the various members have. It is an impressive record, and even more so that each Kreidler album brings something a little different to the table. For the follow up to 2017’s European Song, they have pieced together and album of two halves; the […]
ADAADAT The continent-straddling meeting of musical minds that is Elephant House has reconvened after a couple of years’ rest to produce this ode to pan-cultural dream states that is Chollima.
Trace It still amazes me after twenty years or so how Mark Beazley can still make the bass guitar sound so different and vital across his various releases as Rothko. It feels like a personal crusade, a one-man (sometimes with help — Johny Brown, Michael Donnelly) to keep that cavernous echoing dream sound alive in the hearts of the listening public; and Rothko albums never fail to overwhelm, […]
Courier Sound Back in 2018, while creating sleeves for Graham Dunning‘s keg/Bulkhead release, Stuart Bowditch recorded the sounds of the Silhouette Cameo 3 plotter cutter and then offered it as basis for other artists to record a response. Now, if like me you have ever worked in an office and been surrounded by the rhythmic, mechanised sounds of copiers, printers, bursters, plotters and the like, you may have […]
Temporary Residence The recent collaboration between Date Palms‘ Marielle Jakobsons and Cali guitarist Chuck Johnson under the name Saariselka has yielded an album of exquisitely crafted and slow-moving beauty that employs steel guitar and the romantic thrum of Fender Rhodes to devastating effect.
(self-released) Meriheini Luoto‘s love for the forest and how the violin can be used to translate the mystery and wonder that it entails was used to excellent effect on 2017’s Metsänpeitto, which received much critical acclaim. Having been given the opportunity to perform it live, the idea was sown to produce a sequel and two years later, here it is.
Rockerill / Freaksville Josy And Pony have been gigging all across Europe since their first album dropped in 2017, and now they return with another fun-packed ride through the important matters of the day — but given their unique twist on ’60s French pop, ’90s indie and carefree hypnotic abandon. It is all topped off as ever with the mysteriously masked Josy’s winning French vocals, sometimes sultry, sometimes […]
Hubro Just looking at the cover of this album with Oyvind Skarbø and his musical friends and colleagues dressed as a school marching band gives you a vague idea of what to expect inside. They have quite serious looks on their faces, but the uniforms are a bit ill-fitting, as if they were borrowed and not taken too seriously. They are clutching various instruments that make them look […]
Cobblers Diagonal don’t trend to release albums in a rush, this being their third since 2008; but once they are in the studio, the ideas come pouring out. It has been seven years since The Second Mechanism and since that time, two original members, Alex Crispin and Daniel Pomlett have returned to the fold, the band once again becoming a six-piece. In the past few years, life has […]
Om Swagger There are some pretty eccentric ideas out there, certainly regarding music; but Ian Shirley, the editor of Record Collector, may well have come up with one of the wildest. Kraftwerk must be one of the most revered names in modern music history, and Ian has asked the internationally reputed Ebony Steel Band to interpret some of their better-known tracks in the joyful Caribbean style. I mean, […]
Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey continue their venture into noise territory with the first release from Eye Flys. The band is named after a Melvins song and with their own track titles like “Crushing The Human Spirit” or “Weaponize” and with rather sinister cover art, you probably have a good idea of what this six-track EP contains.
Hubro Considering the island of Lanzarote is renowned for its sunshine and blue skies, this latest collaboration between Jo Berger Myhre and Ólafur Björn Ólafsson is filled with melancholy. Most of this has to do with Lanzarote being the last placed that Ólafur spent time with Johann Johannsson before he died early last year. Apparently, the two of them played a gig in a cave on the island, […]
Escape From Today / Dunque Paolo Spaccamonti has been a major player in the lively Italian avant-garde scene for the last ten years or so, collaborating with the likes of musicians Stefano Pilla, Mombu and Ramon Moro as well as Ben Chasny, Jim White and Jochen Arbeit. Not content with musicians, he also collaborates with photographers and video artists, so it is no surprise that his latest opus […]