Album review: Matchess’s ‘Sonescent’: an irresistible flow of experimental, meditative drone recollection and conscious absence

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Album review: The Jazz Butcher – ‘The Highest In The Land’: one final pop postcard from Northampton’s foremost gent

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Album review: Black Flower – ‘Magma’: a perfumed souk of North African psych jazz from the Lowlands quintet

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IF YOU like a bit of bouncy slacker rock, all loose, chantalong lyrics primed for some Converse-meets-dancefloor action, with guitars scrappy and all about the downstroke and fun, then wrap that listening gear around the latest video from Liverpool’s loose-limbed Oya Paya, “Focus”. With just days to go in 2020, the three-piece – drawling singer-guitarist …

SAD NEWS this evening as reports began to circulate across social media that the poet, avant-garde composer and pianist Harold Budd, a progenitor of the modern ambient piano style, has died at the age of 84. Budd was born in May 1936 in Los Angeles, but was raised in Victorville, in the Mojave desert. He …

JIMI TENOR, the Finnish producer with roots in the darker, industrial side of dance music way, waay back, has been on a hell of a pilgrim’s progress to where he is today, with his second long player for Philophon, Aulos, out in the racks now. By jiminy it’s a world away from those dark beginnings; …

NORWEGIAN quintet Death By Unga Bunga have recently announced the release of new album, Heavy Male Insecurity, which will be out on Jansen Records on February 12th; and they’ve trained their sights on your rawk heart with their latest single, “Egocentric”. Take a listen below. It takes everything that’s great about Nordic garage rock, gives it a little …

JAMES CHAPMAN, the South Midlands producer better known to lovers of a stonking good tune as Maps, has followed up his single from a month or so back, “Sleep Today”, with a Go! Team remix of that selfsame track. We adored the original when it dropped a month back, noting: “It’s a glorious pop rush, …

MORE sad news for all gig lovers – that’s pretty much all of us, right? – as Nick Cave has announced this afternoon that he’s cancelled his upcoming European and UK tour dates due to the continuing pandemic. A short statement says from Nick and the Bad Seeds reads: “We are very disappointed to announce …

M. Ward’s pulled off quite a neat trick here. Think Of You has many of the appurtenances of a seasonal album without quite being one. It could be M. Ward’s best album in a good while, proving that all he really needs is some retro recording equipment and a guitar to be at his very best

FOOTBALL writer, baroque pop legend, in-house producer, literary collaborator: truly Philippe Auclair – known worldwide to an adoring fanbase as Louis Philippe (for it is, indeed, him) is the sort of erudite, intelligent, popstar we need – especially right now. Populist three-word sloganeer he sure as hell ain’t. We should be more than grateful then …

Rolling down through Heavenly’s career through the prism of the single, you can see what a great band they were at that seemingly most humble, but powerful and demotic of formats, all packed full of the goodness of proper indiepop