SEE: El Goodo – ‘Things Turn Around’: how to turn a rubbish day into 6/8 beauty
IT’S a lovely little thing, the world of West Wales’ El Goodo. Things might well be a bit pants, they really might, but they have the tools to fashion the fag end of being into a little slice of Alex Chiltonesque, piano-led, post-psych brilliance. The lyrics are downcast and bleak, but that melody and boy, …
TRACK: 79.5 – ‘My Dream’: timeless, crate-diggin’ retro-soul gem
IT’S absolutely fair to say that Big Crown Records, which has been down in the crates bringing you some incredibly fine cuts out of its Brooklyn base for the past four years, is deeply involved in a heartfelt romance with San Antonio, Texas, Chicano soul legends Sonny & The Sunliners. Mind you, a quick listen …
TRACK: Olivier Alary & Johannes Malfatti – ‘Drifting’: out-classical, ISDN warmth
MONTREAL-based, Toulousain composer Olivier Alary and his Berlin-based compatriot Johannes Malfatti have been friends for many years – that kind of relationship so much easier to conduct in our modern fibre-optic world. With an album apiece under their belts: Johannes’ Surge for Glacial Movements, and Olivier’s 2016 debut for FatCat’s 130701 imprint, Fiction/Non-Fiction, it became …
SEE: Ganser – ‘Projector’: a post-punk despatch from our dystopia
IT CHARGES at you on wiry guitar and rumbling tom-toms, a shadowy simmer. We’re in a lecture theatre, with vocalist and keyboard player Nadia Garafalo demure in a sweater: our college lecturer on hand to guide us through the lyric video for “Projector”, the latest slice of portent-filled post-punk from Chicago’s Ganser. It serves notice …
SEE: Yves Jarvis – ‘For Props’: a soulful, acoustic maverick
THERE’S something in the Canadian water at the moment: something that seems to promote one-man artisans, off crafting a chiming and exploratory pop, one in which they fuse elements as instinct tells them, searching, finding new colours and textures. Toronto’s Sing Leaf is off fashioning this synthy-psych-folk odysseys such as “Sunshine” (and his September album, …
SEE: Bearcraft – ‘Outside In The Morning Snow’: Modish synthwave burrowing into your dreams
A two-finger synth melody is picked out, melodically precise, in that way Depeche Mode wrought so many classic hooks from as they shifted through Construction Time Again and Some Great Reward, striding out of the pure pop of the Vince Clarke era and heading for the proto-goth sampling of Black Celebration. It’s a pop melody …
SEE: Slow Pulp – ‘Idaho’: graceful and languid guitar pop
I MEAN, as if the depredations of the coronavirus weren’t enough; try having the year that Emily Massey, singer-guitarist of Wisconsin-formed, Chicago-based, languid guitar venturers Slow Pulp has just lived through. Off the back of their Big Day EP – their fifth release, but their first venture into the physical format, they began work on …
EP REVIEW: Wye Oak – ‘No Horizon’: boundless folk-rock choral vistas
WYE OAK have never been a band to stand still; to let the silt of being typecast, the ploughing of the same groove, hem them in. Debuting for Merge back in 2008 with If Children, they brought a real US alt.guitar edge to folk. Or was it a folksy edge to the alternative guitar sound? …
SAY PSYCH: NEWS: Moon Duo announce expanded vinyl repress for ‘Escape’
YOUR favourite psychedelic dronestronauts, Moon Duo, have announced the timely reissue of their debut album, Escape, some ten years on its original release. Long out of print, Escape was first issued on the Woodsist label back at the turn of the decade, and has been expanded to include three extra tracks from what the band …
NEWS: The Lathums announce 2021 UK tour, see their latest single
ISLAND’S heart-on-the-sleeve Wigan indiepopsters The Lathums have announced a string of shows for April and May next year, taking in their biggest venues to date – including the historic Manchester Ritz. Tickets for the 13-date British run of dates go on sale at 10am this Friday, July 31st. The full list of dates for the tour are …