SEE: The Illness – ‘Phrases Redacted’: Silver Jews’ Bob lets the free association flow
THE ILLNESS are a collective of musicians who have been seeping towards our consciousness for a while. The band is drawn from musicians from the stable of York’s Sea Music label. Based at various location along that English longitudinal arc, down the years they have played with psych-pop cultist Kelley Stoltz, among many others. We …
TRACK: Jimi Tenor – ‘Sugar and Spice’: you’re shimmying in its pocket
PHILOPHON, the Berlin label with a deep and abiding mission to bring forth all things with a deep groove, has today released a “haptic” 7” by Finnish multi-dimensional artist Jimi Tenor. The A, “Sugar and Spice” is big, fly, funk: brass stabs, polyrhythms from Ghanaian drummer Ekow Alabi, jazz horn clusters. It’s heading across 110th …
TRACK: PELA’s ‘Reverie’ – a summer in four minutes
HOT on the heels of the languid sunbliss of “South Of”, celebrating their side of the Thames, PELA today release the honeyed summer melodies of “Reverie”. It’s a more uptempo offering than their last; it glimmers with electronics and a soft soul shuffle, all hand claps and the suggestion of beats, over which Hannah Coombes’ …
TRACK: Sing Leaf – ‘Sunshine’: let the leftfield psych-pop rays in
CANADIAN artist David Como has a real outsider charm. No: not outsider in the sense of coming from a place of jagged, idiolectal compulsion; more an arrival in a glade of musical prettiness with an absolute, naive joy of discovery. With one album under his belt for Tin Angel, 2018’s Shu Ra, David is ready …
EP REVIEW: Hanya – ‘Sea Shoes’
BRIGHTON’S small but perfectedly formed indie label Austerity Records, the brainchild of industry gentlemen and label co-owners Garry Saunders and Jamie Windless, has gone all chromium oxide on us with the launch of its C60 Club. A reel-to-reel move across from the singles club, Austerity launches its new venture thus: “A lot of us grew …
SEE: Hurts’ ‘Suffer’ in monochrome; September album
MANCHESTER’S intelligent electronic pop duo Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson, better known as Hurts, have released the sultry, monochrome brooder “Suffer” ahead of a fifth album, to be released on September 4th. “Suffer” benefits from a stunning black and white film clip, which you can watch below. The track is on-the-money polished and sultry, occupying …
SEE: Crack Cloud up the six-stringed fury on ‘Tunnel Vision’
CRACK CLOUD come rushing forth once more from waay left of centre with new single “Tunnel Vision”, a barrelling, angular, skeletal chant to call you to arms. The Vancouver collective’s latest tune trails their debut album proper, Pain Olympics, which comes out next Friday, July 17th. “Tunnel Vision” is everything that’s great about these Canadians. …
TRACK: The Streets are ‘Falling Down’ ahead of mixtape; ‘drive-in’ shows announced
THE STREETS, Mike Skinner’s crossover original pirate million-sellers, have shared another track ahead of the release of the mixtape None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive tomorrow, July 10th. It’s a stark and reflective, piano-led number in the vein of “Dry Your Eyes”, looking at the rawer side of a lovelife, and …
ALBUM REVIEW: Quest Ensemble – ‘The Other Side’
THE TRIO of pianist Filipe Sousa, cellist Tara Franks and violinist Preetha Narayanan, who record as Quest Ensemble, are far from your vanilla classical trio. Drawing on backgrounds in which they individually explored western and Indian classical, jazz and improvisational technique, and all alumni of the Guildhall School of Music, they have brought these multidisciplinary …
SEE: King Charles’ plea to ‘Feel These Heavy Times’
DANDYISH London troubadour King Charles has released the video for a new lockdown song, “Feel These Heavy Times”. It’s a sweet and hushed pleas for togetherness and love in straitened times: “I know you know life’s not fair / Maybe that’s why revolution’s in the air”. The video features self-filmed clips of fans at home …