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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AUSTRALIAN chanteuse, Nashville resident and partner of Robyn Hitchcock, Emma Swift has saddled up to ride into your hearts with the video for her cover of Dylan’s “Queen Jane Approximately.”  Hell, it’s beautiful. She takes it for a deep spin towards Gene Clark country, and lays it down as a chiming weary tune, with 12-strings …

GLITTERBOX, Defected’s boutique disco imprint inspired by the Ibiza club night of the same name, has released a second collaborative single by the Horse Meat Disco boys and Sister Sledge legend Kathy Sledge. Following on from last year’s “Falling Deep In Love”, “Jump Into The Light” has everything you need: choppy, funky Fender Strat hooks, …

HEAVENLY Recordings’ retro rock singer Mattiel has released a brace of lockdown covers, with both tracks contributing to the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) defence fund on June 19th (“Juneteenth”) every year at Bandcamp. Mattiel, whose position in a certain rock’n’roll lineage was underlined by last year’s cracking Satis Factory …

BROOKLYN-based crate-diggers’ delight Big Crown Records has been keeping searchers of the groove content since 2016.  A couple of years back, it compiled and curated the music of Sunny & The Sunliners, a chicano soul act outta San Antonio, TX, who began charming the world with their ‘brown-eyed soul’ in 1964 under the aegis of …

BLACK MARBLE, the recording alias of American east-coast Anglophile Chris Stewart, has released a video for his take on Wire’s “In Manchester”, ahead of a covers EP next month. The EP, entitled I Must Be Living Twice, will be released on August 14th by Sacred Bones Records; it’s also available for pre-order via Bandcamp. I …

EERIE soundtrack overlord John Carpenter has released a brace of new songs digitally ahead of a dizzying array of vinyl options in late August. The two songs, “Skeleton” and “Unclean Spirit”, are the first music outside the soundtrack sphere that John has released in four years. Both tracks were again produced in collaboration with his …

AS GOOD as his word, “just like the responsible, trustworthy father you wish you always had” (it says here), Drag City’s premiere gravelly voided heartbreaker Bill Callahan has released the second Monday song from his forthcoming September album, Gold Record. “Another Song” is a wistful call for the real heartwork of love. “Why dontcha come …

PHILADELPHIA’S languid, lofi outfit The Ricos is the brainchild of artist Joseph (Joe) B. Purcell.  The band rose from the ashes of Purcell’s past projects with the intention to provide fuzz-ridden indie-pop, on which Joe’s vision is fleshed out by multi-instrumentalist/producer Connor Wynne and local human drum machine Daniel Fisk-Kallish. And their first steps into …

A SHOCK announcement has come at the top end of the indie music world, with a statement being issued to the effect that vocalist Tom Meighan has left Kasabian “by mutual consent”. The statement continues: “Tom has struggled with personal issues that have affected his behaviour for quite some time and now wants to concentrate …

ITALIAN soundtrack scion Ennio Morricone has died, aged 91, in his birth city of Rome. Morricone’s life almost took an entirely different path: a talented footballer, he signed for his hometown club AS Roma. But it was to be his other talent, the trumpet, which won the day. Stints playing in jazz bands in the …