Track: John Thayer explores percussive ambience and field recordings on the beautiful ‘Kites’
NEW YORK percussionist, audio engineer and all-round musical polymath John Thayer, fresh from two collaborative, cassette-only albums last year – Untangling The Ghost, on which he sparred with reeds player Stank Zenkov, and Mountain Rumors, in tandem with Craig Schenker – is not about to depart this grinding year of our lord 2021 without dropping …
Track: Buckle before the onslaught of extreme new trio Corroded Spiral’s ‘Forgotten Ether’
PHANTOM LIMB, the label headed by James Vella which has, in recent times, released dark and supremely thrilling, challenging works by the likes of Kevin Richard Martin and Richard Skelton, could do no other than welcome the incoming super-triumvirate of Corroded Spiral to its hearthside, upon hearing that trio’s plans to make music together; especially …
Track: Wrap yourself up warm this autumn with the regal indie-synthpop of Endearments’ ‘Empress’
THE LEAVES are coming down in droves now, so wrapping y’self up against the incipient chill with the Anglophile dreampop stylings of Brooklyn’s Endearments is our self-care tip to keep the darkening year at bay. With an EP, Father Of Wands, due on November 5th, and which four-tracker is happily hunting out next to Brotherhood-era …
See: Breton psych explorers Djinn drop visuals for ‘The Void’
HARD psych explorers Djiin, the four-piece from Rennes in Brittany who are about to drop their third album, Meandering Soul, from which they’ve unveiled the slowburn, progressive jam of “The Void” – you can watch it below. The Rennais stoners have laid down six tracks for Meandering Soul, their first long-playing outing since 2019’s The …
EP review: Clarice Jensen – ‘Identifying Features’: a second, delightful leftfield venture into filmic cello
WAY BACK in January we took a dive into Ainu Moisir – our full review can be found, here – a deft, brief quarter-hour of exploratory cello and electronica meshing and also a first entry into the world of the soundtrack for Clarice Jensen, the artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble. The titular …
Live review: Mildred Maude, Falmouth, October 23rd 2021
CUSPING exploratory instrumental trio Mildred Maude, newly signed to that reliable imprimatur Sonic Cathedral and with their second album, the incendiary, (mostly) longform stylings of Sleepover (our thoughts on that here) newly in the racks, decided to come home for their album launch do; and not just to Cornwall, but to the venue where they …
Album review: Spiritczualic Enhancement Center – ‘Carpet Album’: filmic, psychedelic and enveloping – travel deep, travel wisely
IT’S ONE of those sentences you hear periodically when chewing the fat about the music: “Ooh no, though, I really don’t like jazz”. Which, each to their own, live and let live, vive la difference without question; but, which, you imagine may be based on some particularly untethered, free-associating inversion of the style, say, Coltrane’s …
Premiere: Cathal Coughlan and Jacknife Lee ready for broadcast as Telefís and offer you ‘Mister Imperator (Maurice and Charles remix)’
MICRODISNEY fractured so long ago now, but their end birthed two great talents to the world, so not all was lost; Sean O’Hagan gave us the baroque brilliance of The High Llamas, and Cathal Coughlan – who we’re concerned with here today – led us on a pied piped and merry dance to weirder, more …
See: Cornish guitarsmiths Mildred Maude drop the video for the sweet noise arrow of ‘Chemo Brain’ – catch ’em on tour
CORNISH post-rock/shoegaze/post-rock trio Mildred Maude really are the coming men, with their first album for the excellent Sonic Cathedral out tomorrow and a tour to follow. The intersection of guitarist Matt, drummer Louie and bassist Lee is a bloody beautiful noise in the live arena and, it transpires, fully over the four tracks of their …
See: Foxx Bodies’ excellently fiery punk pounder ‘Room’ ahead of their November album
EMERGING from the scene down in Tucson, Arizona, when singer Bella Vanek, guitarist Bailey Moses, bassist Matt Vanek, and drummer Adam Bucholz got together and began to move in musical lockstep they knew they had something beautifully, caustically special. They named themselves Foxx Bodies, and they brought caustic six-stringed catharsis out to the wider world. …