Track/Video : Jupiter & Okwess, Congolese fusion funksters, preview new album with the sizzling ‘Congo Blinders’.
They may be veterans of the tight Congolese street music scene but Jupiter & Okwess have always thrived on going beyond these roots. Formed by Jupiter Bokondji in 1990 the band’s popularity spread when they climbed aboard Damon Albarn’s African Express adventure in 2012. Support slots with Blur, recording on Albarn’s ‘Kinshasa One Two’ album …
News: Legendary Finnish experimental rockers Circle announce ‘Piste’, a sound-art installation to be experienced.
Remember Finnish deep-prog legends Circle and their irrepressible collaboration with super-fan Richard Dawson in 2021,’Henki’? It was an album of spirit and invention, oozing warmth in a very loud manner and topping plenty of those ‘best of the year’ poll for crate-diggers and critics alike. It also re-opened the doors onto the bewildering expanse of …
Track: Rising UK jazzers MATTERS UNKNOWN preview new EP with the sweeping ‘I Am The Birds’.
Brass player, multi-instrumentalist and composer, Jonathan Enser’s most recent project MATTERS UNKNOWN highlights the irrepressible fluidity of contemporary UK Jazz. Well known as a key member of pioneering global beat collective that is Nubiyan Twist, his own music travels along a similar afrobeat, soul, funk orbit of that band but also diverts elsewhere. The rated …
Track : Peace Flag Ensemble preview upcoming album with the intricate ambient jazz ballad ‘The Past Is What Changes The Most’.
Now here’s some news that makes looking beyond the festive maul less difficult. Saskatchewan sound sculptors Peace Flag Ensemble have announced that their new album ‘Everything is Possible’ will arrive via We Are Busy Bodies on 7th Feb. This will be their third for the label and the fascination will be in finding out in …
Album Review: Maalem Houssam Guinia – ‘Dead Of Night’ : An unforgettable, intense offering from the Gnawa master-musician
We should be mighty thankful for the long and strong relationship that’s grown between Brighton’s Hive Mind Records and Guinia family of Gnawa musicians in Morocco. Back in 2017, the label’s inaugural release was the first vinyl press of ‘Colours Of The Night’ by the legendary guembri player Maalem Mahmoud Guinia. It was a poignant …
Track/Video: Maud The Moth previews new album ‘The Distaff’ with the cathartic ‘Siphonophores’.
Celestial, ethereal , bestial and brutal, woven with beauty and darker mysteries, you need a tapestry of adjectives to describe the music of Maud the moth. The project of Spanish-born / Scotland-based pianist and singer-songwriter Amaya López-Carromero, each Maud the moth album has been unapologetically ambitious but not at the expense of connectivity. Her songs …
Album Review: Earthen Sea –‘Recollection’: Blissful ambient techno with a deeper trip-hop flow.
Jacob Long’s musical journey has wound from seminal Dischord post-hardcore band Black Eyes through the deep dub rhythmics of Mi Ami to arriving, around 2014, in more greyscale/ambient landscapes with his aka Earthen Sea. From this point Long’s sound documents have mapped a pathway from home studio sketches to his first album ‘Ink’ on Lovers …
Track/Video : Seminal Ambient expressionist Lawrence English announces a landmark new album.
Lawrence English has now devoted nearly 25 years to exploring sound as an idea, as a physical thing, as an experience and as a phenomenon. A theorist, writer, artist, curator and composer, to simply say he’s prolific minimises the constant discovery all his work communicates. Plus the music, from himself and others, released on the …
Track/Video: Lo-fi indie realists No Frills preview upcoming album with the chiming ‘Shopping In The Toothpaste Aisle’.
It’s been a while since anything’s been heard of Daniel Busheikin and his No Frills buddies. The Toronto band’s self-released debut album ‘Downward Dog’ trundled into the US college radio charts of summer ’22 with its lo-fi jangling pop, chiming with Mersey Beat and Sarah Records melodics. Busheikin’s songs saw funny and fragile tangled together, …
Album Review: Scrimshire –‘Music for Autumn Lovers’: a flowing, wholesome down-tempo soundtrack for the season and beyond.
November may be the month when there’s a deluge of new releases ahead of the Xmas drought but here’s a recording that deserves to be heard amongst all the noise. London producer/composer and label boss Adam Scrimshire’s new album ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ (out now via Albert’s Favourites) may seekm unassuming but it makes for …