Album Review: Nino Gvilia – ‘Nicole/Overwhelmed By The Unexplained’ : a surreal experimental song saga with an indefinable magic.
It’s been a challenge to keep up with the unravelling of singer songwriter Nino Gvilia’s recorded output over the last few months but now we’ve arrived at some sort of finale. Her exquisite ‘Nicole/ Overwhelmed by the Unexplained’ double EP is at last fully available in both digital and vinyl forms via the ever-resourceful Hive …
Album Review: Okvsho – ‘A Place Between Us’: sophistication, groove and sonic depth – a new force in jazz fusion emerges.
Operating out of Zurich the brothers Kiss, Georg and Christoph (a.k.a Okvsho) are on some kind of a mission to shake up the music scene in their city. Unlike say Geneva that throbs to pulse of a vibrant underground art network, Zurich may lack some impetus but the producer/ instrumentalist brothers are looking to pick …
Track/Video: In-demand saxophonist Benjamin Samuels takes to the spotlight with ‘Ambitious Antithesis’ from upcoming debut album.
Sax-player, clarinettist and composer Benjamin Samuels is stepping out from the back line. A musician who’s worked with Californian fusionist Balkan Bump and Brighton’s own global beat pioneer Seb Taylor (aka Kaya Project), plus toured the world in the irrepressible Grouch in Dub’s band, Samuels has recently made time to pause. Except that hasn’t meant …
Track/ Video : Avant pop experimentalist Kee Avil previews gripping new album ‘Spine’ with the tense and tactile ‘Felt’.
Two years ago Montreal producer Kee Avil’s debut for Constellation ‘Crease’ caused quite a rumpus with its avant-pop mosaicism, all intricate vocal, sound and instrument patterns set within an experimental glue and deceptive song structure. Bandcamp made ‘Crease’ album of the day and year-end lister, Mojo pinned on four-star acclaim and The Quietus were rightly …
Album Review: Meril Wubslin – Faire Ça : Bluesy drones, alt-rock crunch and a world of rhythms make this band unique.
Does Bongo Joe Records have a signature sound? Well listen through the bulging rosta of releases since the label first output way back in 2015 and the conclusion would probably be a resolute ‘No’. But it does have a mission to give a platform to the extraordinary and less conventional, whether from the Swiss underground …
Track/Video: Composer of definitive ambient music Adam Wiltzie previews solo album with the spectral beauty of ‘Tissue Of Lies’.
It’s staggering that in around thirty years as a key contributor to the development of ambient and modern classical music, Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie has released very few ‘solo’ albums. Firstly there was 2015’s ‘Travels In Constants Volume 24’, then a couple of soundtrack compositions for ‘Solero’ in 2016 and ‘American Woman’ three years later. Still, …
News: Supersonic Festival 2024 announces a stellar cast celebrating the vast sound of the underground.
Well the line-up that Birmingham’s mighty Supersonic Festival assembled last year for its 20th anniversary was awe inspiring and then came this announcement for 2024. Yes the bill is a slayer, a statement of intent to celebrate the vitality of underground music, a wish list that any leftfield listener would find hard to imagine. But …
Track/Video: Multi-instrumentalist/producer Forest Law returns with the psych-infused global grooves of ‘Ooo,I’ ahead of a summer album.
To sum up multi-instrumentalist/producer Forest Law’s journey to this point as “Essex born, now London based” only hints at his musical story so far. Coming through Giles Peterson’s ‘Future Bubblers ‘artists’ development programme, earning a Brownswood EP release in 2020, being a key member of Esa Williams Afro-Synth Band then taking up an extended residency …
Album Review: The Body & Dis Fig – ‘Orchards of a Futile Heaven’: One extraordinary partnership delivers an experimental doom statement piece.
For seminal Portland doom metal duo The Body, co-working with other musicians has long been part of their modus, ensuring their music never stands still. Alongside the influential releases carrying ‘The Body’ nameplate, Chip King (guitars etc) and Lee Buford (drums etc) have unleashed around fifteen collaborative albums since 2011. Recently these efforts have diverged …
Album Reviews : Transportive albums from Rune Clausen and Bobby Jewell which guide us beyond ourselves.
For their February releases the ever – probing Katuktu Collective label have delivered two impactful albums from the new age of new age. ‘Svartor’ by Rune Clausen and Bobby Jewell’s ‘Wind & Water’ present intensely contemplative sounds less concerned with self-improvement, or finding the inner calm and more at looking beyond the ‘me’. Both albums …