Album Review: Blank For.ms – ‘After The Town Was Swept Away’ : Subtle but significant experimental downtempo from the New York based electronic musician.
It’s been a decade since Brooklyn-based Tyler Gilmore, aka Blank For.ms followed his musical intuition and shifted from the world of big band jazz composition and ensemble arrangements to focus on the soundscape expanses of electronic music. Since then he’s taken his spiralling interest in DIY cassette loops and synths to become known for his …
Album Review : Gwenifer Raymond-‘Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark’ : Primitive guitar thrillingly taken widescreen and cosmic.
It’s difficult to make a personal imprint on solo instrumental music but Brighton-based, Welsh acoustic guitarist Gwenifer Raymond continues to make an impression with every step she takes. Opening up in 2018 with her ’You Never Were Much Of A Dancer’ debut, she introduced her steely, blues-pining tones to the world. Come 2020 she’d broadened …
Album Review: Rún’s exhilarating self-titled debut – an alchemic forging of psychedelic doom and dark folk.
The darker hues of metal, folk and other musics enticingly converge on the self-titled album from new Irish trio Rún, released by those perennial psych-rock discoverers at Rocket Recordings. A threesome of significant like-minds, all pivotal to the island’s leftfield scene, Rún brings together vocal artist Tara Baoth Mooney, Dublin composer/performer Diarmuid MacDiarmada and drummer, …
Album Review: Fantuzzi – ‘An Open Heart’ : Re-issue of the Woodstock visionary’s absorbing seventies debut.
Following on from the exquisite folk-rock curio ‘Stargazer’ by Shelagh McDonald, DJ and selector Oz Adams’ Different Strokes For Different Folks label brings more crate diggers’ grail with ‘An Open Heart’ by hippy-dom’s mystical Fantuzzi. Born in Spanish Harlem in the Fifties, of Puerto Rican descent, Fantuzzi’s bio is shaped by movement, music and performance. …
Album Review: Prefaces – ‘Acqua Marina’: Cinematic surf rock and dream-state instrumentals from the singular Beirut trio.
If you thought the limits of surf-rock had been reached by Gitkin or Ribot or Khruangbin then the Beirut trio Prefaces have other ideas. Formed around the mercurial and prolific multi-instrumentalist Charif Megarbane, convener of the Cosmic Analogue Ensemble and more, with Fender expressionist Salim Naffah plus drumming dynamo Pascal Semerdjian from the mighty Sanam, …
Track/Video : Hip Hop duo JED & Kavzad offer up new vid “COME&GO” from their spikey debut album ‘BROKEN GLASS’.
Brighton may be best known musically as an indie outpost but fizzing around the fringes there’s some potent R ‘n B meets garage meets hip-hop alchemy going on. Step up long-time pivots in the scene, Bristol raised, Iranian rapper/songwriter kavzad and wordsmith/poet/ grass roots music champion JED with intel about their sharp-edged debut project as …
Album Review: Fabia Mantwill Orchestra – IN.SIGHT : Expansive big band jazz packed with invention, melody and sonic lushness.
For any composer the jazz orchestra has always been about much more than expanding the soundscape, it represents a leap of faith where artists dare their own capabilities and imagine what’s possible. That’s why seminal orchestral jazz music of Gil Evans, Carla Bley, Ellington, Sun Ra and beyond carries such a potent thrill and why …
Album Review: Yesterday’s Princess – ‘Tomorrow’s Yearning’: Library music influenced duo deliver a brisk, fresh debut set of soul-jazz teasers.
Bringing something new to the table where Library music sits as the prime influence is difficult but Swedish producers Fredrik Bergsten and Marcus Larsson might be onto something with their debut EP as Yesterday’s Princess ‘Tomorrow’s Yearning’, out now on DeepMatter. Both long time devotees of hip-hop sounds and the endless possibilities of samples and …
Track/Video: Montreal minstrel poet Whitney K previews anticipated new album ‘Bubble’ with the warm, waltzing ‘Jolene’.
Modern day troubadour, Canadian singer-songwriter Konner Whitney aka Whitney K is on the move. After releasing three mighty slices of his raw, country rock poeticism for Bologna’s Maple Death Records, the indispensable ‘Two Years’, the hypnotic ‘Hard To Be A God’ and the raucous ‘Viva!’, he’s now hopped on board the mighty Fire label’s roster. …
Track/Video: RAKEL, an emerging new voice from Reykjavík announces her debut album with the softly powerful ‘Rescue Remedy’.
Pianist/composer Ólafur Arnalds forward thinking OPIA project, part performance festival, part label, part community builder, is making a habit of bringing illusive talents out into the wider spotlight. You might remember the exquisite Costa Rican pianist/composer Sofi Paez and pedal-steel soundscaper Davidsson from last year, well here’s a new name to add to your ‘listen …