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 …
Album Review : Mohammad Syfkhan –‘I Am Kurdish’ : Bouzouki driven song and dance soul- music which makes a mighty impression.
Singer/ bouzouki player Mohammad Syfkhan’s bio underlines the fact that some back stories are more important than others. His journey to the release of his debut solo album ‘I Am Kurdish’ on Nyahh Records, while clearly fuelling his joyous North African electric dance sounds, has significance that extends far beyond music. Syfkhan began playing the …
Premiere: Art-Rock non-conformists Be Kind Cadaver preview epic EP with title track, ‘The World’s Greatest Mind’.
Avid Backseat Mafia explorers might remember this name (although it’s hard to forget) Be Kind Cadaver and their attention seizing EP from last July ‘Post Partum’ (re-check the review HERE ). A set that pulsated to an angsty industrial soundtrack with shoegaze shards and a leaning towards the cathartic chorus, these were songs that didn’t …
Album Review : Champagne Dub – ‘Rainbow’ : Space-dub and cosmic grooves with a distinct kick.
There are ‘drummers’ and there are ‘more than drummers’. ‘Drummers’ play the drums very well as they move from gig to gig, band to band, session to session. ‘More than drummers’ can also do this but they naturally do the ‘more’. Composing, producing, band leading, improvising, collaborating and beyond, think Charles Hayward or Jim White …
Track/Video: A statement of scale and integrity – Montreal ensemble FYEAR preview the dramatic ‘Pt.1 Trajectory’ from upcoming debut album.
So the presser says “FYEAR interrogates our present and future post-capitalist polycrisis“. Any creative project aiming to probe into that vortex would require scale, focus, finesse and integrity, which are exactly the qualities that this Montreal convened collective possess. Led by composer/ saxophonist Jason Sharp and poet/novelist Kaie Kellough, FYEAR have been sculpting their resonant …
Album Review: Ëda Diaz– Suave Bruta : electro – Colombian rhythms and song for today.
Bridges are not just about the places and people they connect, crossing them is an experience in itself. Colombian singer/bassist and song-writer Ëda Diaz’s music is a thrilling reminder of the wonders such a journey can deliver. As a child she shuttled regularly between Paris and Medellin with her French Colombian family, absorbing the languages, …
Track/Video : Bristol’s mysterious Claude Cooper returns with the stomping retro-blast of ‘Stay A While’
So Claude Cooper is back with us. You should remember a couple of years ago this illusive, apparently Bristolian producer and Bedminster beatmaster delivered the essential ‘Myriad Sounds’ LP, a rugged funky jazz extravaganza that took the Rip Rig and Panic spirit to new levels of potency. The clues to the greatness were always there …