Track/Video: The irrepressible Steve Von Till previews new solo album with the sombre grace of ‘Watch Them Fade’.
Steve Von Till is a creative tour de force: guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis plus their experimental offshoot Tribes Of Neurot; curator and founder of the essential Neurot Recordings label; spell-binding psych-folk magic maker under the guise of Harvest Man; and writer of soul mining acoustic songs on his solo recordings. Whatever …
Album Review: No Frills –”Sad Clown” : Honest songs that chime and chill from Toronto’s Lo-fi indie realists.
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 45rpm melodics. Busheikin’s songs saw funny and fragile tangled together, stories …
Album Review : Adam Ben Ezra – ‘Heavy Drops’ : funky and reflective jazz fusion from the irrepressible bassist.
Jazz musician and ‘YouTube sensation’ may seem an unlikely combination but double-bass player Adam Ben Ezra straddles both camps with a natural ease. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, born in Israel and now based in Portugal, he’s played throughout Europe and the US over the last decade with such luminaries as Sarah Jane Morris, Mike Stern, Pat …
Album Review : Nina Garcia – ‘Bye Bye Bird’ : Taking noise guitar deeper and further.
You could say that guitar led experimentalism is having a moment. Away from the revered Frith/ Orcutt/Ambarchi/Anderson/Connors conclave, a new wave of fretboard deconstructors are cranking up their own kind of volume. Jules Reidy, Chuck Roth, Eli Winter, Ava Mendoza and Farida Amadou (doing it four string style) have pushed into muso consciousness with their …
Album Review: Maud The Moth – The Distaff : a dramatic, intense avant-rock statement.
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 authenticity. Following her debut …
Album Review: Dowdelin –‘Tchenbé!’: Lyon-based Beats and Creole-soul fusionists groove deeper.
It all started when fusion-centric producer/musician David Kiledjian met Martinican singer Olivya Victorin with the notion of sculpting something different, maybe some creole-voiced, beats-informed nu soul and the result… Dowdelin. Now two albums and a couple of EPs along the road comes their third LP ‘Tchenbé!’ (on Underdog Records) and signs of a subtle shift …
Album Review: Marton Juhasz-‘Metropolis’: Jazz rock re-imagined and re-vitalised.
Of all new European jazz, the Hungarian scene is the one that just keeps on delivering surprises. The psychedelic beats of Jazzbois’, Mörk’s silky assured nu-soul flavours and Àbáse’s far reaching cosmic expeditions all edged into the consciousness last year. Now comes someone new knocking at the gates with Basel-based drummer and composer Marton Juhasz …
Album Review: Jupiter & Okwess –‘Ekoya’: The Irrepressible Congolese band deliver a scorching return.
Formed in 1990 by Jupiter Bokondji from within the buzzing Congolese street music scene, Jupiter & Okwess have always been an irrepressible band. From early success across Africa to serious derailment by five years of ravaging civil war, then a breakthrough feature in the ‘Jupiter Rising’ documentary on Kinshasa lo-fi, Jupiter & Okwess have always …
Album Review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Everything Is Possible’: sublime and intimate jazz-toned portraits from the Saskatchewan sextet.
Saskatchewan sound sculptors Peace Flag Ensemble are a band who always seem to go about things quietly. No Fanfares, no bombast, a musical collective whose fluent jazz-toned, post rock dynamics thrum with soft power. They aim for an intimate impact. Their shimmering debut ‘Noteland’ from 2019, balanced ambience and improvisation exquisitely, conjuring up justified Keith …
Album Review: Matters Unknown – ‘Silhouettes: A Dream Sphere Journal’ EP’: enriching nu-jazz, poignant and powerful.
Trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Enser is possibly best known as a key member of pioneering global beat collective Nubiyan Twist but away from that thriving collective he’s sculpting his own singular musical reputation. A couple of years ago, under the MATTERS UNKNOWN banner, he released the ambitious, widescreen ‘We Aren’t Just’ album. The recording underlined …