Album Review: Be Kind Cadaver –‘The World’s Greatest Mind’ : Epic electronic noise-rock exposes a deeper malaise.
Welcome once again to a rare encounter with the illusive Brighton art-punk duo Be Kind Cadaver. First sighted back in the post-Covid energy surge of 2022 with their debut EP ‘Post Partum’, Daniel Hignell-Tully and Leroy Brown released a venomous probe into the personal and political with a quartet of shell-shocked anti-pop songs. BSM dubbed …
Track/Video : Experimental beats explorer I Am Fya previews her ‘Homeland’ album with the pounding power of ‘i2i’.
It’s seems like quite a while since we’ve had any recorded output from Manchester’s electronic experimentalist I Am Fya. Well over a year ago she delivered The Sun Will Kill Me, a breezy, warm hearted slice of electro-pop which echoed with a trip-hop undercurrent. Framed by I Am Fya’s prolonged stay in Barbados with her …
Album Review: Penelope Trappes – ‘A Requiem’: Resonant, deeply fulfilling ambient songs which need to be heard.
Penelope Trappes recognises she makes music goes deep and once described her approach as “digging up the underworld with visual motifs, and a mystical, gothic darkness that symbolises my struggles”. Now after over a decade of excavation, through four albums and inspired side projects, the Australian, now Brighton- based, experimental musician reveals that there is …
Album Review: Emma Rawicz & Gwilym Simcock – ‘Big Visit’: A sax/piano jazz connection that sets new standards.
The similarities in the musical pathways between saxophonist Emma Rawicz and pianist Gwilym Simcock are a bit uncanny. Both studied at Chethams School Of Music and The Royal Academy, both have won a sleuth of UK Jazz plaudits including the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, Simcock in 2007 and Rawicz in 2021, both release through the seminal …
Track/Video: Passepartout Duo’s sonic travelogue ‘Pieces From Places’ begins with the tantalising ‘From Taipei’.
Passepartout Duo, the sonic partnership between pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito, thrives on constant travel, seeking out new collaborations as well as inspirational settings for recording and performance. Since their inception in 2015 the Duo’s globetrotting has gained momentum, taking their hand built electronic instruments cross continents on buses, trains and in dusty …
Album Review: Nick Storring – ‘Mirante’: A unique percussive and orchestral panorama from the Canadian multi-instrumentalist.
Delving into the musical potential of the humbucker pick-up and other electro-mechanical instruments, getting inspired by ghost towns in Ontario, recording a whole album from a pedestrian bridge near to his home and composing for a new instrument, the halldorophone, Nick Storring is the archetypal, restless experimenter. He’s driven by the ‘what if’ and the …
Album Review: Shelagh McDonald –‘Stargazer’: A long lost folk rock treasure returns to the shelves.
Vinyl reissues over the past few years have seemed to have been seized upon by majors gagging to maximise the current appetite for buying black (but now probably re-coloured) plastic. But beyond chasing the transient market, there are others who see their dedication to re-issuing very differently. For labels like Be With, Cherry Red and …
Album Review: T. Gowdy – ‘Trill Scan’: Inspired Early music and darkwave alchemy.
It was a question of time before Canadian producer/audio-visual artist T.Gowdy’s background filtered through to his engrossing electronic music and that time is now. Gowdy’s new album ‘Trill Scan’, his third for Constellation, with its ethereal vocal harmonics and sinuous acoustic instrumentation makes careful sonic connections with college years spent as a professional choral singer …
Album Review: Joni Void – Every Life Is A Light : The Montreal sound artist delivers a new experimental-pop touchstone.
Pinning, hash-tagging, mood-boarding, even crisply describing Joni Void’s music gets no easier. Maybe the role Void plays is as a post post-sampling, cut & paste collagist or re-imaginer of the already re-imagined? Perhaps experimental glitch artist, sonic mind-scrambler or underground sound documentarian sums up other dimensions of their singular approach? Probably the best that can …
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 …