Album Reviews
Album Review: IOTA PHI – Homo Pauperis
Haunting, experimental and beautiful across 10 dystopian, otherworldly electronic soundscapes, IOTA PHI pushes her unique experimental-pop to its furthest limits on her debut album Homo Pauperis with some fascinating results. Opening with the album’s intro ‘Homo Pauperis Mutation’ setting the futuristic theme for the album with a spoken word over a Blade Runner-esque electronic backdrop, …
EP Review: Luxury Goods – This Is No Time To Dance
Sheffield solo artist Luxury Goods shines on her striking debut EP This is No Time to Dance – a four track release showcasing infectious energy and punchy indie-come-alterative-pop soundscapes which move between biting intensity and melancholic reflection. Opening with ‘Tiny Moving Parts’ quickly introduces the punching live drums prevalent across the EP, giving the growling …
Album Review: Sam Wilkes & Jacob Mann – Perform the compositions of Sam Wilkes & Jacob Mann: weird and wonderful nu-jazz connections.
You know the crusty old adage ‘it’s a small world’, well tired as it might be it still has resonance for musicians. Take L.A. underground experimenters Sam Wilkes and Jacob Mann, they go back a long way. Meeting as students at USC music school, bass playing, multi-instrumentalist Wilkes and keyboard-centric Mann have been crossing musical …
Album Review: Steve Bates – All The Things That Happen: Elemental sounds for a wild world.
Some ‘ambient music’ can often come across as ambivalent, leaving the listener floating but uncommitted, relaxed but possibly underwhelmed. ‘All The Things That Happen’, the debut solo album from Canadian musician and sound artist Steve Bates (available from Constellation 23rd September), could superficially pick up the broad ambient tag except this fine record gouges out …
Album Review: Nyati Mayi & The Astral Synth Transmitters -‘Lulanga Tales’: electro- African fusion that reaches higher.
Some people are extraordinary singers and some people have extraordinary voices. As a vocalist Nyati Mayi probably falls into the latter bag, able to project a stunning range of notes, tones, textures and feelings often within the same song. The thing with an extraordinary voice is that sometimes it needs grounding, a foundation that prevents …
Album Review: Texas psych legends, The Black Angels release new album, Wilderness of Mirrors
The flag bearers for modern psychedelic rock, The Black Angels, are back with their first full-length studio release since Death Song in 2017. A fifteen-song cornucopia of mixed, psychedelic delights, this album promises to keep hard-core fans extremely excited, while attracting new admirers to the ranks of their loyal support base. Wilderness of Mirrors is …
EP- Kiwi artist Muroki woos us with the smooth roots sound of ‘Heading East’
Spring is here, the peach blossoms are starting to bloom and Aotearoa is finally free from Covid restrictions. Somehow, this is the perfect backdrop for the release of 21 year old New Zealand artist Muroki‘s second EP, Heading East. Picture yourself driving on an open road with the windows down, the sun on your face …
Premiere: The Double Happiness take a refreshing stop at the ‘Roadhouse’: a wild west refuge filled with reverb, poignancy and epic widescreen poetry, and announce album launch date.
We have long admired the inherent joie de vivre and creativity of Brisbane’s The Double Happiness and are overjoyed to be able to bring you an exclusive early listen to their new album ‘Roadhouse’, along with brief, sometimes cryptic, sometimes hilarious, comments by the band on each track. The release is unavoidably imbued with an …
Album Review: Loose Articles – Chaos EP
Surely Loose Articles ‘Kick Like A Girl’ should have been the closing track when Englands Women’s Football Team won the Euro 2022. Sadly not, we have some way to go yet but their feminist working class voice shouts loud and strong on themes including global warming, women’s football and misogyny in sport, and the gentrification …
Album Review: Terra Pines throw a glittering veil of sludge pop over us with the engaging aural attack of ‘Downbeats’.
The self-described sludge pop of the music of Meanjin/Brisbane trio Terra Pines is an apt capture of the sweet dichotomy between the fuzzy barbed-wire instruments of the band and the rich melodic vocal delivery. This is an album filled to the brim with tight, layered harmonies and cinematic widescreen expanses delivered over an emphatic thump …