Album Reviews
Album Review: Lea Maria Fries – Cleo; Restless, poetic, genre-hopping brilliance from a singular new voice.
From the Swiss countryside to Berlin’s creative chaos and on to the quiet corners of Paris, Cleo, the debut album from Lea Maria Fries, feels like a journey through sound, place and self. A vivid, shape-shifting patchwork of jazz, soul, art-pop and spoken word, this debut is more than a statement—it’s an arrival. Fries, who …
Album Review: Yann Tiersen – Rathlin from a Distance | The Liquid Hour; a immersive two part journey from solo expressive piano to urgent electronics
On Ninnog – out now via Mute Records, Yann Tiersen delivers an ambitious and deeply personal double album that journeys from delicate, introspective piano meditations to full-bodied electronic eruptions. Split into two distinct halves—Rathlin from a Distance and The Liquid Hour—the record captures both the serenity and turbulence of a life shaped by the sea, …
Premiere: Naarm electronic shoegazers Double Happiness gives us an exclusive listen to their thrilling debut album ‘Derealisation’ – a deliciously dark gothic delight.
Not to be confused with Brisbane surfgaze band The Double Happiness, Double Happiness is the work of Naarm/Melbourne based multi-instrumentalist Sam Jemsek and we are ever so pleased to be able to premiere the debut album ‘Derealisation’. ‘Derealisation’ is a dark gothic delight that hums over a throbbing electronica that courses through its sonic veins. …
Album Review: Disk Musik – A DD. Records Compilation; Beautifully broken sounds from the Japanese fringe.
In the cultural afterglow of Japan’s postmodern early ’80s, Disk Musik emerges as both an endnote and a revelation—a window into a scene too strange and insular to ever fully cross over, yet too fascinating to ignore. Originally released as one of the final statements from the cult cassette label DD. Records, the compilation has …
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 …
EP Review: ‘Is It Really Goodnight?’: Celeste Madden’s Introspective and Evocative New Release
Key to London-based singer-songwriter Celeste Madden’s new EP, Is It Really Goodnight?, is its dense atmosphere. It’s not foreboding or oppressive, but rather a sleepless sheen that coats the tracklist in a way the cyanotype cover art would suggest. Madden’s sound swings between minimal, almost ambient guitar ballads and brooding alt-rock cuts that could soundtrack …
Album Review: The Nightingales – The Awful Truth; Post-punk chaos meets twisted pop brilliance.
The Nightingales return with The Awful Truth, their first album since 2022’s The Last Laugh, proving once again that Robert Lloyd and company remain as sharp, unpredictable, and essential as ever. Released on Fire Records, the album is a tangled, exhilarating mix of post-punk urgency, surrealist storytelling, and skewed pop sensibilities—an acerbic, sideways glance at …
Album Review: Release the bats – Infinity Broke are rampaging through the cities with their excoriating, thrilling new album ‘This Masthead’.
It’s hard coming up with enough new superlatives to accurately describe an Infinity Broke album. Inevitably epithets and phrases such as contained chaos come to mind, along with freight trains careering out of control, sonic explosions, disturbances in the cosmos, mind shattering shards of metal. It’s enough to suggest that you should ensure any sound …
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 …
Album Review: Florist – Jellywish; a warm, intimate exploration of uncertainty
Florist’s Jellywish is a delicate yet expansive exploration of life’s biggest uncertainties, delivered with their signature warmth and intimacy. Across its ten tracks, the band weaves together folk, ambient textures, and hushed, dreamlike melodies, creating an album that feels deeply personal yet quietly transformative. It’s a record that doesn’t offer answers but instead lingers in …