Album Reviews
Album Review: Rival Consoles – Articulation
Electronic music can often be stunningly complex, deeply beat laden and dripping in atmosphere but Ryan Lee West (aka Rival Consoles) has always focused on the person rather than the possibilities. Now comes ‘Articulation’ his new album released via Erased Tapes on 31st July and the latest episode in his quest to create modern compositions …
ALBUM REVIEW: Jaga Jazzist – ‘Pyramid’: graceful, off-world jazz suites remind us how 2020 should be
JAZZ is back in a big way on these shores, with The Comet is Coming, BCUK, Nubia Garcia all absolutely tearing it up with triumphant, high-profile shows – at least until it descended. (Shows: they were a thing, right?) But over at labels like the eternally cool and crisp British breaks imprint Ninja Tune, jazz …
ALBUM REVIEW: Figueroa – ‘The World As We Know It’: shimmering psych-tronica from Amon Tobin
AMON TOBIN has been in there for quite a while now, toying with our heads with very fine, playful, exploratory and sometimes just wonderfully weird sonic artistry. Rio-born, he arrived with Ninebar Records as Cujo, fashioning these trademark deep bass surges out on the edges of drum ‘n’ bass, like spitting thunderheads. He came out …
Video Age ‘Pleasure Line’
The third album from New Orleans quartet Video Age is out 7th August from Winspear The great thing about music reviewing is that sometimes you are given an album to listen to by respected peers to review honestly and you may find yourselves gushing to keep people happy or to tick over. Throughout the global …
ALBUM REVIEW: Box of Chocolates – ‘Fearful Symmetry’: early Brooklyn stirrings from Will Oldham, et al
EVERY era of music has those great, lost nuggets which slip out, are adored by the knowing few, lost to the many; are whispered about and traded for ever-inflating sums until they break cover once more. It’s a cycle that can sometimes take a generation, as the actual chaff falls away to leave little beauties …
EP: Massive Attack – Eutopia
Massive Attack have teamed up with Algiers, Young Fathers, and Saul Williams to release an incredibly interesting audio-visual EP that feels like more of an art installation than three tracks that happened to be released together. The EP, entitled Eutopia, is essentially a series of three mini-lectures with enough audio and visual stimulation to keep …
Album Review: The Psychedelic Furs – Made of Rain plus tour news
There is something about Richard Butler’s voice in The Psychedelic Furs that induces a warm feeling of nostalgia for a certain era when the Furs were such a unique and distinctive force. But the new album from The Psychedelic Furs, ‘Made of Rain’, has nothing whatsoever to do with nostalgia nor is it in any …
EP: !!! (chk chk chk)- Certified Heavy Kats
The new EP by the leviathans of the dance-punk genre, arriving nearly two decades after their self-titled debut, vents as much creativity and unrelenting magnetism to dance (or nod the head), as their greatest releases. The majority refines and perfects the band’s energetic musical trademarks embraced upon the hugely popular 2013 LP Thriller. Lead single …
ALBUM REVIEW: Romare – ‘Home’: fashioning broken beat into a cerebral confection
HE’S been around a bit, has Archie Fairhurst, the artiste who releases cerebral and multifaceted grooves for Ninja Tune as Romare. It’s an overused trope, but Archie really has: he spent his childhood travelling constantly with his family as his parents moved around the world for work, before finally settling in the UK. All that …
Album Review: The Wee Cherubs – The Merry Makers
The ever-reliable Optic Nerve label are shedding some light on this obscure gem of a band who featured Martin Cotter, later to resurface in The Bachelor Pad, (chiefly remembered for the riotous ‘Country Pancake’ amongst other Buzzcocks meets Syd Barrett classics). The Wee Cherubs only released one 7” single during their brief existence, (‘Dreaming’ in …