Album Reviews
Album Review: Lutruwita/Tasmanian band Lennon Wells unveil stunning debut album ‘Blink (and you’ll miss it)’ ahead of national tour
Lennon Wells first caught my attention last year when they supported iconic Australian band Jet celebrating 20 years since the release of their album ‘Get Born’ in Hobart – a special night bejewelled by the visible appearance of the spectacular Aurora Australia in the skies that evening. They put on an incredibly immersive performance lead by …
Album Review: Inwards –‘Free Flow’: Fizzing mod-synth and sampler refreshment straight from the Worcestershire wilds.
Electronic music can often seem fixed on darkness and dystopia, cavernous scale and vastness but Kristian Shelley’s electro-fusion projects as Inwards have always focused on the small things. Inpired by the countryside around his Worcestershire home there’s a folktronica playfulness about his music and a warmth to his quirkiness. Past Inwards tracks been built around …
Album Review: The Black Cat’s Eye – Decrypting Dreams Of Weird Animals And Strange Objects
The Black Cat’s Eye – these are glaring fuzz, bass and drum riffs, interwoven chord pickings andlead guitars rooted in the blues – sometimes screaming, singing or rough. And above everything,the instrumental and song melody hovers almost like a hymn.With their musical style, the band, founded in Frankfurt am Main/Germany in 2018, is directlylinked to …
Album Review: Fabiano do Nascimento – ‘Cavejaz’: a stunning collection of guitar and percussion miniatures.
It may be a decade into the consistent series of impactful releases from composer/guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento but here is a musician who continues to build on his reputation as an innovator both within the MPB world and beyond. A guitarist from the age of ten, his natural affinity for the instrument and intuitive feel …
EP Review: Kat Greta collects her glorious singles into a shimmering EP aptly entitled ‘Rhythm & Reverie’.
Kat Greta has been blinding us here at the antipodean outpost of Backseat Mafia with her brand of luminescent pop that seems to emit rays of sunshine and joy with every note. Greta’s background in percussion permeates every note, adding a frisson to the sound and a beat that is irrepressible. After releasing a series …
Album Review: All India Radio etch beautiful contrails of sound across the skies in new album ‘The Unified Field’.
After a long absence, the ethereal All India Radio triumphantly return with the exquisite ‘The Unified Field’ – astonishingly their 21st album. Their absence has much to do with member Marin Kennedy’s prolific creativity – witness in just the past couple of years the release of three albums with The Church’s Steve Kilbey (‘Jupiter 13’, …
Album Review: Levitation Orchestra – ‘Sanctuary’: Another expansive, spiritual jazz epic from the London collective.
UK jazz collective Levitation Orchestra show that the creative possibilities of the large ensemble can endure. Lead by trumpeter Axel Kaner-Lidstrom who first brought this group of young, scene-busting players together in 2018, the collective has been gathering momentum ever since. The Levitation Orchestra’s debut album ‘Inexpressible Infinity’ arrived a year after their formation and …
Album Review: ‘Soft Monstrous Masses!’ – 208L Containers deliver an anarchic dose of sardonic humour on a bed of angular post punk with a buzz-saw blast
Lutruwita/Tasmanian outfit 208L Containers have just released a blast of iridescent joy from the intense furnace of their creative minds in ‘Soft Monstrous Masses!’. Sardonic and unashamedly Australian-accented voices sing of a range of familiar and alien concepts laced with humour and a thousand yard stare, a mix of political observations with tales of the …
Album Review: Yalla Miku –‘2’: an energetic, ‘post-world’, sonic cocktail direct from the Bongo Joe community.
If ever there was an imprint that was more than just another indie record label it’s Bongo Joe. A musicians’ collective, a community, a shop and watering hole, a barometer of Geneva’s underground scene, an epicentre for ‘post -world’ music, this cutting-edge Swiss co-op is now in its tenth year. Fitting then that Bongo Joe’s …
Album Review: The epic beauty of The Apartments’ ‘That’s What The Music Is For’ is an elegant beacon of shimmering hope.
The Apartments‘ magnificent album ‘In And Out Of The Light’ was one of the brief rays of light of the grim 2020 – one of my favourite albums of that year. With one of Brisbane’s greatest singer/songwriters, Peter Milton Walsh (briefly an early Go-Between), The Apartments are possibly one of the most underrated bands coming …