Album Reviews
EP Review: Yaya Bey chronicles heartbreak and self-reflection on ‘The Things I Can’t Take With Me’- out today
An impactful, cradle-to-grave reflection of self, Yaya Bey’s new EP The Things I Can’t Take With Me came together unexpectedly. Bey was set to record her next album when she found herself in the midst of a broken relationship, after which the original project changed direction. Its title refers to her journey of self-reflection, where …
Album review: Crimi – ‘Luci E Guai’: potent fusion music from Julien Lesuisse
THE MOST potent fusion music, the stuff that’s born from experience rather than cooked up as an experiment, comes from travellers in search of sounds. Julien Lesuisse is one such explorer. The vocalist and sax player has been a central player in Lyon’s Mazalda, a band that steadily evolved from jazz messengers to sound system-driven …
Album Review: Xiu Xiu’s OH NO! is a return to form, and a celebration of everything that has made them great.
To me, Xiu Xiu has always been a project marked by its ambition; whether it’s finding new ways to express the spirit of musical heavyweights like Nina Simone or Angelo Badalamenti, or forging a new kind of visceral yet fragile sound on albums like A Promise or 2019’s Girl with Basket of Fruit. Jamie Stewart’s …
Album review: Joao Selva – ‘Navegar’: Latin optimism with endless energy
WELL it looks like the summer vibes may need a little boost this year, so here’s a release that’s set to heat things up. Brazilian troubadour Joao Selva, now based in Lyon, definitely aims to shake us around with his samba infused, funk primed second album, Navegar, available on Underdog records from April 2nd. Born …
Album Review: Brisbane’s dreamy pop exponent Cloud Tangle returns with the gloriously ambient ‘Swells’
Last year’s debut album ‘Kinds of Sadness’ by Brisbane solo artist Cloud Tangle was a sign of something special brewing in the home studios of Amber Ramsay – it was one of our favourite Australian/New Zealand releases for 2020 and indicative of a prodigious talent. Cloud Tangle is back with the album ‘Swells’ – another …
Say Psych: Album Review: MØAA – Euphoric Recall
Exploring dark memories embedded in nostalgia, MØAA present their debut LP Euphoric Recall out now on WWNBB (We Were Never Being Boring). MØAA was first conceived by Jancy Rae when she began writing and recording demos while living in the forest near Seattle. Serving as an outlet to process a troubled past, MØAA was named after …
Album review: Christine Ott – ‘Time To Die’: French composer returns to Gizeh for a modern compositional masterclass
Without a doubt one of the most potent voices in modern composition today, Christine Ott is as happy to push right out into dark, even industrial-infused experimenta as she is to play a straight bat with absolute confidence in the deeper classical tradition and the wider avant-garde palette; she can do it all, if she chooses, and when she breathes the ondes Martenot into life; there really is no one to touch her
Album review: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘Keys’: pull up a pew for bluegrass instrumental delight
You know what the best thing about Keys is; for all its intimacy, the focus wholly on how the two players and their instruments mesh,a real joy in creation rings through. William Tyler, Black Twig Pickers, Jack Rose fans; please come on over and pull up a pew
Album review: Balmorhea – ‘The Wind’: Texas post-classical duo present a lovely set for Deutsche Grammophon
Balmorhea draw a line back in the tradition to the much-missed Louisville, KY outfit Rachel’s, who opted to take an idea and use whichever instrumental mix they found brought out the best of what they wished to convey. And The Wind roams freely and with precision across a spectrum from formal classical through a more pastoral take on the form and all the way out to ambient experimentalism, spoken word, found sound, with a unity and cohesion. It’s just a lovely, thoughtful record; complex in its simplicity
Album review: Chihei Hatakeyama – ‘Late Spring’: a halcyon, beautiful ambient journey
Late Spring takes elements of IDM, shoegaze, and drone, and fashions them together in an impressionistic, delicious fog, with a pretty unique pastoralist feel, alive in nature. It’s pretty much the only album I’ve ever heard that makes me reconsider such unassailable classics of the slow leftfield as Stars of the Lids’ The Tired Sounds Of … and Windy & Carl’s Consciousness and made me think: whoah there guys, these records are a bit … sharp-edged, right? Take it easy. Let it breathe. That halcyon. Late Spring is bloody, bloody beautiful.