Album Reviews
Album Review: Chubby and the Gang’s ‘The Mutt’s Nuts’ is the dog’s……
It is an unfortunate fact that the kind of music that Chubby and the Gang makes has never been ‘major label’ fodder, at least not in recent times. This is true for the band members themselves, who had previously cut their teeth as part of the London hardcore scene. Take the lead for example: Charlie, …
Album review: Spiritczualic Enhancement Center – ‘Carpet Album’: filmic, psychedelic and enveloping – travel deep, travel wisely
IT’S ONE of those sentences you hear periodically when chewing the fat about the music: “Ooh no, though, I really don’t like jazz”. Which, each to their own, live and let live, vive la difference without question; but, which, you imagine may be based on some particularly untethered, free-associating inversion of the style, say, Coltrane’s …
Album Review: North Arm’s beautiful ‘Bring The Daylight’ emanates a sunshine glow and quiet resolve.
North Arm is essentially the work of Roderick Smith, and his new album ‘Bring The Daylight’ is as light as air and just as refreshing. The opening title track is an absolutely gorgeous, reflective track bursting with a sense of melancholy and quiet resolve. Smith repeats the line ‘I’m coming home’: an expression itself that …
Album Review: The Zephyr Bones – Neon Body
The Barcelona-based psych-rock quartet, The Zephyr Bones have released their second album, Neon Body via La Castanya. The album was produced by Brian Silva and Santi Garcia, and sees the band exploring ideas centered around love, self-affirmation, loss, and hope. Musically, it finds the group tapping into their “beach wave” sound. Shimmering electrics start with first track ‘So High’. The softly sung vocals …
Album Review: The Aerial Maps unveil the poetic beauty of ‘Intimate Hinterland’: a shining beacon of sunlight emanating hope and love across an endless landscape. Plus launch gig announced.
The poetry of Adam Gibson is raw and intimate. It reflects the harsh sunlit terrain of Australia through his epic widescreen portrayal of the environment and the compelling forces of nature, while somewhat antithetically delving into the minutiae of everyday life with crystal clear observations grounded in hope, love and compassion. In the company of …
Album Review: Meridean Brothers & Conjunto Media Luna- Paz en la Terra
Nothing about the Meridean Brothers is as you would expect unless you are prepared for the unexpected. The name might suggest a collective but in the studio the ‘Brothers’ focal point is the mercurial talents of Colombian composer and multi- instrumentalist Eblis Alvarez. As an established player in Bogata’s energetic experimental scene Alvarez has always …
Album Review: The Witching Tale – ‘The Witching Tale’
Take multi-instrumentalist Michael J. York (Coil, The Utopia Strong) and the incredible vocal talents of Katherine Blake (Mediaeval Baebes), and the end result is something totally out of this world – folklore and mysticism, early Arabian and Mediaeval music, first millennia Eastern poetry blended together with Poe, Scott and Chesterton. The result is an ethereal …
Album review: Scrimshire – ‘Nothing Feels Like Everything’: expansive, opulent soul-jazz with a real beating heart
ALBERT’S FAVOURITES is a label bringing the sounds of the South London scene to the world with heart; genuine heart, and care, and soul, in all iterations of that word. One only need look at the label’s name, and the tribute it pays. I’ve written about this before but it is worth reprising, since it …
Album Review: Yumi Ito & Szymon Mika – Ekual
There’s something quite evocative about listening to jazz vocalists who venture beyond the familiar. Perhaps because the nature of contemporary Jazz embraces all kinds of musical sound worlds. In particular, the vocal jazz world has seen a rise in duo collaborations of albums, yielding some wonderfully creative and inspired sounds. Polish- Japanese singer Yumi Ito …
Album Review: Remembering- A vocal ode to humanity.
There’s a certain resistance involved in listening to voices , whether spoken or sung , in their most vulnerable, unscripted and unwavering form. Almost as if meeting a stranger for the first time and allowing for a conversation to unfold without the small talk. It’s not easily done ,and since this pandemic encroached and invaded …