Album Reviews
Album Review: Bright Light Bright Light – ‘So Gay, So Dramatic’
It’s been a busy twelve months for New York dwelling Welsh man Rod Thomas, AKA Bright Light Bright Light. It was only September last year when he released his forth studio album, Fun City. He’s remixed tracks by the likes of Jujubee, Dubstar and Caveboy. His classical album Quiet City came in the opening months …
New Music: Rebecca Vasmant – WITH LOVE, FROM GLASGOW
Glaswegian musician, producer, DJ and curator Rebecca Vasmant announces her debut LP ‘With Love, From Glasgow’, showcasing the breadth of the incredible Jazz talent the city has to offer. Having made a name for herself with a residency at Sub Club, Rebecca took the lead in curating the first live Jazz showcases at the venue, …
Album review: The Catenary Wires – ‘Birling Gap’: Amelia and Rob take a look at how we’re doing as an island in folk-rock and fuzzpop
AMELIA FLETCHER and Rob Pursey have been making intelligent British indiepop together through more incarnations than your current, faithful scribe cares to shake a stick at, and thus that stick shall remain firmly static. Their relationship goes right back to the days of the lovely Talulah Gosh, one of many bands tarred only partly accurately …
Album Review: Quivers unveil the epic, jangling, melancholy indie pop masterpiece of ‘Golden Doubt’ and announce Australia-wide tour.
Starting in the tiny southern capital of Hobart at the edge of the world before moving, as bands often do, to Melbourne, Quivers have caught global attention with their unique brand of melancholy indie pop: a classic antipodean style of jangling guitars and yearning vocals, burnished a little more brightly than many peers with a …
Album review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Noteland’: intelligent, warm and melodic jazz improv from Canadian collective
LADIES and gentlemen of the more recherché musical persuasion: introducing a new act to especially intrigue the weird jazzers among you, Peace Flag Ensemble, an experimental collective drawn from various points across the verdant central Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The quintet are set to release their first venture into long-playing recordings this coming Friday, June …
Album Review: Restless Leg lay out an enticing ‘Dream Buffet’ and announce tour
I’m going to call it right now, and you heard it first here (maybe). I’ve been alluding to it in a number of reviews I’ve written over the past 18 months but there is an emerging movement – let’s call it the Marrickville Sound – that has dominated the indie scene in Australia. Emanating from …
Album: Rise Against – Nowhere Generation
Punk rock band Rise Against new album,Nowhere Generation, is the bands first new studio effort in four years. is set for a June 4 release and is Rise Against’s first with new label Loma Vista Recordings. Regarding the album front man Said McIlrath comments: “Today there is the promise of the American Dream, and then …
Album review: Mind Maintenance – ‘Mind Maintenance’: Chicago rhythm masters produce a deeply contemplative, mantric set to guard against the world
TAKE one of the finest and most intuitive leftfield-into-indie jazz rhythm sections of past decades, Chicago drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Joshua Abrams, who between them amass waay over a couple hundred performance credits to their name on Discogs: for artists such as the Chicago Underground Trio and all its various spiralling iterations, Brokeback, Sam …
Droppin’ Knowledge: On His Latest Album, McKinley Dixon Keeps It Real & Brings It Home
If you asked hip hop artist McKinley Dixon to name the greatest rapper of all time, you might be surprised by his answer. The Richmond Virginia-based musician, who grew up in Maryland and New York City, is unequivocal: the late American novelist, essayist and poet, Toni Morrison. “She’s the greatest rapper of all time. Even …
Album Review: Wolf Alice deliver a pared back, emotive triumph on new album ‘Blue Weekend’
Wolf Alice excel at making songs that feel like a flickering light to be seen by. They have a gift for conveying cathartic musical tales of love and disillusionment- largely the product of singer Ellie Rowsell’s confessional lyricism and evocative vocals. On new album Blue Weekend we can hear not only Rowsell’s evolution as a …