Music
News: Lou Barlow set for a solo album in late May; see the video for ‘Over You’
NOTHING less than absolute royalty of the US alt.rock scene, Lou Barlow, formerly of Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and Sentridoh, The Folk Implosion, is set to grace our ears with his first solo album in six years – and you can watch the video for the first single drop herein. That album, Reason To Live, will …
Premiere: The Beegles reveal first new single in four years, Dog; take a first listen, here
Out on April 9th on Zuccini Records in Australia and Not For Fun Records in the UK and Europe comes the new single from the Beegles – Dog, their first in four years since 2017’s Everybody Outside. It’s a slice of experimental almost performance poetry from the band, essentially the moniker of Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Ash …
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 …
See: The video for Matt Emery’s ‘Raindrops And Blood Spurts’: the scarlet fire of battle as reimagined for solo cello
THE EXCELLENT Surrey composer Matt Emery, a leading light over at Injazero Records for four years or so now working at the more deliciously experimental edges of modern composition, is launching an EP project entitled the Spotlight Series, in which he looks to investigate and put the spotlight on an instrument in turn, really explore …
See: Rachel Sermanni – ‘Swallow Me’: graceful, spiritual and lighter than air, it’s the title track from her June EP
BRINGING new life into the world and fresh hope for a budding spring, Strathspey folkie Rachel Sermanni is all set to drop her first EP in what feels like too long, actually, too long; and she’s throwing up the windows on that forthcoming release with the bell-clear offering to the fates of “Swallow Me”, which …
Track: Portico Quartet’s gliding ‘Terrain II (edit)’ unveils a three-part suite of a new album in late May
PORTICO QUARTET, whose Jack Wyllie we last encountered in these pages at the end of last summer with his exhilarating Afro-ambient project, Paradise Cinema, reconvened at their East London base during lockdown, the events that swathe us necessarily informing the new music they began to fashion. The world we all suddenly precipitated into necessitated a …
Track: Julia Stone’s single ‘Fire In Me’ stokes the flames ahead of new album ‘Sixty Summers’ released 30 April
Once a wanderer in the dreamy, folk wilderness, Julia Stone has well and truly shaken off the delicate gossamer of ballads past. Single Fire in Me from forthcoming album Sixty Summers is evocative, energetic and seemingly powered by electric, Goldfrapp-esque propulsion. The song was co-written with songwriter/producer Dann Hume and features a Bond-like string section …
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 …
News: Seefeel’s mid-90s’ Warp and Rephlex material gets repressed, expanded and there’s a new compilation too; hear the Autechre remix of ‘Spangle’
SEEFEEL, the brilliant British dub-ambient-electronica outfit who recorded beautiful, eerie and hypnotic work for Too Pure, Warp and Rephlex through the Nineties are the subject of a long-overdue reissue campaign, arriving in May – and there’s a comprehensive new compilation, too. The band, who released the hallucinatory and dubby Quique for Too Pure in 1994, …
See: The superfly retro video for A Certain Ratio’s ‘Keep It Together’
THE WHOLLY rejuvenated, fully on the groove A Certain Ratio have dropped another track from the forthcoming ACR:EPA, the first of a series of EPs following in the slipstream of last year’s superb ACR Loco – as if you needed reminding that they are wholly on fire again. (Doubting Thomases: by god, they so are). …