Track / Video
Track: Bronx Slang – ‘Happens A Lot’: examining the rise and fall of the rhymer with tough old-skool breakz
STILL rhyming with power, truth, rhythm; still living it in the Big (Rotten) Apple, Beeks and Miggs of Bronx Slang keep the gems coming from street-level observations as they shape up for their album later this year? When? When? Jeez, if only I could tell you – I don’t know myself; let’s at least be …
Track: Chloe Foy – ‘Work Of Art’: vulnerability and the joy of gig-going all expressed in a three-minute folk-rock nugget
Come gather round and hear this latest lovely; it’s a yearning folk-rocker, paced placidly, harmonies lofting with an ethereal glow – and it’s not afraid to kick out the guitars on that anthemic finish either. Chloe drops the single, which is very much about the joy and the communing of going to gigs and the …
Track: Hear Christina Vantzou’s spectral mash-up and remix of LEYA’s ‘ABBA’ and ‘Mary’
CHRISTINA VANTZOU, the Belgian-based vocalist, composer and film-maker who began her career with Stars of the Lid’s Adam Wiltzie in The Dead Texan and who’s gone to establish a powerful and eerie musical aesthetic over the course of four album for Kranky, has brought her otherworldly ambient skills to bear on a rerub and mash-up of …
Track: New Zealand’s Voodoo Bloo unleash ‘MMA’: a caustic blast of untrammelled energy and attitude
Like a projectile from a cannon, Voodoo Bloo‘s ‘MMA’ blasts out with indiscriminate intent and an ultimate sense of hedonism and thrills. It’s wild and anarchic, visceral and unhinged and such a relentless piece of anarchy, you’ll be on pills for your nerves after one listen. And then you’ll want to play it again. Voodoo …
See: Birds of Maya – ‘Please Come In’: Philadelphia’s returning fuzz-stoner prodigals return with a down ‘n’ dirty invitation
BIRDS OF MAYA have become one of those legendary lost power trios, so much more than the sum of their parts; superfuzzed, raw, ready to kick out the primal jamz, deliciously low-slung. I mean, really of course, that should read: had become, since they back with us, boy. Followers of the rock music at its …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Behind The Boards With Baltimore’s Zen Master Of Sound, Shine
And we back…nah, nah, nah… Veteran Baltimore, Maryland producer Shine recently released his new album, As The Beauty Became, a lovely and luxuriant collection of mostly instrumental hip hop that pulses and hums with an organic vitality. This contemplative set of nine tracks also includes two sterling guest cuts, one with Brooklyn’s Nappy Nina, and …
Track: Loraine James – ‘Let’s Go’: Enfield producer’s latest drop skitters with Ballardian futurism
GROWING up on the North London-Hertfordshire borders of Enfield, producer Loraine James was up on the escarpment, able to gaze down across London in the bowl of the Thames valley below. That skyline, the city so near, silhouetted, morphing as new towers grew from reinforced steel skeletons, informed and continues to inform her enthralling future …
Track: Michael Cormier – ‘Empty Mugs’: A lovely lo-fi Americana drop about waking from a speedboat dream
CO-FOUNDER of the lovely Dear Life Records, home to rootsy talents such as Josh Halper and Wes Tirey, and also the musique concrète stylings of Bolomite Jr. (see our recent Dear Life coverage here); drummer in the indie four-piece Friendship, Philly’s Michael Cormier makes a potent contribution to the beating heart of the US underground …
Track: Brisbane’s Austen releases a melody-dripping slice of pure indie pop in ‘North South East West’
Brisbane artist Austen has just released a sun-infused blast of pure indie pop in the track ‘North South East West’. Slinky instrumentation and an indelible melody serve together to create something that is vibrant and catchy while retaining an indie edge with the chunky guitars. Austen’s vocals are a delight – shining and bright during …