album review
ALBUM REVIEW: El Ten Eleven – ‘Tautology’: ambitious, thrilling post-rock triple set from LA duo
YOU have to admire the scope and ambition of Los Angeles postrock duo El Ten Eleven, who are about to release their eighth full-length LP, Tautology, on September 18th. You certainly get a lot of bang for your buck. They’ve been releasing it bit by bit in the digital world for months now: Tautology I …
ALBUM REVIEW: Arch Garrison – ‘The Bitter Lay’: a psychedelic folk song of the Wiltshire downs
ARCH GARRISON is, in some ways, the flipside of the coin to Craig Fortnam’s excellent, self-styled alternative chamber group North Sea Radio Orchestra. But it’d be wrong to think of them as the ‘other’ band; although perhaps it’s the latter outfit who claim the higher profile, they’re both remarkably potent musical creations. North Sea Radio …
ALBUM REVIEW: Junkboy – ‘Sovereign Sky’: fraternal pastoral-psych excellence finally gains a proper issue
ONCE you’ve taken a listen to Junkboy’s Sovereign Sky – out on Fretsore on September 25th – you’ll have reason to thank label boss Ian Sephton. He signed the band, at whose heart are brothers Mik and Rich Hanscomb, and released their rather lovely album from last year: the baroque acoustic wondrousness of Trains, Trees, …
ALBUM REVIEW: Huw Marc Bennett – ‘Tresilian Bay’: Welsh psychedelic Afro-jazz warmth
EMERGING from the London jazz and groove scene, South Wales producer and bassist Huw Marc Bennett is a low-key enigma whose musical vision means he won’t stay that way for long. What do we know of Huw? He’s a South Wales boy, as he evidences in the title of his debut LP, Tresilian Bay, named …
Album Review – Marilyn Manson – We Are Chaos
Marilyn Manson’s eleventh studio album ‘We Are Chaos’ has just been released via Loma Vista Recordings. Co-produced by Manson and GRAMMY® Award winner Shooter Jennings [Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker], the ten-track opus was written, recorded, and finished before a pandemic blanketed us all. “Making this record, I had to think to myself: ‘Tame your crazy, stitch your suit. And try to pretend …
Album Review: Tolouse Low Trax – ‘Jumping Dead Leafs’
TOLOUSE Low Trax is the recording pseudonym of German composer Detlef Weinrich, and this is his fourth album under that name. The eight-track album is a 38-minute smorgasbord of all manner of musical genres, ranging from krautrock to 80s’ electronica, with pinches of avant-garde, post-rock and ambience whisked into the buffet. The album starts as …
ALBUM REVIEW: Ambassadeurs – ‘Human Stranger’: majorly uplifting, humanist floor-fillers
AMBASSADEURS is the project of Sussex producer Mark Dobson, a man who’s approach to music is deeply personal, involved. He doesn’t churn it out because he has the means; he fashions and creates and recreates and channels, he sends tunes out into the world when they’re ready to communicate what is intended. He’s got one …
ALBUM REVIEW: Sam Prekop – ‘Comma’: further into wordless ‘tronica melodies
EMERGING from that Chicago scene so ripe with cross-fertilisation and ideas around the turn of the century, Sam Prekop was part of that fountain of creativity that brought us Tortoise, Bobby Conn, Jim O’Rourke’s shift into pop melodicism, Freakwater; many more. Sam himself cut his recording teeth alongside Archer Prewitt and John McEntire in The …
ALBUM REVIEW: Susanna – ‘Baudelaire & Piano’: recasting the poet in solo dusk
TWO things to note from the off about the Norwegian chanteuse fatale born Susanna Karolina Wallumrød: firstly, she is both a deep appreciator and fashioner of the arts – no throwaway, careerist pop remixes her, no dalliance with song for song’s sake. Music, and art more broadly, is far too important business for frippery; life …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Flaming Lips – ‘American Head’: a trippy coming of age about coming of age
DEAR reader: let’s take it you need no introduction to the wayward, playful psychedelic brilliance of Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips. I can see a solitary hand raised at the back, there; where have you been all this time: the proverbial desert island? You mean to say you missed the glorious early burst of “She Don’t Use …