album review
ALBUM REVIEW: Ian Skelly – ‘Drifter’s Skyline’: Coral man takes a country-psych sabbatical
THEY came rushing off the Wirral back in 2002 – was it really that long ago now? – with the woozy and seductive psych shanties of “Dreaming Of You” and “Spanish Main”, brimming with swagger and confidence like a young Stone Roses. They knew they were good. Since then The Coral, its side projects and …
ALBUM REVIEW: William Tyler – ‘Music From First Cow’: chiming soundtrackery from Tennessee gent
IT SHOULDN’T really come as a surprise to anyone who has followed William Tyler’s solo career, or heard him give the background to any of his seductive, chiming guitar odysseys, that the day would come when he moved into soundtrackery – and perhaps particularly, the soundtracks for a well-made film about the old Americas. He has …
ALBUM REVIEW: Gunther Wüsthoff – ‘[to|dig]ital’: deep tronica from the Faust man’s vault
BUREAU B is one of those beautifully interesting labels – nein, curators – out there on the fringes, lovingly delving in the depths of the crates, remastering and compiling, making sure an absolute plethora of lost music is brought back to our ears. It’s main archival thrust is to dig beyond the major catalogue of …
ALBUM REVIEW: Laraaji – ‘Sun Piano’: solo piano from Eno’s stable
LARAAJI, the ambient musician, laughter therapist and even one-time stand-up born Edward Larry Gordon – who has even rubbed celluloid shoulders with Antonio Fargas, aka ‘Huggy Bear’, from Starsky and Hutch, has one hell of a joyous and creative meander through this world. He shapes up this week to release what may be his 62nd …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Blinders – ‘Fantasies of a Stay at Home Psychopath’
BOTH the title and motive behind The Blinders’ new album seems remarkably timely. The album explores numerous internal struggles across its eleven tracks, whether through the tortured sense of self in the vocal catharsis of “Forty Days & Forty Nights” or the cataclysmic depiction of an introvert’s breaking point on “Black Glass”, who refuses to …
ALBUM REVIEW: Eternell – ‘Imagined Distances’: fine, glimmering ambient drone
SOUND IN SILENCE is a label concerned with the liminal and ambient fringes of music. Operating out of Athens for nigh on a decade and a half, it can boast releases by artists such as blissed-back Italian shoegazers Port-Royal and out-hiphop producer and founder of Anticon, Odd Nosdam, among its catalogue of strictly limited physical …
EP REVIEW: Magik Markers – ‘Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020’
CONNECTICUT’s foremost ragged, slacker squall-rockers Magik Markers have descended from their years-long recess and deigned to bless us with the benison of a new four-track, download-only EP for Drag City, Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020, their first release of any kind in five years. The band, Elisa Ambroglio, John Shaw and Pete Nolan, said: “The …
EP REVIEW: The Ricos – ‘Spirit State’
PHILADELPHIA’S languid, lofi outfit The Ricos is the brainchild of artist Joseph (Joe) B. Purcell. The band rose from the ashes of Purcell’s past projects with the intention to provide fuzz-ridden indie-pop, on which Joe’s vision is fleshed out by multi-instrumentalist/producer Connor Wynne and local human drum machine Daniel Fisk-Kallish. And their first steps into …
ALBUM REVIEW: Aārp – ‘Propaganda’
MAKE no mistake, the debut album from classically trained experimentalist Aārp has serious conceptual intent. Entitled Propaganda, and out now on Paris-Lyon-Berlin imprint InFiné, it is pointedly political. The title is predicated on the media portrayal of death of Steve Canico, the French techno fan found drowned after an altercation with police at a festival …
ALBUM REVIEW: Leeches – ‘Easy’: big up the West Country stoner vibe
SPEAKING as a West Country lad myself, it comes as no surprise, with all the plaudits and freewheelin’ fertility surrounding the harder end of the Antipodean jam-psych scene – led forth into the multicoloured haze by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Pond – that the South West would, at some point, answer back …