album reviews
Album review: Duncan Marquiss – ‘Wires Turned Sideways In Time’: Phantom Band guitarist conceives of an instrumental, pastoral motorik for a place yet to exist
FROM disastrous events that upend your world can sometimes come good things; sometimes, I’m no Pollyanna here. Fortunately for Duncan Marquiss, guitarist with Chemikal Underground’s The Phantom Band, a major setback has led to another path, and a rather excellent one, albeit eventually. That quartet, with four albums such as Fears Trending and The Wants …
EP Review: Jeremiah Moon – Sputnik
Seattle-based singer/songwriter/classically trained cellist and illustrator Jeremiah Moon has released his debut solo EP – Sputnik. The EP was recorded with friend and producer Adam Black in a remote cabin in Florence, OR. “We laid down the main tracks during this time and pieced together the rest of the EP and arrangements over the next couple of …
Album review: Beirut – ‘Artifacts’: a masterful and beautiful voyage through Zach Condon’s early years in EPs, Bs and offcuts
MISSION CREEP. One of those pseudo-economic terms that make the decent among us go “eeep”, defined in dictionary terms as “a gradual shift in objectives, often resulting in an unplanned long-term commitment.” We’ve all seen it happen: something which starts to sprawl out of control in a Mandelbrot set of projects within projects within projects …
Album review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bill Callahan – ‘Blind Date Party’: a rolling thunder lockdown revue of the Drag City stable, cast in cover versions
NOTHING at all, really. That, for a lifer musician with new songs in the back pocket, older ones to take out and share with fans on the road across the country and the world, no chance to get into a proper studio even, if it is only to kinda dick around and have a laugh …
Album review: Various artists – ‘Home – Volume One curated by Ali Tillett’: a beautifully tessellated, warming set of old-skool chillout
Y’KNOW, it’s not just the people out front – the bands, the writers, the DJs – who know a thing or three about music; there’s plenty of people quietly working away behind the scenes who have incredible appreciation and knowledge of the sounds we fall for, too. One such gent is Ali Tillett, who’s deep …
Album review: Mumble Tide – ‘Everything Ugly’: a short, sweet-as mini-album burst from the insouciant Bristolians on their way to massive things
MUMBLE TIDE have a sweet and unusual back story: the Bristol bedroom pop duo of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers first met through a Gumtree ad which singer Gina had placed, looking for a bassist. But there was a proper meeting of minds, they saw that the musical thing they had going on was more …
Album review: Jim Wallis & Nick Goss – ‘Pool’: immersive, ocean-going, pastoral ambience
MODERN NATURE might be flying under your radar, but the Bella Union band who’ve just one full-length and one-mini album to their name – 2019’s How To Live and last year’s Annual, respectively – are someone you should be wrapping your head around, especially if the post-rock pastoral brilliance espoused by Mark Hollis and Talk …
EP review: Shida Shahabi – ‘Alvaret (Original Soundtrack)’: Stockholm composer soundtracks a short film of domestic tragedy with drone warmth and acuity
WE LAST encountered that Stockholm-based talent Shida Shahabi in these pages just over a year ago, when she released the soundtrack EP for Jennifer Rainsford’s subtle sci-fi short Lake On Fire; and rather a lovely thing it proved, seeing Shida step away from the piano with which she recorded her 130701 debut Shifts in favour …
EP review: Deca – ‘Source Material’: mining the library crates for instrumental breakz
LIBRARY music. It’s the crate-diggers’ crate-dig, the study of the deep connoisseur; that (formerly) unloved, workaday, copyright-free realm of production music, originally only of use and interest to the makers of TV programmes – and a useful session payday to everyone from electronic originators such as Delia Derbyshire and Ron Geesin to Pentangle guitarist John …
Album review: David Christian & The Pinecone Orchestra – ‘For Those We Met On The Way’: Comet Gain man sends a folk-rock postcard, looking back with sadness but without anger
THIS record begins not in the virus, lockdown, careers suddenly and virally iced, like the back story of so many records of recent times. Which in itself, may be a relief of sorts. No: this record begins with that other cultural tragedy of our isles and times. B. B. Can I even say it? Brexit. …