See: Blue States – ‘Plain Sight’ feat. Rachael Dadd – a step into folktronica from Andy Dragazis ahead of his sixth album
BLUE STATES, the lovely downbeatz project of Sussex’s Andy Dragazis, is following last year’s necessary and expanded repressing of his classic album Nothing Changes Under The Sun with another peek into the world of his new album, his sixth and also first in six years; come inside and twirl with the complex atmospheres of “Plain …
Premiere: The Jazz Butcher – ‘Time’: RIP, Pat, but there’s one final album in store and a celebratory gig in Camden this weekend
THE JAZZ BUTCHER is one of those artists who make indiepop kids of a certain generation go misty eyed, and with good reason; Pat Fish, the man behind the jazz despatching curtain, as it were, was an all-round gentleman of the whimsical song, someone you’d definitely find in the kitchen at parties; sometime indie television …
See: The ghostly soundtrackery of The Arteries of New York City’s ‘Capable’; the album’s on its way to a full release
NO, AND you’d be forgiven for thinking it with the name they trade under, but the experimental ambient duo The Arteries of New York City isn’t some semi-psychogeographical project arising from dérives across that city from Queens or Yonkers or somewhere in the Five Boroughs; the project instead has its roots our side of the …
Track: Spanish ambient explorers Suso Sáiz and Menhir combine for the deep, pristine drift of ‘Alike’ ahead of their album for Spirituals
HE MAY Not be quite as familiar a name on these shores, but in Spain Suso Sáiz is something of an Eno figure; a pioneer of ambient and minimalist music in the country, he’s released something like 28 albums of beautiful and exploratory music since his 1984 debut, Prefiero El Naranja (‘I Prefer Orange’). He’s …
See: DITZ get fiery ‘n’ wiry on declamatory new single, ‘The Warden’, extend their tour into next year
BRIGHTON’S DITZ, who, on more than one occasion this year we’ve found the overwhelming urge to catapult into the perspiring throng to, only to find our living rooms sadly lacking in the requisite, adoring crowd, have this very morn shared a vid for a new track, “The Warden”, which, like last month’s roarer “Ded Würst”, …
See: Raveloe finds escape in the fine, rolling folk-rock of ‘Catkins’ – she’s so one to watch in ’22
IT’S THAT time of year when those of us who spill ink about music begin to look forward; the old year nearly done and captured and bottled barring end-of-year lists to write, and a whole new exciting calendar ahead. It’s also the time when we begin to apply our minds in the occasionally foolish errand …
Track: Erin Rae glides into an album and tour in the new year on the psych-country of ‘Candy & Curry’
WITH a sweet, hook-laden but straighter country-pop number, “Modern Woman”, dropping last month, Nashville’s Erin Rae has revealed a more gossamer, delicate psych-folk side to her forthcoming third album in the lighter-than-air “Candy & Curry”, sprinkled with a little retro synth and possessed of a real Margo Guryan harmonic feel; you can swoon for that …
See: Diamondtown bring the chiming, ‘gazey ‘Dream All Day’ from the Nova Scotia waterside
DIAMONDTOWN come springing outta the fertile underground scene of Nova Scotia, where the scene has something of an Elephant 6 thing goin’ on, members freely interchanging and shifting between the various bands and strands of musical discourse under examination up there. The band began as a duo, with members KC Spidle and Evan Cardwell, together …
See: Baltimore’s Tomato Flower unveil the woozy, utopian pop of ‘Red Machine’ ahead of their debut EP
BALTIMORE’S Tomato Flower – well, they’re pretty darn cute, truth be told, on the evidence of their debut single, just out now: the bright and woozy, retro-synth informed pop of “Red Machine”. We’ve the video for that, here; it’s airy and pregnant with cute harmonies, and a kind of East River Pipe lo-fi synth wonkiness …
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 …