Album review: Matchess’s ‘Sonescent’: an irresistible flow of experimental, meditative drone recollection and conscious absence

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Album review: The Jazz Butcher – ‘The Highest In The Land’: one final pop postcard from Northampton’s foremost gent

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Album review: Black Flower – ‘Magma’: a perfumed souk of North African psych jazz from the Lowlands quintet

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WELCOME. Now, before we fasten your belts – they’ll keep you safe against the enormous Gs as we break the atmosphere, gain the vast promised land of outer space – it’s as well as we run through a final checklist to ensure a safe and enjoyable journey. So. Question. When names like Broadcast, Stereolab, Vanishing …

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DUQUETTE JOHNSTON is a name that, if you’re a deep connoisseur of the US indie scene you’ll recall in association with one of those band whose star lit, arced, sputtered a little too soon, sadly; almost famous. Gah. That band was Verbena, who came, released three albums of grand, dirtily low-slung, well-honed indie-stoner rock. They …

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NOW INTO its sixth year – though, for reasons we need not dwell on now, not its sixth consecutive – the multivalent In The Round festival is back at The Roundhouse in London’s Camden from January 15th to the 24th next year, and will feature eight shows carefully chosen from across the musical spectrum. There’ll …

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NONE gigs; none proper studio time; none nothing, except, perhaps, as Big Black once memorably put it, to “sit around home, stare at the walls / Stare at the walls and stare at each other.” It’s a tale we’ve heard oft told since the virus got tough, got going. What was a committed, lifer musician …

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BASSIST Devin Hoff may well be one of those names little known to you, but whose invaluable contributions to a record you’ve likely loved; as a four-string sharpshooter of absolute repute he’s contributed to not far shy of a hundred releases by the likes of Julia Holter, Nels Cline, Xiu Xiu, Cibo Matto, Sharon Van …

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LEGENDARY guitarist Earl Slick, a man born to the guitar and the blues, who was due to embark on a dozen date tour of the UK at London’s Water Rats today, has made the difficult decision to cancel that tour in support of his recent album, Fist Full Of Devils, after being diagnosed with Lyme disease. …

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JAMIE JOHNSON is only two singles into his career as St Jasper, and that’s if we include “Dial Tone”, the song he’s unveiling today – but my, hasn’t he got maturity and talent in a full flush? This new track is so considered; spacious, atmospheric, spectral. It has a gravitas you wouldn’t immediately associate with …

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WITH four albums proper, so to speak, under her belt – Escapement and Feathers from further back last decade, and a brace for what’s now One Little Independent in 2017, an acoustic mini-album, Sketches and the full-length Resolve – we really haven’t heard nearly enough from Poppy Ackroyd in recent times; but then what with …

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NIGH on thirty years now into their recording career – yep, Back To The Grotto came out waay back now, in ’92 – California’s country rockers The Mother Hips have just released their first cover in that entire ten, soon-to-be 11-album canon. It’s here for you now; it also features on the new set, Glowing …

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ORCADIAN genius Erland Cooper has today revealed that his next musical project will be a collaboration with the vocal ensemble Shards, on an EP again an evocation and a love letter to his home archipelago. It’s to be a digital release of four tracks entitled Egilsay, and follows thus in the conceptual footsteps of his …

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