TRACK: The Notwist feat. Juana Molina – ‘Al Sur’: returning with exploratory pop chops intact
SEVEN years is too long, to paraphrase the northern soul classic; yep. that’s how long it’s been since we’ve heard from Bavaria’s always delightfully off-kilter The Notwist. Since they dropped their last album for It’s been seven years since The Notwist’s last studio album, Close To The Glass, for City Slang in 2014, the always …
SEE: Mike Lazarev – ‘Out Of Time’: a beautiful new compositional voice
MIKE LAZAREV is a London-based, Kyiv-born composer with a real feel for the filmic. Leaving behind a country torn by political upheaval and persecution, he and his family moved to the USA – where he promptly fell out of love with the classical music he had been studying and performing since the age of 6. …
SEE: Niklas Paschburg feat. Ex Mykah – ‘Cyan’: a lush meshing of two worlds
NIKLAS PASCHBURG is a modern compositional pianist and composer who’s released two rather fine albums for 7K!, K7!’s mirror-image boutique ambient label, namely Oceanic and Svalbard. He’s now opening the doors to his piano work for outside interpretation, and in combination with Ex Mykah, the avant-pop project guise of Colombian-Cuban American artist Bryan Senti, he’s …
SEE: The Wedding Present feat. Louise Wener – ‘We Should Be Together’
I MEAN, it’s just isn’t stopping, is it, this viral ice age that has a grip on our music scene; but at least musicians are out there creating, bringing us new aural joy to keep us going through the grind. And at the forefront of all that are indie legends and darlings in equal proportion, …
TRACK: Allison Lorenzen feat. Midwife – ‘VALE’: dark Denver fuzz atmospheres
EXACTLY half of Denver’s percussive synth outfit School Dance, Allison Lorenzen has refined the art of bringing vocal colour and life to stripped back tunes; an aesthetic we can now experience in full as she steps into a more analogue world for her debut outing under her own name, in which project she’s enlisted Midwife, …
PREMIERE: Mute Swan – ‘Sedative Sun’: dazzling Tucson shoegaze tees up for their new album
THINK Arizona, think big, big skies; and maybe we just need to amend that a little, what with Citrus Clouds carving out an impressive shoegaze aesthetic over in Phoenix, and Mute Swan a hundred-odd clicks south-east down the Arizona Sun Corridor in Tucson also wielding massive, FX-laden six strings with potency – the state is …
EP REVIEW: Minotaur Shock – ‘Qi’: exhilarating and complex IDM for Bytes
Freed from the tyranny of production choice, Qi is Minotaur Shock’s freest and most beguiling outing since back in his Melodic days
TRACKS: Clémentine March – ‘Into The Distance’/’Éternité’
AN ECLECTIC, alt.folk(ish) singer-songwriter with a lovely, raggedy edge to her song fashioning, French-born but London based Clémentine March is close to a perfect match for Johnny Lynch’s Lost Map imprint, homespun and vital, operating from the fastnesses of the Inner Hebridean island of Eigg (current pop: 47). She debuted for Lost Map last year …
TRACK: John Paul Keith – ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’: heartbreak with Memphis grace
WITH his new album, The Rhythm Of The City, droppin’ on February 19th on Wild Honey, and with a video for album opener “How Can You Walk Away” with us just under a fortnight ago, John Paul Keith is a busy man right now; but not so busy he can’t seduce you with a classic, …
Soundtracks of Our Lives: Farmer Dave Scher
FARMER DAVE SCHER may be better known to you from the string of excellent bands he’s both been in and collaborated with down the years. He was a member of the brilliant West Coast country-psych outfit Beachwood Sparks, who took on Sade’s “By Your Side” and completely won (and actually chaps, while we’re here, could …