Track/Video: Passepartout Duo’s sonic travelogue ‘Pieces From Places’ begins with the tantalising ‘From Taipei’.
Passepartout Duo, the sonic partnership between pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito, thrives on constant travel, seeking out new collaborations as well as inspirational settings for recording and performance. Since their inception in 2015 the Duo’s globetrotting has gained momentum, taking their hand built electronic instruments cross continents on buses, trains and in dusty …
Album Review: Nick Storring – ‘Mirante’: A unique percussive and orchestral panorama from the Canadian multi-instrumentalist.
Delving into the musical potential of the humbucker pick-up and other electro-mechanical instruments, getting inspired by ghost towns in Ontario, recording a whole album from a pedestrian bridge near to his home and composing for a new instrument, the halldorophone, Nick Storring is the archetypal, restless experimenter. He’s driven by the ‘what if’ and the …
Album Review: Shelagh McDonald –‘Stargazer’: A long lost folk rock treasure returns to the shelves.
Vinyl reissues over the past few years have seemed to have been seized upon by majors gagging to maximise the current appetite for buying black (but now probably re-coloured) plastic. But beyond chasing the transient market, there are others who see their dedication to re-issuing very differently. For labels like Be With, Cherry Red and …
Album Review: T. Gowdy – ‘Trill Scan’: Inspired Early music and darkwave alchemy.
It was a question of time before Canadian producer/audio-visual artist T.Gowdy’s background filtered through to his engrossing electronic music and that time is now. Gowdy’s new album ‘Trill Scan’, his third for Constellation, with its ethereal vocal harmonics and sinuous acoustic instrumentation makes careful sonic connections with college years spent as a professional choral singer …
Album Review: Joni Void – Every Life Is A Light : The Montreal sound artist delivers a new experimental-pop touchstone.
Pinning, hash-tagging, mood-boarding, even crisply describing Joni Void’s music gets no easier. Maybe the role Void plays is as a post post-sampling, cut & paste collagist or re-imaginer of the already re-imagined? Perhaps experimental glitch artist, sonic mind-scrambler or underground sound documentarian sums up other dimensions of their singular approach? Probably the best that can …
Track/Video: The irrepressible Steve Von Till previews new solo album with the sombre grace of ‘Watch Them Fade’.
Steve Von Till is a creative tour de force: guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis plus their experimental offshoot Tribes Of Neurot; curator and founder of the essential Neurot Recordings label; spell-binding psych-folk magic maker under the guise of Harvest Man; and writer of soul mining acoustic songs on his solo recordings. Whatever …
Album Review: No Frills –”Sad Clown” : Honest songs that chime and chill from Toronto’s Lo-fi indie realists.
It’s been a while since anything’s been heard of Daniel Busheikin and his No Frills buddies. The Toronto band’s self-released debut album ‘Downward Dog’ trundled into the US college radio charts of summer ’22 with its lo-fi jangling pop, chiming with Mersey Beat and 45rpm melodics. Busheikin’s songs saw funny and fragile tangled together, stories …
Album Review : Adam Ben Ezra – ‘Heavy Drops’ : funky and reflective jazz fusion from the irrepressible bassist.
Jazz musician and ‘YouTube sensation’ may seem an unlikely combination but double-bass player Adam Ben Ezra straddles both camps with a natural ease. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, born in Israel and now based in Portugal, he’s played throughout Europe and the US over the last decade with such luminaries as Sarah Jane Morris, Mike Stern, Pat …
Album Review : Nina Garcia – ‘Bye Bye Bird’ : Taking noise guitar deeper and further.
You could say that guitar led experimentalism is having a moment. Away from the revered Frith/ Orcutt/Ambarchi/Anderson/Connors conclave, a new wave of fretboard deconstructors are cranking up their own kind of volume. Jules Reidy, Chuck Roth, Eli Winter, Ava Mendoza and Farida Amadou (doing it four string style) have pushed into muso consciousness with their …
Album Review: Maud The Moth – The Distaff : a dramatic, intense avant-rock statement.
Celestial, ethereal, bestial and brutal, woven with beauty and darker mysteries, you need a tapestry of adjectives to describe the music of Maud the moth. The project of Spanish-born / Scotland-based pianist and singer-songwriter Amaya López-Carromero, each Maud the moth album has been unapologetically ambitious but not at the expense of authenticity. Following her debut …