Album Reviews
Album Review: Melanie De Biasio – No Deal (Remixed)
Beligian/Italian singer Melanie de Biasio made a record last year, No Deal, a record that showcased her singing, songwriting, even flute playing. With a voice that approached both Karen Carpenter and (more pertinently) Nina Simone, at least stylistically, it was a wake up call that soul jazz was very much alive and well. Despite picking …
Not Forgotten: Thea Gilmore – Avalanche
It can’t be easy being Thea Gilmore. Widely hailed as one of the best songwriters of her generation, yet receiving almost no radio play and little media coverage. She’s been releasing high quality music now for the last eight years or so, but registers negligible sales. She displays traditional singer-songwriter strengths, but she doesn’t fall …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Life’ll Kill Ya
It’s tempting to retrospectively view Warren Zevon’s final three albums as a loose trilogy based around the theme of mortality. While the post cancer-diagnosis musings of My Ride’s Here and the acceptance of The Wind can certainly be seen as being directly influenced by the fact that Zevon knew that he was reaching the end …
Album Review: Taylor Locke – Time Stands Still
A few notes of electric piano and semi-distant slide guitar stamps Time Stands Still with the hallmarks of a West Coast album with a whole heap of promise. The opening track of Time Stands Still, “Burbank Woman”, was my first experience of the music of Taylor Locke and by the end of the song, I …
Psych Insight: Album Review – Shadow of the Sun by Moon Duo
The first time I listened to this new Moon Duo album I have to admit that I was rather dismissive of it. I didn’t think it was that different from their previous outing, Circles, and, if anything, I thought it also sounded more like Ripley Johnston’s other band Wooden Shjips. After a few listens, including one …
EP Review: Little Brother Eli (Self Titled)
Releasing a self titled EP can bring a few ideas to mind but the truth of it is it a self titled EP shows the confidence a band has with their material, and in this case that confidence is justified. Four musicians showing the best of their ability with three songs that are brilliantly written …
Track: Spökraket – ‘In A Witch Forest’
Spökraket is a neo-psychedelic band from Århus, Denmark formed in 2010. The core band members are Bjørn Vind Abildtrup: 12- and 6-string guitars, organ/synth; occasional glockenspiel, percussion and backing vocals, double bass, Jonathan Højgaard: 12- and 6-string guitars, vocals; occasional keyboards/synth and Sinas Robin Svendsen: drums and percussion; occasional guitar and backing vocals. Guest artists on ‘In A Witch Forest’ are Freja Schaumburg-Müller Pallesen: …
Album Review – Hannah Cohen – Pleasure Boy
Intense, alluring and beautiful chanteuse Hannah Cohen releases her second album, ‘Pleasure Boy’, through Bella Union on 30th March 2015. It is the follow up to her debut, ‘Child Bride’ which was released in April 2012. Cohen was born in San Francisco but is now resident in New York where she has had a dual …
Not Forgotten: They Might Be Giants – Flood
As the 90s dawned, things were restless in the musical firmament. In the UK, we were coming to terms with the fact that we were still suffering from the hangover of terrible pop songs and even worse production methods that the 80s had blighted us with, and across the Atlantic folks were taking a long …
Album Review: Some Truths – Bliss Abyss
There is a lot that can be said for sobbing acid casualties. What might seem to the Conservative ballot-casting outsider like a drooling comatose corpse slumped in the corner of a dance floor is, in fact, a creature that has traversed the finer fragments of inner space. It has seen truths of unfathomable magnitude and …