News
Track: Ryley Walker’s ‘Axis Bent’ is a baroque and complex glory; his new album’s out soon
TROUBADOUR genius touched by the hand of the Tim Buckley, collaborator on some very fine albums, sole architect of yet other records that fall very much in that same category, and one of the funniest tweeters in music, Ryley Walker has just dropped a new track, “Axis Bent”, from his early April album Course In …
NEWS: GoGo Penguin announce Blue Note remix album with a stellar cast; hear the MachineDrum remix of ‘Atomised’
THE LEFTFIELD, inventive Mancunian piano trio GoGo Penguin, who work out in the truly creative zones where dancefloor and intelligence and a jazzy feel bump into each other, decided they could be lifelong friends, have announced a remix album for Blue Note, to be entitled GGP/RMX; and boy have they lined up a mighty cast …
Track: Roddy Woomble to release a new solo album in May; hear a first single, ‘Lo Soul’; there’s tour dates, too
FORMER Idlewild man turned solo songcrafter of considerable talent, Roddy Woomble has finally turned his hand to a follow-up to 2017’s The Deluder; he’ll be releasing his new album, Lo! Soul, in May, by way of previewing which he’s just dropped a lead single, the (almost) title track “Lo Soul”. Take a listen and read …
News: Dark Horse Records Set To Release A Joe Strummer Collection Featuring Previously Unreleased Version Of Junco Partner
Punk poet, musician, composer, actor, and style icon, Joe Strummer spent his life smashing musical and cultural boundaries both as the singer of The Clash and as a solo artist. His songs sound as urgent and vital today as when they were written. Calling out social injustices and giving a voice to the struggles of …
See: the video for Masayoshi Fujita’s ‘Thunder’; a flow of sonic delight for electronica and marimba on Erased Tapes
IF YOU like your music deliciously abstract, abstractedly delicious; arranged beautifully, an absolute world of evocative sound; fell hard, for instance, for the albums Ryuichi Sakamoto made with Alva Noto, or are like a kid at Christmas while waiting for the lusciousness of Chihei Hatakeyama’s new album, then attendez-vous, s’il vous plait; for Erased Tapes …
News: New Model Army’s Justin Sullivan announces May solo set; hear the stark storytelling of ‘Amundsen’
NEWS which will delight members of the Militia worldwide: Justin Sullivan, founder of Bradford post-punk legends New Model Army, fierce social advocate and commentator, has announced he’ll be releasing only his second solo album come early May, 18 years on from the previous, Navigating By The Stars. It’s entitled Surrounded, will comprise sixteen new songs …
Track: Belgian’s Whispering Sons issue forth scything double single ‘Santantango’/ ‘Surgery’ and announce new album ‘Several Others’
The raw and visceral ‘Santango’ from Belgian post punk outfit Whispering Sons has the same sort of ominous and threatening pace of anything by The Birthday Party, with a Rowland S Howard level of scything guitar. There is an anxiety, a restless energy that is unnerving and disturbing. It’s brilliant. According to the band, …the …
NEWS: A Certain Ratio announce EP for May, ‘ACR:EPA’; hear a first track, ‘Wonderland’: the Mancunian funk hot streak continues
THEY’RE on such a hot streak these days; Mancunian fun legends A Certain Ratio have been absolutely on fire, creatively so vivacious and so irresistibly taut, since ACR Loco dropped in the final days of last summer, an album of which we commented “effortless Mancunian pop and the tautest funk remade anew.” “Yo Yo Gi” …
See: The video for Matt Emery’s ‘Anxiety Mist’: a samurai waiting for battle as told by solo cello
BRITISH composer Matt Emery, who calls the lovely Injazero Records home, has launched a series of recordings focusing on one instrument at a time; and for his first EP in the series has chosen to shine a light on the cello, which is starting to find a bigger appreciation as a standalone instrument through the …
Penelope Trappes announces final album in her trilogy; hear the sultry electronic noir of ‘Nervous’
BRIGHTON-based, Australian-born mistress of noir electronica, Penelope Trappes, has announced that the concluding album of her Penelope trilogy will be out on her home of the past few years, Houndstooth, at the end of May; and she’s dropped the lush, draping velvet of “Nervous” to curl you like incense smoke into her world. There’s also …