album
Album Review: Maple Glider’s ‘To Enjoy is the Only Thing’ is a breathtaking debut filled with an exquisite sense of longing and beauty
Maple Glider – the moniker of Melbourne resident Tori Zietsch – has a voice and delivery that is like someone whispering softly in your ear: it’s close and warm and very personal. There is a delicious immediacy to her music – recalling that Danish concept of Hyyge – a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality …
Album Review: Quivers unveil the epic, jangling, melancholy indie pop masterpiece of ‘Golden Doubt’ and announce Australia-wide tour.
Starting in the tiny southern capital of Hobart at the edge of the world before moving, as bands often do, to Melbourne, Quivers have caught global attention with their unique brand of melancholy indie pop: a classic antipodean style of jangling guitars and yearning vocals, burnished a little more brightly than many peers with a …
Album Review: Restless Leg lay out an enticing ‘Dream Buffet’ and announce tour
I’m going to call it right now, and you heard it first here (maybe). I’ve been alluding to it in a number of reviews I’ve written over the past 18 months but there is an emerging movement – let’s call it the Marrickville Sound – that has dominated the indie scene in Australia. Emanating from …
Album Review: Steve Kilbey & the Winged Heels soar into another celestial sphere with double album ‘The Hall of Counterfeits’, plus tour news
It is difficult to comprehend that in the space of a little over twelve months, Steve Kilbey has released three monumental albums under various guises (read my reviews of ‘Chryse Planitia‘ with Gareth Koch, ‘Jupiter 13‘ with Martin Kennedy, ‘Eleven Women‘ as a solo effort). And now Kilbey gifts us the monumental double album ‘The …
Album review: Portico Quartet – ‘Terrain’: a truly reflective journey
PORTICO QUARTET have always been a vibe. Since their formation, in my opinion they’re one of the few instrumental jazz-psyechedelic-electronic bands to live up to that musical blend, and furthermore, they’ve always been able to tell a story. Their latest album, Terrain, actually exceeded all my expectations in that sense, delivering a much more emotionally …
Album Review: Allday’s ‘Drinking With My Smoking Friends’ is an atmospheric masterclass in dreamy, melancholic indie pop
Adelaide born but now Melbourne resident Allday (the moniker of Tom Gaynor) magnificent album ‘Drinking With My Smoking Friends’ has been anticipated by a series of stunning singles that have indicated the presence of a special artist. Known more for rap, this album is a new turn – melodic dream pop that is sparkling. Opening track ‘Void’ is …
See: Album – ‘New And Annoying’: Québécois punk-funkers set out on a Squarepusheresque glide of glitch
QUESTION. Do you love yourself a bit of itchy, broken, nay, fractured and exploded, electronic beat? If someone says words like Aphex and Squarepusher to you, do your eyes light up at the thought of the polyrhythmically torn and juddering, throwing your limbs into new twists? Reckon you’re gonna have room in your life for …
Album Review: BSÍ’s doubled edged ‘Sometimes depressed…but always anti-fascist’ is a dream pop delight with some serrated edges.
There are two sides to this story: Icelandic duo BSÍ have released an album of two sides in ‘Sometimes depressed…but always antifascist’. Side one – sometimes depressed – is a collection of dream pop vignettes: restrained, delicate and eminently beautiful tracks that are reflective and melodic. Side two – always antifascist – presents some slightly …
Album Review: Tori Forsyth’s ‘Provlépseis’ is a collection of the most satisfyingly visceral indie rock anthems you could hear this year
‘Provlépseis’ means predictions in Greek, and in the new album from Tori Forsyth, out through Island Records Australia and UMA, becomes a mysterious label for a blistering, visceral piece of work with a pop heart and barbed-wire veins. Combining Forsyth’s swooping, ascendant vocals with chunky, thundering guitars and an insistent driving rhythm gives wings to …
Album Review: The Chills deliver an emotional and shining masterpiece in ‘Scatterbrain’
Deep within the fabric of the lush material in ‘Scatterbrain’, the new album from New Zealand legends The Chills, is an indelible and poignant thread that binds the album together – wry observations on the temporality of life and the transience of existence; delivered with a poetic simplicity and compassion. It is no wonder such …