Avant Pop
Track/Video: Maud The Moth previews new album ‘The Distaff’ with the cathartic ‘Siphonophores’.
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 connectivity. Her songs …
Album Review: Kee Avil -‘Spine’: experimental pop with a thrilling, raw urgency from the Montreal artist.
Two years ago Montreal producer Kee Avil’s debut for Constellation ‘Crease’ turned heads with its leftfield pop mosaicism, an intricate patterning of vocal, sound and instrumental shapes set with experimental glue but framed in song form. Now at last we have the follow up ‘Spine’, again via Constellation, and a chance to engage with Avil’s …
Track/Video: Electronic artist I Am Fya previews new single ‘The Sun Will Kill Me’ – dub dropping beats with a story to tell.
You can sense the temperature rising around Brighton based artist I Am Fya. Her punchy debut as producer/ composer ‘A Womxn’ in 2019, a dark dub, twitchy glitch, post-mod RnB drill down into socio-sexual dynamics, was some announcement. A following string of forthright, energetic digi-releases then maintained the pace before last year’s single ‘Consciousness’, her …
Track/Video: Geneva’s own lo-fi mini choir Alice preview new album ‘L’Oiseau Magnifique’- avant-folk with art-punk edge.
As sixties singer-poet Pete Brown maintained ‘Things may come and things may go but the art-school dance goes on forever’. Well Genevan trio Alice would definitely go down well at that kind of hop. Formed in 2018 to perform at the Swiss city’s Deviant Art Festival by mother and daughter Yvonne and Lisa Harder plus …
Album Review: Flash Amazonas – Uva-Uva : fizzing, physical pop-art, art-pop.
Somehow the art pop partnership that is Flash Amazonas manages to fizz on the same wavelength although they admit to taking a leftfield approach to creating their very own avant soundscape. Since meeting at the Red Bull Music Academy in 2015 Madrid based alt-pop purveyor Julian Mayorga and Japanese producer/instrumentalist Ryota Miyake has gradually morphed …
Album Review: Soyuz – ‘Force Of The Wind’ : “This is Pop”, Belarus meets Brazil style.
The matter of music can be transient. Yes there are roots and traditions but essentially soundscapes demand no borders. Musical minds are left to wander free and for Belarusian collective SOYUZ that means from Minsk across continents to Brazil, a journey that’s now been captured on their new album ‘Force of the Wind’, available right …
PREMIERE: Astrologer announces second EP for next month, shares sprawling lead track ‘Détente’
Last year, the Phoenix-based ‘avant-pop’ project Astrologer (led by Drew Cline) made their debut with the riveting Legerdemain (L) EP, and today they’re announcing the complementary 6-song set that makes up the band’s second release. It’s out next month, and to coincide with the announcement they’re sharing three-part lead track ‘Détente’, which features vocal contributions …
Album Review: Lia Hide – The Missing Fourth Guest
Greek avant-pop artist Lia Hide has made a name for herself across Europe for her unique approach to experimental blending dark, electronic production with her soaring vocals. The new album ‘The Missing Fourth Guest’ released via Conch Town Records showcases some of her finest work to date with a series of jazz infused electronic-pop soundscapes …