blues
album review: benmont tench: the melancholy season.
This is an album of absolute luxury. Each track on ‘The Melancholy Season’ is decadent and opulent, the vocals from Tench are soothing and velvety throughout while the strings that accompany the vocals are mesmerising and tranquil, all which intertwine with the other elements to envelop the listener in swathes of cascading and lapping tides …
Album Review: Scandinavian blues/roots heavyweights, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado release 9th studio album, House of Sticks
For the uninitiated, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado are an 8-piece blues/roots band hailing from Denmark. With a traditional set up of vocals, guitars, bass and drums, they are joined by piano/keyboards, woodwind, brass and strings, amongst others, and multiple backing vocalists. The band have spent the last two decades traversing Europe, covering almost …
Album Review: Beretta & Sullivan to release debut LP, The Loft Recordings ahead of trip to the International Blues Challenge in USA.
Australia continues to carve out a rich tradition of excellent blues musicians and artists, a history which stretches back into the 1950’s and continues to this very day, and is seemingly going from strength to strength. To that end, winners of the solo/duo section of the 2024 Sydney Blues Challenge, Nathan Beretta and Dan Sullivan …
Album Review: Frank Sultana proves his legacy to the Oz blues scene and beyond with release of powerhouse new album, Have Band Will Travel.
Still riding on the coat-tails of his win in the 2023 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, Frank Sultana has kept busy writing and recording, with the resultant The Ghosts of Sun 2023 being quickly followed up by this masterful release, Have Band, Will Travel. While largely steeped in blues tradition, this album also nods …
Video Premiere: Bones Shake – Let Go
Bones Shake are a scuzzy, fuzz enthused garage rock trio from Manchester. Today they announce their third LP Purge, set for release on Sister9 Recordings on 4 October, and to accompany the news BSM is pleased to bring you the premiere of the video for ‘Let Go.’ Bones Shake play everything to the extreme; violent …
Live Review + Galleries: Bluesfest Byron Bay – Day 5, Monday 01.04.2024
So it came to pass that we finally made our way to the final day. There is a sense of relief, coupled with the same sense of excitement that you feel on each of the other days as you await the day, pensively looking forward to your chosen artists (or the sometime, inevitable changes of …
News: …..and so it began: Bluesfest Byron Bay Campers Night Wednesday 27.03.2024
Traditionally, Bluesfest Byron Bay commences on the Thursday before Easter, and goes through until Easter Monday, providing adoring crowds a full 5 day music extravaganza. However, in the last two years, and since recovering from shutdowns to its’ 2020 and 2021 festivals, Bluesfest Byron Bay has rewarded its’ early-bird campers, who arrive on the Wednesday …
Album Review: Cedric Burnside brings us a breath of fresh air with some sweet Hill Country Love
Grammy Award winning bluesman, Cedric Burnside returns with his latest long-play offering, Hill Country Love, 14 tracks of authentic Mississippi hill country blues which is the follow-up to his Grammy Award winning album of 2021, I Be Trying. Not content to sit on his laurels, the album sees Burnside digging into both his personal life …
Premiere: Naarm/Melbourne chanteuse Charlie Lane unveils the enigmatic and slow burning fuse that is ‘Gold Drips’, with launch date announced.
We are honoured to premiere the new track ‘Gold Drips’ from Naarm/Melbourne chanteuse Charlie Lane. We are taken on a smooth dappling journey in this soul-inflected track that soars feely in the atmosphere like an sea bird, punctuated by a fuzzy wild guitar break and an insistent driving rhythm. Co-written and produced by Adam Jack …
News: US bluesman, Albert Cummings set to release new album, Strong
Guitar-slinger, Albert Cummings has written and recorded his third album for release on his own indie label imprint, Ivy Music Company, and will be his eleventh overall album in a career spanning back to the 1990’s. Cummings began his musical journey as a self-taught banjo player, but soon progressed to guitar after seeing Stevie Ray …