indie albums
Album review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bill Callahan – ‘Blind Date Party’: a rolling thunder lockdown revue of the Drag City stable, cast in cover versions
NOTHING at all, really. That, for a lifer musician with new songs in the back pocket, older ones to take out and share with fans on the road across the country and the world, no chance to get into a proper studio even, if it is only to kinda dick around and have a laugh …
Album review: Mumble Tide – ‘Everything Ugly’: a short, sweet-as mini-album burst from the insouciant Bristolians on their way to massive things
MUMBLE TIDE have a sweet and unusual back story: the Bristol bedroom pop duo of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers first met through a Gumtree ad which singer Gina had placed, looking for a bassist. But there was a proper meeting of minds, they saw that the musical thing they had going on was more …
Album review: David Christian & The Pinecone Orchestra – ‘For Those We Met On The Way’: Comet Gain man sends a folk-rock postcard, looking back with sadness but without anger
THIS record begins not in the virus, lockdown, careers suddenly and virally iced, like the back story of so many records of recent times. Which in itself, may be a relief of sorts. No: this record begins with that other cultural tragedy of our isles and times. B. B. Can I even say it? Brexit. …
Album review: Ben Chasny – ‘The Intimate Landscape’: Six Organs’ driving light delivers an instrumental fingerstyle masterclass
LIKE all of us, I guess, Ben Chasny, the man behind the psychedelic guitar explorers Six Organs of Admittance, is a person of many facets; forget the personal here, we’re concerned with the musical. There’s the more carefree, garagey Ben we’ve seen laying down frayed and wholly lovable tunes, sometimes teetering on the edge of …
EP: Pam Risourié – So Be It Eternity
Out on Indie label Shore Dive Records (based in Brighton, England), is the second EP by the Paris based Dreampop/Blackgaze band, Pam Risourié. The EP is called ‘So Be It Eternity’ and is available through Shore Dive Records Bandcamp Page here Opening with the gentle, softly first track, ‘Holding You As A New Past’, Pam …
Album review: Penelope Isles – ‘Which Way To Happy’: Jack and Lily line up a second set of ambitious, technicolour pop psych
PENELOPE ISLES, the gorgeous Brighton combo led by brother and sister Jack and Lily Wolter, are releasing their second album this week – that’s cause for joy as winter looms. surely. Until The Tide Comes In, their album from 2019 and first for Simon Raymonde’s excellent Bella Union imprint, was a slice of shoegazey guitar …
Album review: David Lance Callahan – ‘English Primitive I’: raw punk-raga and a septet of scorching tales
OVER two phases of potent reports from the real England, with an interregnum of two decades between, David Lance Callahan and The Wolfhounds have consistently filed detailed documentation from the real England – not the England of climbing roses and parental-secured internships and unearned increments, but the England I knew and grew up with: the …
Album review: Mini Trees – “Always In Motion”
Run For Cover confirm themselves as one the go-to labels for “soft” emo
Album Review: SUNGAZE – This Dream
Sungaze’s new album This Dream truly reflects its title, it is a dream. Sungaze, made up of husband and wife duo Ian Hilvert and Ivory Snow have only been producing albums since 2019, making This Dream only their second album ever. The album does not break new ground in the genre of dream pop but …
Album: Dim Gray – Flown
After an 8 year gestation period, Norwegian band Dim Gray have shared their debut full length ‘Flown’. A concept record with intertwining songs structured as one continuous story, the album relates a vivid tale of loss and loneliness that constantly twists and turns, with intimate and spatial moments offset with massive and colourful soundscapes. Describing …