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SEE: Sofie – ‘Georgia Waves’: elegant piano songsmithery
VIENNA’S Sofie Fatourechi has moved from behind the scenes at California’s ice-cool Stone’s Throw imprint to hog a little of the spotlight, with a very finely crafted album of sophisticated, wholly European pop, Cult Survivor, released in June. We reviewed it here, found much to love in the autobiographical, nuanced songcraft; we said of it: …
SEE: Jerry Joseph – ‘Sugar Smacks’: tellin’ it like it is with The Drive-By Truckers
JERRY JOSEPH is a singer who’s been there, got the tee-shirt; hell, got the entire arm-sleeve tattoo. He made his first steps into music after living a little on the wild side as a kid growing up in San Diego and, in order to quell his waywardness, his folks sent him to boarding school in …
SEE: Winter Gardens – ‘Tapestry’: dark, velvet dreampop
THE song hums in quietly on the faintest guitar shimmer. One deep keyboard chord lends heft and depth. And then vocalist Ananda appears, a ghostly image, made more eerie yet by mime make-up: she’s some shade here to sing, bringing forth a tale. Her voice is beguiling, breathy. And so we’re into the ethereal world …
SEE: Less Bells – ‘The Fang’: fashioning beauty from grief for Kranky
YOU may well have heard Julie Carpenter, if you have not yet heard of her. A graduate of the University of North Texas, multi-instrumentalist and composer Julie has been called upon to add violins to work by the Eels and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, amongst others. But she has also been creating deep, ambient drone …
SEE: Tiga & Hudson Mohawke – ‘Love Minus Zero’: transatlantic dance pop euphoria
THE SPHERE of dance music is one of constant, healthy cross-fertilisation and contrast, of new sounds arising. But when Warp’s leftfield hiphop and breaks reinventor Hudson Mohawke began working with Canadian electroclash hit-scorer Tiga, even the latter had to admit it looked a stretch. He said that it “seems kind of unlikely on paper, but …
SEE: El Goodo’s ‘The Grey Tower’ psychs like The Seeds
QUIETLY working to their own, slower calendar in the Vale of Neath since the 20th flipped to the 21st, Wales’s El Goodo offer up pebbles of psych-folk-country goodness for anyone who steps through their door. We should trust their hospitality. Take that name. Yes, of course it namechecks Big Star. How can we not be …
SEE: Ed Harcourt returns, ‘Drowning in Dreams’
FOLLOWING his last album, 2018’s Beyond The End, dashing singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt has announced his ninth studio album, which is due in mid-September, will also be a set free of vocals – and a counterpoint to his previous. Monochrome To Colour will also be big, cinematic, and evocative, but Ed promises that this one will …
SEE: Max Cooper – ‘Swarm’: infectious IDM with an environmental edge
FOR me, Max Cooper has been one of those people whose tracks come on during Mary Anne Hobbs’ 6Music show in the car, and I think: “Wow, what was that?,” scrabbling to commit the name and the textual virtuosity to memory. But this time I won’t be tripped up: “Swarm” is the first track from …
PREMIERE: See The Citrus Clouds’ ‘A Pastel Sky’: a marvellous shoegaze rush
PHOENIX, Arizona is a place for amazing skies: we know this from that famed Orb sample of Rickie Lee Jones in childhood wonderment as used on their ambient-tech crossover hit, “Little Fluffy Clouds.” And Citrus Clouds, the Phoenician three-piece comprised of bassist and singer Stacie Huttleston, singer-guitarist Erick Pineda and drummer Angelica Pedrego, draw inspiration …
SEE: Emily Barker – ‘The Woman Who Planted Trees’: bell-clear Americana
EMILY BARKER, the British-based, Wallander theme-gracing singer-songwriter, has released a beautifully animated lyric video for her track “The Woman Who Planted Trees”, ahead of her new album, A Dark Murmuration of Words, which Thirty Tiger will be releasing on September 4th. And Emily, who grew up in Western Australia, brought an African ecological activist and …