ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 1 SEPTEMBER 2023

The Autumn release schedule limbering up nicely with this week’s selection summarised here. Lathe of Heaven               Bound by Naked Skies American band taking their name from an Ursula Le Guin novel and their literary influences are balanced with their debt to new wave and post-punk. Puma Blue          Holy Waters A chronicle of the graciousness […]
The latest release from P.G. Six, a multi-instrumentalist attached to iconic indie label Drag City, breaks what has been his 12-year hiatus from making music. ‘Murmurs and Whispers,’ comprised of 9 songs, is an album of great sparsity – perhaps contradictory to expectation, the artist ending his silence with a selection of subtle arrangements. However, […]

ALBUM REVIEW – P.G. SIX: MURMURS AND WHISPERS

ALBUM REVIEW – BOWES ROAD BAND: BACK IN THE HCA

When is a reissue not a reissue? Perhaps this can become the music fan’s equivalent of the “if a tree falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound” philosophical conundrum. The original release in 1972 of ‘Back in the HCA’ by Bowes Road Band was limited to […]
August ends on a bumper week with plenty of excellent releases. Here is the Silent Radio guide. Wreckless Eric                   Leisureland        It marks a return to his more ramshackle world of recording – guitars and temperamentally unpredictable analogue keyboards, beatboxes and loops in conjunction with a real drummer. The album considers the idea of seaside towns […]

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 25 AUGUST 2023

ALBUM REVIEW: SUN’S SIGNATURE: SUN’S SIGNATURE EXTENDED

The first words on Sun Signature’s extended EP, “the opening of a window onto rapture”, are an apt description of what is to follow. When the original EP was released in 2022, it marked the first new music from Elizabeth Fraser for 13 years. Blessed with one of the few voices that could genuinely be […]
 After witnessing OSEES smash it up big style in Liverpool this year, I was excited to hear the latest recording in a constantly evolving discography headed by the prolific and seemingly ageless J. Dwyer. Playing for around 2 hours at Invisible Wind Factory a few months ago, the duelling drummers and wailing guitar boys brought […]

ALBUM REVIEW – OSEES: INTERCEPTED MESSAGE

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 18 AUGUST 2023

An assorted range of goodies summarised in Silent Radio’s weekly roundup of new releases. Grace Potter      Mother Earth     Singer-songwriter with an expansive and occasionally blistering soundscape of soulful rock, roots, funk, country, and R&B. Final track, the ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ era Fiona Apple-esque ‘Masterpiece’ wins the accolade of Song of the Week. OSEES                   […]
‘Bunny’, the third album from Willie J Healey, has a timeless quality. It conjures tunes blaring from the radio on carefree sunny days during childhood but manages the precious knack of sounding reassuringly familiar yet fresh. There are distinct echoes of the 1970s in some of its reference points (David Bowie’s relatively unknown ‘The Gouster’ […]

ALBUM REVIEW – WILLIE J HEALEY: BUNNY

ALBUM REVIEW: SPELLLING: SPELLLING & THE MYSTERY SCHOOL

SPELLLING’s ‘The Turning Wheel’ was one of 2021’s happiest musical surprises. A record that was astonishing in its scope, a cosmic soul, alt-pop delight brimming with melodrama and personnel (31 collaborating musicians). It represented a huge leap from Chrystia Cabral’s (who performs under the orthographically challenged name of SPELLLING) previous two smaller scale albums, 2017’s […]
In the latter half of the 1990s, four musicians from Milton Keynes were at the nadir of their career as part of experimental rock outfit Supakarma: recording their debut album at the Great Linford Manor studio (which had previously welcomed artists like PJ Harvey and the Charlatans) following a successful run of shows on the […]

ALBUM REVIEW – SUPAKARMA: SUPAKARMA