Sudden Elevation may be Icelander Ólöf Arnalds’ third album, but it remains a landmark, being her first sung wholly in English. For this I’m awkwardly grateful as reviewing it is my first encounter with her otherworldly brand of folk. However, as a latecomer I find myself trailing behind an influential admirer of Arnalds who has already hit […]
Look Inside is the second album from Norwegian artist Nils Bech. His first critically acclaimed album Look Back, released in 2010, catapulted him onto the world stage. His music is indefinable by any one genre. It is the coming together of art, performance and music, giving birth to the hauntingly beautiful, concept that Nils Bech […]
Sekou Kouyate and Joe Driscoll present us with their first collaborative album, Faya, a collection of songs, which span genres from around the world. Communicating through music they have produced an album, which incorporates Kouyate’s sounds of Africa and Driscoll’s eclectic mix of New York bedroom-music styles. It’s an easy-listening reggae-funky-hiphop-afrobeat-rap-rock cocktail that’s refreshing and […]
Soul singer and funk guitarist Cody Chesnutt is back with his second album, a decade and a few EPs separating them both. Landing On A Hundred is a neo-soul and funk album with all the musical flex of a 70s classic. The sound he’s gone for is BIG in every sense –with bold melodies, a […]
It’s not for nothing that Rolling Stone magazine named The Velvet Underground & Nico the most prophetic album of all time. If the hippies hoped that universal fraternity, peace and love would be the basis for some teleological, utopian future, it is Lou Reed’s vision that – however unhappily – dominates contemporary society. 60s counter […]
American dream-pop, shoegaze combo Tamaryn are named after New Zealand-born Tamaryn, who provides soft girlish vocals, and guitarist Rex John Shelverton (Vue, Portraits of Past), who does the instrumentation and plays the role of producer. Tender New Signs is the follow up to their first full length album, The Waves, and in making this album […]
Psych rock maverick Ty Segall is a man in a hurry. Not content with releasing two excellent albums already this year, namely the collaboration with White Fence’s Tim Presley, Hair, and Slaughterhouse, coming under the Ty Segall Band ‘nom de plume’, we now find ourselves with a third, Twins, which is officially a follow up […]
As someone who loves music, but isn’t a musician, I often wonder what inspires musicians to make music, and what they aim to achieve from making it. Errors always seem ambitious, yet understated, making music that sounds vast and sprawling, but with meticulous attention to detail. As a dance music fan, I love the range […]
Googling Toy was a fruitless task at the start of the year. There was a certain buzz around the band after a successful support slot with The Horrors, but internet presence was otherwise non-existent. Their headline tour in spring attracted many curious enthusiasts who had their ear to the ground, and they were very much rewarded […]
He sounds like a dark superhero nemesis haunting the alleys and sidewalks of some fictional North American future city. Or perhaps the murky pools that lie within the darker recesses of our psyches. In fact, he is Josh Davis, ironically from the Northern Californian town of… Davis, and for the last 20 years he has […]