ALBUM REVIEW – SHEHERAZAAD: QASR

‘Qasr’ is a difficult record to categorise. It reflects how migration and flux can lead to the integration of sounds that create fresh hybrids. Sheherazaad was born into a musical Asian-American household to parents who were band members and a grandmother who was an Indian classical music producer. Having absorbed the portfolios of Lata Mangeshkar […]
It is a journalistic cliché to describe an artist releasing new material after a hiatus as making a welcome return. However, after all Nadine Shah has been through since the completion of 2020’s ‘Kitchen Sink’, on this occasion it is surely warranted. The intervening years have seen the death of Shah’s terminally ill mother, followed […]

ALBUM REVIEW – NADINE SHAH: FILTHY UNDERNEATH

ALBUM REVIEW – SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM : …OF THE LAST HUMAN BEING

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, after 13 long years in the wilderness, are back with an out there experience almost unexplainable to anyone. ‘…Of The Last Human Being’ is like the under our nose, mystical and magical woods finally deciding to swallow the rest of the world whole. Opening with “Salamander In Two Worlds”, the vocals are […]
Job For A Cowboy’s ‘Moon Healer’ is a welcome boot in the face! The iconic experimental death metal band returns with 8 tracks of what I’m calling “sci-metal”: a raucous mix of psychedelic space imagery (the radical album cover) and dystopian/other worldly lyrical themes inspired by Dick, Poe and other famous writers. Back in the […]

ALBUM REVIEW – JOB FOR A COWBOY: MOON HEALER

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 23 FEBRUARY 2024

It is a particularly fine week for new releases. Here is Silent Radio’s guide. The Children’s Hour        Going Home       Trio consisting of Josephine Foster, David Pajo and Andy Bar infusing elements of psychedelia and The Velvets, while the focus remains on Foster’s soulful voice and vivid lyricism. Nadine Shah      Filthy Underneath            Her first album since […]
Stereolab were one of the most significant bands to emerge in the first half of the 1990s. Initially, no-one sounded like them. It was a period where so-called independent music was dominated by grunge and then Britpop, both regressive and conservative forces. In contrast, Stereolab’s use of motorik rhythms at a time when krautrock was […]

ALBUM REVIEW – LAETITIA SADIER: ROOTING FOR LOVE

ALBUM REVIEW – LAIR: NGELAR

Lair are a six-piece Indonesian psych rock/funk outfit hailing from Jatiwangi, West Java. Their name is pronounced Lah-eer (useful information for requesting their often-startling album in your local independent record store) and is a local dialect version of the word ‘lahir’ meaning birth. They take inspiration from classical/traditional Panturan Tarling which is a form of […]
Records do not have to sound like the circumstances of their creation. Mary Timony’s ‘Untame The Tiger’ was recorded during a two-year period bookended by the death of her parents and which saw the dissolution of a long-term relationship. It was written on head-clearing bike rides and long walks while she was the primary carer […]

ALBUM REVIEW – MARY TIMONY: UNTAME THE TIGER

ALBUM REVIEW – PERSHER: SLEEP WELL

CAUTION: you will not ‘Sleep Well’ to this. This isn’t down to Persher not playing well enough or serenading the listener as well as they could be on their debut, oh no: this electronic-metal-screamo-experimental duo are just having you on. As do a few of their songs’ zany names – my personal favourite being ‘Medieval […]
Dolly Parton once said “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain”, my Aunty Annie once said “country music, the tunes are great but the songs are depressing, first the couple split up, then the bills pile up, then the dog dies!” Two views there, one from Tennessee and one from […]

ALBUM REVIEW: GRANDADDY – BLU WAV