ALBUM REVIEW – PLANTOID: FLARE

Anyone looking for an easy listen should avoid Plantoid. Their debut album, ‘Terrapath’, had moments of magic but was so frenetic in its constantly shifting math rock riffs, jazzy perambulations and tempo changes as to be somewhat exhausting and impenetrable. Fortunately, their follow-up, ‘Flare’, sees them putting the progress into progressive. While it maintains their […]
Björk once described Ólöf Arnalds as “somewhere between a child and an old woman.” Clearly, this was not intended as an insult and it neatly encapsulates the charms that she brings to her fifth album, ‘Spíra’, which translates as Sprouts. Sometimes those polar opposites in age have similarities. The honesty and openness of childhood can […]

ALBUM REVIEW – OLOF ARNALDS: SPIRA

ALBUM REVIEW – CUBZOA: UNFOLD IN THE SKY

There is a strong sense of place to Cubzoa’s debut album, ‘Unfold In The Sky’. Jack Wolter takes the listener to his current home (Brighton), his previous home (the Isle of Man), Barcelona and even outer space. In comparison with the more straightforwardly shoegaze based music that he releases with his sister as Penelope Isles, […]
“The community we’ve built our life around – artists, musicians and the people who gravitate to these things as a way of communicating – are struggling to reconcile how they fit into an increasingly cruel world. This album, the themes and the lyrics are directed towards them because I think there are still reasons to […]

ALBUM REVIEW – MODERN NATURE: THE HEAT WARPS

ALBUM REVIEW – MARISSA NADLER: NEW RADIATIONS

It is easy to perceive the criticisms that could be levelled at ‘New Radiations’. Undeniably, it is glacially one-paced while the absence of percussion makes it unlikely to inspire its listeners to dance or send them out into the world feeling euphoric. However, there is a more powerful flipside to that critique. The similarities between […]
There is always unadulterated glee running through Silent Radio’s suite of luxury offices when a new BC Camplight album is announced. His most recent classic, ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’, was our album of 2023 and the culmination of a run of four records dating back to 2014’s ‘How To Die in the North’ that […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BC CAMPLIGHT: A SOBER CONVERSATION

FEATURE: BC CAMPLIGHT – STUNNING NEW ALBUM ‘A SOBER CONVERSATION’ OUT 27th JUNE. PLAYING MANCHESTER APOLLO 14TH NOVEMBER

The smell of delicious fresh coffee greets my nostrils as we make ourselves comfy at the BC Camplight kitchen table. It’s been two years since we last met, before the release of the brilliant ‘Last Rotation Of Earth’, and although much has changed since then, one thing remains a reassuring constant – Brian ‘BC Camplight’ […]
The greatest music can often be borne of desperation and crisis. While it is impossible to explain why this should be, it is surely linked to the catharsis of creativity being the best coping mechanism. Ezra Furman’s tenth album is a wonderful example of this. On 11 April 2023, she woke ill, limped to the […]

ALBUM REVIEW – EZRA FURMAN: GOODBYE SMALL HEAD

ALBUM REVIEW – REBEKKA KARIJORD: THE BELL TOWER

The seventh album by composer Rebekka Karijord has a multifaceted backstory that captures the imagination. Six years ago, she contacted the linguistics department at Stockholm University who undertake voice research with contact microphones used by people that have hearing and vocal disabilities. After the university made a few microphones for Karijord, she created a sample […]
When an album has such a high-quality, diverse set of influences (Dusty Springfield, Gal Costa, Minnie Riperton, Ennio Morricone, Neil Young and Sly & The Family Stone) and an individual way of realising them, it would require a complex mathematical formula to explain what has happened. It would not be fair to say that Hannah […]

ALBUM REVIEW – HANNAH COHEN: EARTHSTAR MOUNTAIN