Montréalers Chris Steward and Rosie Long Decter make up Bodywash, a musical duo who flirt with the ethereal on their second album, I Held the Shape While I Could, a polished collection of 12 atmosphere-heavy shoegaze pop tunes blasted into overdrive. ‘Ethereal’ is a term thrown about too often inContinue Reading
Photo by Jill Evans mal sounds – SAY WHAT YOU NEED bedroom pop The music of New York guitarist, singer, and performer mal sounds is terrifically sweet on the outside, quietly nourishing on the inside. Straightforward drums, twinkling emo guitars, elusive textures, and richly soulful vocals collide on “SAYContinue Reading
Photo by Zina Zabudkina Courtney Farren – Happy alternative pop San-Franciscan vagabond Courtney Farren spent much of her youth and young-adult life moving around. This has lent a sense of experience and wisdom to her songs, which all have a youthful vivacity even as they turn to low-tempo sadcore introspection. AlthoughContinue Reading
Signal Quartet are a Michigander jazz ensemble composed of Ben Wolkins on trumpet and flugelhorn, Ian Blunden on guitar, Eric Nachtrab on bass, and Sean Perlmutter on drums. Wolkins’ vision is showcased on the group’s second album, Second Exploration: The Music of Ben Wolkins, which sees the quartet continueContinue Reading
Photo by Eagan Hsu Natural Information Society – Since Time is Gravity experimental/jazz/folk Natural Information Society’s epic, carefree experimentalism rings out across Since Time is Gravity, an album of spacious and meditative instrumental music. This massage-like music features repetitive and drawn-out acoustic melodies, such as on “Murmuration”. However, this masseuseContinue Reading
The United Isolation Ensemble was created during the pandemic as a technology-driven attempt to find escapism through aleatory music. It’s a remote, non-realtime equivalent of the monthly open jam night Quadelectronic, which has been running since 2008 in Leicester. When lockdown began in March 2020, Chris Conway, who had been theContinue Reading
Photo by Barthelemy de Mazenod Daniel Luke – Chatterbox neoclassical Dublin-based composer Daniel Luke deals in straightforward solo piano compositions that are quick, airy, and in search of beauty, as evidenced on his recent single “Chatterbox,” which segues from merry-go-round-like nausea to a more classically beautiful ostinato, all in underContinue Reading
London-based composer and producer Marcus Herne adapts practices from classical minimalism, experimental sound design and electronic music to create an ultra-environmental sonic atmosphere on his latest EP, “Forms Redux”, which serves as a continuation of his 2021 release, “Forms,” and explores the delicate balance between the beauty and brutality ofContinue Reading
Father of the smartphone Steve Jobs offered some remarkable quotes during his lifetime, but perhaps none encapsulated his ideology of ‘less is more’ than: “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” This minimalist approach to problem solvingContinue Reading
Québecois-born, Pittsburgh-based composer, violonist, and producer Pier-Luc Boivin has been operating as Le Grand Salon since 2015. His latest EP, “L’Architecture de l’Impermanence”, is a bold and experimental take on contemporary classical composition that will challenge and reward listeners with its tense harmonies, intricate textures, and haunting melodies. The EP’sContinue Reading