Consumed in Key – Plastikman and Chilly Gonzales In 1998 Richie Hawtin, aka Plastikman, released Consumed, an IDM album that is widely considered to be his defining work and which the New York Times said was too tense to be considered New Age; they are/were right. Consumed In Key is a collaboration betweenContinue Reading
Photo by Hayes Potter The Dizzying Parade – Good Good Blood indie/lo-fi If a smorgasbord of lo-fi, indie, electronica, and pop sounds appetizing to you, it’s likely you’ll enjoy The Dizzying Parade by Mirfield artist Good Good Blood. Beatle-esque A Clean Slate is a successful amalgam of the album’s better moments; the considered melodyContinue Reading
Any band that has a pun in their name immediately piques my interest. From Korea’s Seoulful capital, and also based in London, Soul Delivery are a group of musicians creating top-quality jazz-funk, collected here across the twelve tracks on their new album ‘Foodcourt’. Instrumental opener ‘Driving Into Magic Hour’, showcases the group’sContinue Reading
“If everybody’s looking through me, I don’t exist” sings Vicky Egam, lead vocalist of Torontonian indie rockers Fjord Mustang on Five Years, the impressive opening track on their newest album ‘Solitaire’. With a sound close to compatriots Alvvays, cool guitars, and rimshots-for-hi-hats drums provide a gentle, nineties college radio groove for the beguilingContinue Reading
Delay 45 are a jazz ensemble from Sydney, Australia. Just as that cosmopolitan city is set into its vast red continent, the group set traditional jazz elements; piano, trumpet, bass, and drums, into a vast experimental and improvisational landscape. Their latest work, Flux, explores themes of “notions of flow, movement, and shape.”Continue Reading
Monologues is the most recent album from London-based ambient producer Iván Muela. Released on the Rusted Tone tape label, the album sees the artist develop intense and brooding atmospheres over five tracks. Opener Whisper is a gentle introduction, heavily effected piano tones aimlessly but happily segueing into a tapestry of ambiences and foley. Howl seesContinue Reading
Liverpudlian-cum-Kerry man Laurie Shaw is a hard artist to keep up with. By the time you’ve got around to listening to his new album, another one has been released. Ostensibly his seventeenth solo album (his Breaking Tunes page claims over eighty albums have been created across various projects) The Great Southern finds the writer ‘”Continue Reading
A stunning release from Korean multi-instrumentalist composer Park Jiha, The Gleam ruminates on the essence of light, that ubiquitous electromagnetic radiation that comes and goes as does the day and night. Performed entirely solo, the recordings feature instruments ranging from the glockenspiel to the saenghwang, a traditional Korean wind instrument. TheContinue Reading
An ambitious eighteen-track project recorded “in the field, from the grassroots up’” on various islands across the Pacific and Indian ocean, Small Island Big Song is a beguiling document of some of the world’s most criminally underappreciated musicians. Music producer Tim Cole and project manager BaoBao had a vision to document the mostContinue Reading
Sergiu Celibidache once described time as a ‘condition’ by which ‘the multitude of information contained in sound can be reduced to a unity.’ On Formations by Sunhaus, the tracks seemingly escape from the chains of tempo, smearing notes, and musical voices across a spectrum of electronics and glitches. Formations by Sunhaus IfContinue Reading