Lee Switzer-Woolf – Annihilation Signals (Album Review)
Annihilation Signals is the second solo album of Reading-based singer-songwriter Lee Switzer-Woolf. The follow-up to 2022’s Scientific Automatic Palmistry, the album centers around Switzer-Woolf’s candid and heart-on-the-sleeve songwriting while folding in a variegated backdrop of sounds; from affected vocals and processed drum beats to whirling keys and an assemblage ofContinue Reading
Single Reviews: 5 May 2023: Eydís Evensen, Tara Jam, Hudba Lyrika, Bad Flamingo, Neighborhood Libraries
Photo by Inga Seliverstova Eydís Evensen – Tranquillant neoclassical Eydís Evensen · Tranquillant Icelandic pianist and composer Eydís Evensen expertly balances the moody and tense atmosphere of her recent single, “Tranquillant”, with cinematic strings, neoclassical piano ponderances, and jazzy wind instrumentation. The track is taken from Evensen’s second album, TheContinue Reading
Cabbaggage – Microscripts (Album Review)
While the name of Vancouverite Levi Kempster’s musical project, Cabbaggage, is a befuddling assemblage of letters, his music is anything but. Kempster’s simplistic musical phrases utilise the emotionally stirring capabilities of music to craft alluringly escapist, reverb-laden soundscapes that are easily identifiable and dissectible. Cabbaggage’s recent album Microscripts is dedicated to RobertContinue Reading
Single Reviews: 1 May 2023: Silky Disturbance, Gunnar Spardel, Sutras, Inezona
Photo by Polina Romanenko Silky Disturbance – Indebted To You alternative Bristolian experimenters Silky Disturbance hammer into psychedelic depths on “Indebted To You”, an idiosyncratic cut from the group’s new album LensContinue Reading
Bodywash – I Held the Shape While I Could (Album Review)
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
Single Reviews: 25 April 2023: mal sounds, Magz, ODOCOIL, Hana McCartney
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
Single Reviews: 21 April 2023: Courtney Farren, Gaetha, Klinger, Movie Club, The Cosmic Hour
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 – Second Exploration: The Music of Ben Wolkins (Album Review)
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
Album Reviews: Natural Information Society, Godcaster, Living Pictures
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
Online Improvisation and The Art of Chance: An Interview With The United Isolation Ensemble
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