Bow & Clatter by Many Pretty Blooms (Album Review)
Another summer is almost over, and another autumn is just around the corner. This time of year offers precious moments of retrospection; as the days get shorter, our thoughts contradictorily have more room to grow. Though there is a bittersweet tinge to the dwindling warmth, failed romances, and missed opportunities,Continue Reading
Sleepwalker by Hourloupe (Album Review)
In the world of representational knowledge, words can deliver a weight of cultural associations. Even a word as simple as ‘shadow’ can instill in the receiver a world of dark and unknown mysticism. On the other hand, non-representational knowledge, such as music, relies only on the intuitive responses of theContinue Reading
Nutrients – Different Bridges (Album Review)
The trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic is still fresh in the collective consciousness. Two years ago, no matter how much one might like to forget, the world changed. Billions of people were cast into lockdown. Musically, it produced what is now known as the “lockdown album”; albums that suggestively encapsulateContinue Reading
Custom Slaughter by Slime Lush (Album Review)
Slime Lush are a post-punk jam-rock band from Oklahoma, USA, and their brand of rough-and-ready rock is both easily accessible and uniquely engaging. Across the eight tracks of varying length on their debut album, “Custom Slaughter”, one can find enjoyable melodies, sweet guitar hooks, and passages of more abstract andContinue Reading
Dash Hammerstein – Time Travel – Hot Pretzel (EP Review)
Dash Hammerstein is an alternative folk singer from Brooklyn who upholds musical traditions while imbuing his songs with a modern perspective built around spiritual disenchantment and the absurd. His latest EP, “Time Travel – Hot Pretzel”, is a waggish and exciting take on coffeehouse folk, chamber pop and folktronica thatContinue Reading
Ruins – Pure at Heart (Album Review)
Ruins are a Liverpudlian alternative pop-duo who create emotive soundscapes with rock-steady drum machines, gentle guitars, and falsetto vocals. Vocalist Lloyd Rock has a dulcet and high-pitched voice, and when coupled with the sometimes bizarre music of Nik Kavanagh, Ruins create a highly distinctive sound. There is a calming gushContinue Reading
Saun Santipreecha – Dandelye (Album Review)
LA-based Thai musician Saun Santipreecha knows about dichotomies. His recent album “Dandelye” juxtaposes surreal ambient soundscapes with mysterious musical structures across six tracks of sprawling scope. Dandelye is an anglicized form of the Thai word for ‘dandelion’, a flower seen as a weed in LA but rare in Santipreecha’s native Thailand. ThisContinue Reading
Single Reviews: 3 July 2022: Ultraflex, Foreign Television, Public Circuit, BADVRIL, Gemma Rogers
Photo by Andrea Ch Ultraflex – Mi Vuoi Uplifting trance Ultraflex are an enigmatic trance duo from Germany, and their recent single “Mi Vuoi” is a deep and hypnotic fusion of ambient pop, jazz, and EDM. This track is teeming with skill and talent; from the changing rhythms and aceContinue Reading
Radagast the Brown – The More They Tell Me About You, The Less I Believe Them (Album Review)
Radagast the Brown is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium, but also the moniker of ambient composer and producer Ezekiel James Hampton from Napa, California. The godfather of ambient music, Brian Eno, once described that genre as being “as ignorable as it is interesting.”, yet theContinue Reading
Fantømex – Terraformed (EP Review)
Elon Musk wants to terraform Mars. He says this is to ensure the future survival of humanity but is there a better example of a ‘God complex’? Being responsible for creating literal worlds and the artificial manipulation of planets is a fascinating concept, but it exposes the darker ambitions ofContinue Reading