Transgressive Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Alvvays is one of the indie rock scene's most treasured acts and now they are back with a third album that will please fans old and new. There has been a five-year wait since the last LP but it was worth it as Blue Rev reasserts what made the band great while also bringing new sounds. This is the band's longest album to date and maybe their best with big riffs, driving drum rhythms and plenty of great lyric work. It will be supported by a big tour this fall so tune in and get to know.

Review: A lot can change in two years or so. Not least if 2021 saw you release one of the most celebrated records of the current decade, tackling the mental health crisis head on in the midst of a global pandemic. An album that despaired and threw its hands up, declaring that we, collectively, are not alright and something needs to change, all via staggeringly poetic prose, at times bordering on spoken word. Returning from that triumphant episode, Arlo Parks follows up with The Soft Machine, an LP that lands after most of the dust from that global emergency has settled, and she's relocated to sunny Los Angeles to live with partner and alternative rapper, Ashnikko. To say the result is something that sounds warmer, more appreciative of what you've got rather than focussed on what isn't would be an understatement, but the exquisite songwriting and willingness to speak honestly about major issues remains.

Review: We've been waiting for this one for what feels like an eternity. Since his self-titled debut in 2012 Flume has gone from beat-digger's delight to global sensation who has influenced producers in all walks of sounds from hip-hop to D&B. Mercifully Skin delivers and exceeds expectations: from the gritty wonks of "Wall Fuck" and "16.3" to the airwave-ready songwriting of "Never Be Like You" and "Say It" by way of the introspective, fathomless electronic textures of tracks such as "When Everything Was New" and "Like Water", Harley has taken care to explore his widest influences and references points while treading the balance between retaining his signature but not repeating himself.

Review: Grammy Award winning artist Flume surprised everyone with the shock release of this new album, Things Don't Always Go the Way You Plan, on Transgressive Records. It is a collection of music he has made over the past decade but has never realised in any form so it gives great insight into some of the creative processes and subtle evolutions he has undergone in that time. Injury Reserve, Panda Bear and Isabella Manfredi are some of the featured guests which help to immerse you in a combination of experimental and vocal material with cinematic ambiences, hip-hop leanings, song-driven sounds and plenty more along the way.

Review: Apart from being the quippiest record title you'll see for a while, Flume's third mixtape is up there with the most anticipated electronic releases of the year. The Australian producer and DJ has been on a meteoric global rise over the past couple of years, having started picking up major awards around halfway through the last decade, both in his homeland and overseas - with second album, Skin, winning both an ARIA and Grammy in 2017. Last year's Palaces proved he was still making all the right noises and this was followed by 2023's Arrived Anxious Left Bored. Running at 37-minutes, the mainstage garage-house-step stuff is delivered quick fire, taking us through the sonic world of an artist who has managed to rise to the top of dance music without forgetting the foundation blocks of the entire spectrum.

Review: Rather confusingly, Beverly Glenn Copeland released a self titled album called Beverly Glenn Copeland in the 1970s, which is not the same album as this one, called simply Beverly Copeland. Both, along with several other of their works, are being reissued at the moment on vinyl and CD as a result of a great reappraisal of their work during the pandemic. The experimental musician identifies as a transgender man and is known for having written soundtracks for Sesame Street and Shiny Time Station next to her jazz, ambient, exotic and electronic fusion records.

Review: Beverly Glenn Copeland's work has been getting revisited, reappraised and reissued plenty in the last couple of years and several of her seminal albums are all arriving in July across various different formats. Copeland was always ahead of their time with her mix of experimental, ambient, exotic electronic sounds and poetry and famously scored kids' TV shows cut as including Sesame Street and Shiny Time Station. Now 78 and identifying as a transgender man after a time identifying as a lesbian, their second 70's recording - this self-titled album - is a real jazz classic widely admired amongst fans.

Review: RECOMMENDED
The re-discovery and re-appraisal of Beverly Glenn-Copeland's work is one of the more surprising outcomes of the pandemic's great pause, which for some people at least meant having more time to dive into the archives of cultural history, from music to literature to movies. Not that the spotlight isn't wholly deserving. As this 1986 album shows, the artist was well ahead of their time, with this strange, heady brew of electronic exoticism, experimental ambient and percussive poetry easy to mistake for a contemporary record.

Glenn-Copeland's own story is also a pretty interesting one. Now 76 years old, the maestro spent years identifying as a lesbian woman, before investigations in gender discourse led to the revelation that a transgender man was a more comfortable identity for the music maker, who also lays claim to a catalogue of kids' TV scores, including Sesame Street and Shiny Time Station.

Review: Melbourne-via-Blue Mountains singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin's new album Pre Pleasure was recorded in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin, who has worked with the likes of The Weather Station and The National. Her reputation as a fine - and direct - lyricist is cemented now and together with bassist Ben Whiteley and guitarist Will Kidman, she's made an album that further enhances it. Having been penned after getting back from her latest giant tour, it perhaps understandably addresses relationships and work-life balance. both featureing. Plenty of new terrain is explored making this another fine record.

Review: Transgressive artist Mykki Blanco's new record is heavy on superb contributions from Kelsey Lu, ANOHNI, R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, FaltyDL, Sigur Ros' Jonsi, and many more. The album was made with notorious beatmaker FaltyDL at jamming sessions that were held all over the world from Lisbon, Paris and New York to Chicago and Los Angeles. The live instrumentation, says Mykki, "just transported me. It enabled me to dream in a way that I had never dreamed with my own songwriting. All of a sudden, I felt like I had this template where I could make that sound my own."