Review: Prepare for a transcendent auditory odyssey with The Sevens, a series of four 7" vinyl records unveiling a treasure trove of previously unreleased tracks from the sessions that bore A Place To Bury Strangers' acclaimed album, See Through You. Known for their visceral sonic assault and immersive live performances, the series offers fans a deeper dive into their sonic universe. 'Don't Turn The Radio'/'This Is All For You', the third release in the series, delivers a raw and personal glimpse into the band's creative process during the See Through You era. APTBS founder Oliver Ackermann explains the decision to return to their roots with this release format, allowing each track to speak for itself without album context. These tracks offer a stark contrast to the band's current sound, providing a snapshot of a moment in time.
Review: Experience two of Joy Division's iconic post-punk tracks like never before with exclusive 7" vinyl from Numero Group. Codeine's 1994 rendition of 'Atmosphere' captures the essence of solitude with a melancholic yet melodic twist that marked the iconic Manchester band's poignant farewell. Meanwhile, Bedhead from Dallas offers a fresh perspective on 'Disorder' and transforms it into vibrant indie rock. Encased in a sleek black and silver sleeve adorned with embossed braille lettering, these twin readings pay homage to Joy Division's enduring legacy while inviting listeners to explore new interpretations of their timeless classics.
Review: Newly signed to Ninja Tune, Ebbb debuts with a five-track EP that shows great intent. Emerging from the same London avant-garde live scene that birthed black midi and Black Country New Road, the band has quickly developed a unique sound in just a year. Their music blends pulsing rhythms, immersive electronic production, sparkling melodies, layered vocal harmonies, and beats that range from ambient to industrial. Described by the band themself as "Brian Wilson meets Death Grips," the EP is experimental and unpredictable yet deeply considered and precise with an idiosyncratic hybrid of sounds that showcases Ebbb's innovative and tightly crafted music.
Review: Eyes of the Amaryllis is a collective that announced its arrival with a debut self-titled album back in 2021 on cassette tape. A year later they landed on Horn of Plenty with a second album which came on vinyl, and now they offer up a first 45rpm in the form of 'Lunchtime On Earth' on Swedish label I Dischi Del Barone. All four tracks are decidedly short and to the point and sit somewhere between post-rock and experimental with elements of lo-fi, folk and world & country. It's the title track that stands out with its doleful guitars, plenty of echo and drifting, wordless vocal sounds making for a beautifully melancholic vibe.
Review: Omena once again calls on the superb sounds of Golden Retriever for this adventurous new EP that very much takes you away from the here and now and deposits you somewhere warmer. 'Part Lake' opens up with the joys of a spring day - acoustic strings rippling out as sun beams down. 'Andro Dunos' slows to a crawl and has a more star-gazing feel while 'Digambara' is a gentle rhythm that casts you out to sea. Two variations of 'Modulations' allows you to get lost in some lush synth tapestries and 'Kizuna Encounter' then ends with another lovely sonic day dream that empties your mind.
Review: Cocteau Twins' musical mastermind Robin Guthrie has produced some terrific solo records over the course of his career, frequently delivering material that joins the dots between ambient, ethereal soundscapes, shoegaze and the more immersive end of the soundtrack spectrum. 'Astoria' is the latest volume in the Scottish multi-instrumentalist and producer's ongoing EP series (its predecessor, 'Mountain', dropped in September). It's another typically gorgeous and enveloping affair in which effects-laden guitar motifs, gaseous ambient chords, gentle rhythms, ghostly aural textures and slowly shifting melodies combine to create instrumental sound worlds of rare beauty (if not sonic clarity - Guthrie's use of reverb and delay is liberal, which adds to its atmospheric nature but adds extra layers of attractively wide-eyed haziness).
Review: Pioneering Japanese psychedelic rock Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (AMT) were formed in 1995. Their relentless output has spawned various offshoots over the years, such as Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno and Acid Mothers Temple SWR, synthesising and alien cosmo-grammar in sound, one that perhaps only the most acid-casualtied tongues can interpret or speak. Now present through Rolling Heads comes their latest album for 2025: Holy Black Mountain Side comprises three psychedelic pieces, reticulating a series of recording sessions held down between 2021 and 2023, at one point reinterpreting a traditional folk song, and throughout enlisting guest bass from Taigen Kawabe of Bo Ningen. Each record comes wrapped in unique artwork by lead improvisor Kashiwagi Ten, adding an extra layer of veiled mystery to each: no two records are visually alike.
Review: The latest offering from serial collaborator and cross-genre tastemaker Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ imprint is a tender filigree bureau of acid folk sketches from Tokyo's Ai Aiso. Across seven tracks, she patiently meanders through broken and phased chord progressions, her simultaneously pure and wavering vocal lines forming elegant arcs over sparse beds of instrumentation and washes of room tone. Some tracks are bookended by applause, and it is this ostensibly 'indoorsy' atmosphere which lends the mini LP a great deal of charm; the delicate atmospherics seem to issue from an intimate and isolated space. Indeed, Bandcamp user Everyvillianislemons317 describes it as "The perfect album for a lonely night in the city." We're more than inclined to agree.
Review: Berlin trio AUSKLANG are back with Kairos, a second superb album that builds on their last effort, 2020's Chronos, also on Past Inside the Present, 2020. It finds the trio of Fabian Koppri, Benjamin Sohn, and Simon Ansing play with concepts of time and entropy across eight movements that balance melodic post-rock and layered ambient soundscapes. It's a deceptively complex blend of glitching electronics, drums, bass and guitar with classically inspired orchestrations that makes for something as immersive and grand as it is beautiful. As the summer fades and autumn arrives, this richly rewarding album is sure to prove a great companion as we spend more time indoors.
Review: Bristol trio Beak>, like their co-founder Geoff Barrow, have always had a tendency towards the obtuse, choosing to go where they please musically with an air of disenchanted veterans whose faith in the world is waning all the time. This dystopian streak was evident on their 2009 full-length debut, where they consciously avoided overdubs and studio trickery, and it has returned to the fore on their widely acclaimed fourth studio set - a collection of 'head music' that they insist should only be listened to in its entirety. If you do that - and you should - you'll be treated to a delightfully cosmic, psychedelic and otherworldly journey through organ-heavy dream pop ('Strawberry Line'), wide-eyed krautrock-influenced funkiness ('The Seal'), acid-fried soundtrack weirdness ('Windmill Hill'), gentler and more intergalactic excursions ('Bloody Miles') and much more besides.
Review: Every once in a while, you get a band emerge from the vibrant London music scene that you notice aren't like all the other bands. You sense they have something a bit special. BC, NR are like that - they offer something so rich musically that it appears immune to any potential threat that could come from changing trends. This third studio album of theirs comes under what looked like difficult circumstances from the outside. Their lead singer and songwriter Isaac Wood left the band shortly before the release of their second album. But they've withstood the pressure incredibly and are on top form here. There's more emphasis than ever on sharing the role of frontperson so the album is like a smorgasbord where you sample different voices and songwriting styles that exist within the group. Lead single 'Besties' is violinist Georgia Ellery's. It thrives off of its dynamism with explosive Phil Spector-esque wall of sound moments set in alongside elegant indie folk. A truly massive chapter awaits.
Review: .By its very nature, Tenkiller is a very different beast to Chat Pile's other releases. Recorded in the winter of 2020 to be the soundtrack to Tenkiller, an indie movie about the lives of ordinary people in small-town America, it sees the noise-rock/post-hardcore combo focus on mood and tone, rather than form and function. As a result, fuzzy and forthright cuts of the sort you'd expect come supplemented by dystopian, industrial-influenced soundscapes, lo-fi alt-country, guitar-laden mood pieces, low-slung and effects-laden creepiness, intense electronica and the kind of slow-burn ambient-not-ambient that was once the preserve of cult bands such as Labradford.
Review: The Moon and the Melodies, a remarkable collaboration between Cocteau Twins and ambient pioneer Harold Budd, remains a standout achievement in both artists' repertoires. First released in 1986, this enchanting album is now receiving a well-deserved vinyl reissue, meticulously remastered by Robin Guthrie from the original tapes. This album is a stunning fusion of the Cocteau Twins' signature dreamlike atmospheres with Budd's elegant, improvisational piano, resulting in a listening experience that is both expansive and deeply personal. The blending of Elizabeth Fraser's ethereal vocals, seamlessly intertwined with Guthrie's luminous guitar work and Raymonde's resonant bass, creates a sound that is both distinct and evocative. The album effortlessly balances vocal tracks with instrumentals, each adding to its rich and diverse sonic palette. This reissue offers a chance to rediscover a defining moment in the evolution of dream pop and ambient music. The Moon and the Melodies continues to stun audiences. This CD edition is the perfect vehicle to an ethereal beauty of the highest order.
Review: Recorded in October 1997, but lost and rediscovered two decades later by digital artist Gvoon Arthur Schmidt, GVoon: Brennung 1 is one of countless gems nestling in the sound archives of the late, great Holger Czukay. Described as a "futuristic sound meditation" by remastering engineer Dirk Dresselhaus (better known as experimental electronica producer Scheider TM), the single, expansive piece was created by Czukay at a point in time when he was happily working with German techno and electronica producers (Westbam included) while exploring the potential of digital music-making and production technology. The results are typically immersive, enveloping and off-kilter, sounding as far-sighted and ahead-of-their-time as they no doubt did when the piece was originally recorded in 1997.
Review: Dirty Three's first full-length since 2012 is a strong trip through six cinematic movements.Love Changes Everything is a windswept trek through arid deserts and moonlit forests, a contemplation of love that blends melancholy jazz, ambient folk, and tender post-rock. The trio, comprising Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White, has a knack for producing instrumental music that defies categorization. White's drumming is as textural and unfastened as ever, Turner's riffs hum with punk ferocity and raw Americana, while Ellis's strings, piano, and synths provide a widescreen theatricality. The album opens with Turner's disfigured twangs and Ellis's soaring strings, gradually building to a militaristic thump. Tracks like 'II' and 'III' offer slow-motion piano melodies and spectral strings, creating visuals of spectral faces and oily vapors. Love Changes Everything unfolds like a film, with moments of fiery discordance and serene contemplation. Ellis's fiddle on 'V' and the tempestuous conclusion on 'VI' exemplify their dynamic range. This album is a sublime addition to their catalogue because of their matured, exploratory sound.
Review: The Canadian post-rock instrumentalists return with a demand for revolution, soundtracked by just shy of 45 minutes of orchestral aggression. As with all of their work, GY!BE convey their ideas articulately through evocative wordless music. The opener, 'Undoing a Luciferian Towers' sets a tone for the album with a monolithic and militaristic march. Passages of feedback open out into anthemic expanse on the three parts of 'Bosses Hang'. 'Fam/Famine' balances between harmonic assonance and dissonance, ramping up the tension before the final triptych 'Anthem Of The State' takes a more optimistic tone, with the movement away from noise providing some glimmers of light in the abyss. 'Luciferian Towers' is an impeccable and polished record, and possibly Godspeed You! Black Emperor's finest to date.
Review: Godspeed You! Black Emperor are set to release their highly anticipated new album, No Title As Of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead. This marks the Canadian post-rock ensemble's first studio effort since 2021's G_d's Pee At State's End!. The album features six tracks that promise to continue the band's tradition of blending ambient soundscapes with intense, chaotic crescendos. Accompanying the announcement is the track 'Grey Rubble - Green Shoots,' which exemplifies the band's unique approach. The album's title reflects the grim reality of a world marked by conflict and decay, a sentiment which resonates through music which combines field recordings, minimal instrumentation and stark hymns, reflecting their anti-war, anti-capitalist stance. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's music, known for its contrasts and epic, multi-movement compositions, continues to merge influences from post-punk, progressive rock, and the avant-garde. No Title As Of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead is poised to offer a powerful, thought-provoking experience that stays true to their politically charged, dystopian vision.
Review: No-one could accuse the London-based duo Public Service Broadcasting of lacking ambition-after the runaway success of their debut 'Inform - Educate - Entertain', this second album, whilst still utilising their trademark mixture of archive audio recordings, krautrock and post-rock. focuses conceptually on the '60s space race, and summons up a suitably widescreen and emotionally resonant backdrop for these stirring tales of voyages into the unknown. Both playful and respectful, it's a heartfelt record whose experimental elan matches the ground-breaking nature and sense of wonder of the subject matter, with these soundscapes and grooves sounding forceful and engaging even whilst they're figuratively staring at the stars.
Review: "In Rainbows", Radiohead's seventh album, finally gets a physical release! It's one thing downloading this landmark album, but to actually hold this is something special. Not only do you get increased sound quality, but you also get the amazing artwork from Stanley Donwood. This album includes "Nude", a live favourite for many years that was originally written during the "OK Computer" sessions. More minimal that their "Kid A" period, "In Rainbows" does something that very few albums have done - its sound is distinct from previous Radiohead albums, but is still clearly Radiohead. Hail to the kings, they are back on top form.
Changing Forest (CD1: Sketches For World Of Echo - Recorded live At El June 25, 1984)
Let's Go Swimming
They & Their Friends
Keeping Up
Make 1,2
I Take This Time
Losing My Taste For The Nightlife
I Can't Hide You
The Boy With A Smile On His Face
Sunlit Water
That's The Very Reason (CD2: Open vocal Phrases, Where songs Come In & Out - Recorded live At El December 20, 1985)
Tower Of Meaning/Rabbit's Ear/Home Away From Home
Happy Ending
All-Boy All-Girl/Tiger Stripes/You Can't Hold Me Down
Introductions
Hiding Your Present From You/School Bell
Too Early To Tell
Review: These archival recordings of two extraordinary live performances takes you back to when New York City was a bohemian magnet, with low rent and spaces where artists could thrive. Recorded in Downtown in December 1985 and June 1984, the late, great Arthur Russell is captured performing at an intimate loft space known as Experimental Intermedia Foundation, which was run by Phil Niblock. Since the recordings are unedited, it does a really great job of simulating the experience and so if you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine Russell in the room right there in front of you. Of the numbers played, Russell's gifted avant-garde approach to cello is brilliantly done on 'Too Early To Tell'. And the spine-tingling, raw and deeply emotional 'That's The Very Reason' is arthouse folk at its finest. It epitomises the raw, spell-binding talent that Russell had to captivate a room. Hats off to those who have immortalized these very special shows.
Review: Deep Valley is a new collaborative work by Australian artists Seaworthy aka Cameron Webb and Matt Rosner and they came together for it during a week-long residency at Bundanon Art Museum in New South Wales. The property which was gifted to the Australian public by artists Arthur and Yvonne Boyd in the 1990s offers a unique landscape along the Shoalhaven River and is surrounded by sandstone cliffs and diverse wildlife. Drawing inspiration from Boyd's belief that "you can't own a landscape," Deep Valley combines the inspiration of that setting with environmental recordings, guitars, piano, and electronic processing all of which aim to highlight the transient nature of ecosystems and encourage you to reconnect with the sounds of nature.
Review: Seefeel's new album Everything Squared marks their first release since 2011, on which the "first ever shoegaze-electronica band" flex a positively retroactive take on the sound they sired. From the opening 'Sky Hooks' - a track which weaves an oxbow shape through small bankside groves of nymphlike-vocals in the peaks, and determined plods through ambient dub subterrains in the troughs - to the penultimate 'Hooked Paw', a similarly dubby but comparatively gnosis - a sophistic dream-blear for vocals and detuned atmoss at 140bpm, recalling the surreal ambient fort-das of HTRK or Clouds - this is not a record to be listened to lightly, despite its comeback status.
Review: SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Together they present their debut album Small Medium Large, a collection of long-form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at the beloved Los Angeles venue ETA. Forming the perfect locale in which to boost their initial rise, ETA is perhaps no longer a fitting name - with SML, we're no longer pondering this band's estimated time of arrival. Small Medium Large is a sublime assemblage of circulatory grooves and textural anomalies, at different moments recalling the synth-laced improvisations of Herbie Hancock's Sextant, the jagged dance punk of Essential Logic, the rhythmic revelry of Fela Kuti, the low-end elasticity of Parliament/Funkadelic, or the glitchy dub techno of Pole.
Review: There are many ways to deal with upheaval and crises but sometimes the best approach is to answer harsh realities with an antidote. Speaking on their new album, tree-loving masked electro-punks Snapped Ankles say: "We can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one... hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof." And to their credit the album lives up to the manifesto: 'Raoul' is exactly what you'd want to hear at 3am in Glastonbury festival; whilst 'Pay The Rent' sounds like a homage to big beat, spiced with krautrock. Snapped Ankles clearly have the tools and the talent to send people's minds to space. A noble entry deserving of glory.
If You Had Seen The Bull's Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away
Review: There's no 'difficult second album' syndrome evidence on Squid's sophomore full-length. While it lacks the forthright, math rock and post-punk-inspired immediacy of the Brighton band's acclaimed full-length debut, the density, inventiveness and experimentation that marks out O Monolith more than makes up for it. For proof, check recent single 'Swing (In a Dream)', a wall of sound affair that builds through approaching waves of instrumentation (first picturesque 16-bit synths and acoustic guitars, then grooves, trumpet solos and finally grizzled guitars), the laidback post-punk-funk of low-slung treat 'Undergrowth', and the skittish, jazz-flecked, layered soundscape that is 'The Blades', where squally horn solos and dense alt-rock guitars catch the ear.
Review: Still House Plants' If I Don't Make It, I Love U is a standout production into fractured soundscapes and emotional vulnerability. The London post-rock trio, comprised of vocalist Jess Hickie-Kallenbach, guitarist Finlay Clark, and drummer David Kennedy, eschews conventional song structures in favor of a collective flickering that feels both contained and alive. The album is the band's telepathic interplay, with each track serving as a vessel for abandon and experimentation. Through elongated silences and exquisitely incongruous angles, Still House Plants shine here with their free-spirited approach to punk and free improvisation. Tracks like 'More Boy' and 'M M M' reveal a bold and vivid iteration of their music, blending elements of Midwest emo, 90s slowcore, and no wave minimalism. Hickie-Kallenbach's soulful vocals add depth and intimacy, while Clark's guitar work synthesizes a diverse range of influences. With a mix of mystery and disclosure in the lyrics, If I Don't Make It, I Love is an emotional prism where vulnerability and intimacy intersect. Still House Plants' fractured aesthetic mirrors our fractured selves, offering a contemporary take on post-punk experimentation.
Why Can't I Have What I Want Any Time That I Want?
The Beggar Lover (Three)
The Memorious
Review: There have been few experimental rock bands who've enjoyed (or perhaps endured) as tumultuous career as Swans. Since forming in 1982, they've broken up, reunited and changed personnel umpteen times, though bandleader Michael Gira has remained the creative force throughput. The Beggar, the band's latest album, is similarly turbulent in tone and approach, with Gira and company offering up sonically detailed, foreboding and off-kilter explorations that offer a more expansive and measured take on their trademark heady and often hallucinatory trademark sound. This is particularly evident on disc two opener 'The Beggar Lover (Three)', a shapeshifting, 45-minute instrumental meditation peppered with found sounds and recycled samples from their Soundtracks For The Blind album.
Review: Southend's These New Puritans have a rare ability to create goosebump-inducing music. A big part of is is Jack Barnett's voice, which is truly up there with the likes of Thom Yorke and Hayden Thorpe's in terms of being able to tug at the heartstrings and create grandiose spellbinding atmospheres. Plus, the arrangements that accompany it are of elite level and taste. This new album is their fifth studio album since forming in 2006 and offers plenty in the way of diversity. 'A Season In Hell' is a wild mix of industrial, organ music, trip-hop and choir sounds. Elsewhere, 'Bells' is less intense and let's the atmosphere form gradually and luxuriously. If you want a record to properly blow your socks off, let it be this.
Review: London-based Australian vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappe has always made immersive, enveloping and deeply atmospheric that sidesteps convention. It was that uniquely haunting and emotive approach to ambient and electronica that earned her deals with Optimo Music and Houndstooth, amongst others. Now signed to One Little Independent, Trappes has pushed the boat out further on Requiem, a mournful and bittersweet musical meditation in which her distinctively sweet-but-drowsy vocals rise above manipulated cello textures, hushed field recordings, ambient textures and intriguing electronic sounds aplenty. It's bold, beautiful and at times breathtakingly brilliant, once again marking Trappes out as an artist with a genuinely unique musical vision.
Review: As he's moved further towards a career in soundtrack composition, Trentemoller's music has become increasingly widescreen and atmospheric, with the Danish artist drawing inspiration from dream-pop, the Cocteau Twins and Durutti Column as much as the ambient, electronica and immersive techno he was once famous for. All of these strands combine beautifully on 'Memoria', a picturesque and enveloping affair whose multitude of highlights include the yearning, string-laden and bittersweet brilliance of 'No More Kissing The Rain', the wall-of-sound dream pop shimmer of 'In The Gloaming', the mid-80s indie-pop haziness of 'Dead or Alive' and the glassy-eyed and tactile 'All Too Soon'.
Review: By Scott Hansen's previously prolific standards, we've had to wait a fair old while for a new album. Infinite Health, the third Tycho album for Ninja Tune after years signed to Ghostly International, is by design something of a reset: a self-proclaimed meditation on "hope for the future" mixed with a "requiem for the past". Stylistically, that also means a return to his electronic roots, with colourful, melody-rich and sun-splashed synth sounds combined with unfussy beats and breaks, toasty basslines and glistening, AM radio-friendly guitar licks. It is then, regardless of the inspirations behind it, a classic-sounding Tycho album - as highlights 'Phantom', the instrumental deep synth-pop dreaminess of 'Devices' and the lo-fi, trip-hop influenced shuffle of 'Green' emphatically prove.
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