Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: On their seventh album, The Breaks, SUUNS embrace limbo and craft their most emotionally resonant and sonically rich work to date. The Montreal trio of Ben Shemie, Joseph Yarmush, and Liam O'Neill dive deeper into pop instincts than ever before here while also pushing their experimental rock boundaries. With O'Neill at the production helm, they explore loops, synths and MIDI instruments that might well draw to mind Tangerine Dream and certain downtempo trip-hop acts. The album was forged over two years of touring and remote collaboration and blends whispered intimacy with vast soundscapes best exemplified in tracks like 'Doreen' and the superbly adventurous title song.

Review: Damo Suzuki was with seminal krautrock outfit Can from 1970 to 1973, lending his vocal talents to albums such as Tago Mago, Future Days and Ege Bamyasi. Exactly fifty years after the latter LP, you can hear him on this new recording described as being 'derived from fantasy'. In collaboration with Spiritczualic Enhancement Center, an eight-piece group of self-proclaimed disciples from the CAN University that gathered at Berlin-based club Arkaoda, it feaures three tracks; 'U', 'Ra', 'Beya' - excerpts from this gathering at the beginning of 2020.

Review: It's hard not to feel moved by Swans. To quote Wayne's World, it's not just a clever name, but rather a band every bit as graceful yet ferocious, beautiful but strong as the bird borrowed from. Take "Annaline", for example. As the first track-proper of this spellbinding collection it's a stop-you-in-your-tracks masterpiece that could force silence on a stadium despite being softly spoken, subtle and serene. It's a motif the outfit seem focused on for this, their 15th studio album. Even at its loudest, title track "Leaving Meaning" mostly plays out like a deranged sermon in some temple of experimental rock. "Sunfucker", for example, has enough reversed-out refrains to make anyone feel they might be in over their head with forces they can't see, let alone comprehend. "It's Coming It's Real" is a display of dark hypnosis. "The Hanging Garden" paints nervous abstract pictures with psychedelic-leaning guitar hooks and manic vocal cries. Put simply, it's perhaps their tensest, most introverted and spellbinding work to date.

Review: The Beggar is a mightily impressive 16th studio album from Swans. It is founding member Michael Gira who has written and produced it with some fine contributions from both current and past Swans members, plus members of Angels Of Light a guest spot from Ben Frost. This record emerged from the lockdowns of 2020 onwards and the sense of isolation that brought. The songs came easily, says Michael, once he came to terms with that and were informed by the fact that he worried these might be his last new writings. I they are, they are some of his best.

Review: Manafon by David Sylvain of Japan fame is an underrated gem. The electroacoustic improvisation, complete lack of drums, coupled with Sylvain's voice right at the front of the mix, makes for an ambient, freeform and highly experimental sound. The art-pop sonics that saw him gain success in the 70s and 80s is left firmly in the past and he's doing exactly the music he wants hear - not what's expected of him commercially. Now, on vinyl for the first time, comes remixes by classical contemporary genius Dai Fujikura - he wrote the string parts - of six songs from said album. There's also new songs, heavily influenced by Fujikura and an 18-minute piece ('When We Return You Won't Recognise Us') culled from a much longer sound installation that Fukikura and Sylvain created together for the 2008-09 Biennial of Canaries in Gran Canaria. How music this sublime hasn't been on vinyl from the start is beyond us. Thankfully, that's now rectified.

Review: You can go one of two ways as an artist when you've had pop success early in life: you keep the wheel because the wheel isn't broken. Or you change the wheel and reinvent yourself and make music that's true to yourself and not guided by commercial expectation. David Sylvain has done the latter with aplomb. At the time of making this album, which is the companion album to Blemish (2003) and now on vinyl for the first time, he was free from the shackles of a major label and diving headfirst into improvisation. You can't even faintly hear echoes of the band that made his name - new wave icons Japan. For these remixes Sylvian worked with the likes of Ryoji Ikeda, Burnt Friedman, and Readymade FC, although some songs were re-recorded rather than remixed. 'Late Night Shopping', remixed by Friedman, is a great entry point to this work, with dark beats and eerie noises, making for an atmospheric triumph. This is an album that pushes music as an artform forward. Long may Sylvain continue.