Review: Dot Allison debuted in 1999 with her Aftergow album and ever since has kept fans old and new enthralled with her voice. Heart-Shaped Scars was a follow-up 12 years later than won plenty of plaudits and now the label it came on serve up this bonus 7" with two new cuts. There is the rather bleakly but beautifully alluring 'Ghost Orchid' and then 'Love Died in our Arms' which is a reference to a past musical life in which Dot made trip hop. It also comes with a download code to unlock a third and final bonus cut named 'Heart-Shaped Scar.'
Review: Beautify Junkyards and Ghost Box label co-head Jim Jupp is Belbury Poly here as he serves up a cover of The Incredible String Band song 'Painting Box.' It was original by written by Mike Heron and is a beautiful piece of acoustic guitar work with tender vocals and sweeping string sounds that come over like an adult lullaby, all soothing sounds and enchanting moods. The flipside is an original by Beautify Junkyards, 'Ritual in Transfigured Time,' which was produced by Joao Branco Kyron and is another perfectly lilting groove for lazy days.
My Name Is Duglas (Don't Listen To What They Say) (2:39)
Home Before Dark - In The Industrial Zone (2:48)
Hop Skip Jump (For Your Love) (3:06)
The World Was Round (2:54)
The Things We Threw Away (with Adventures In Rhythm) (3:37)
Digital Dreamers (0:56)
Setting Sun (single version with intro - 7": Even More Dreams From BMX Bandits) (4:03)
Your Class (Even More Dreams version) (2:24)
Home Before Dark (Even More Dreams version) (2:47)
Come Dance With Me (2:37)
Review: BMX Bandits' latest album, Dreamers On The Run, stands as their most ambitious yet, dedicated to the outsiders of the world. Founded in 1985 by Duglas T Stewart and Sean Dickson, the band's ever-evolving lineup has included luminaries from various indie acts. Mastered by Hifi Sean, and featuring guest appearances from Jowe Head and Calvin Johnson, the album delves into the realms of dreams and music amid the challenges of reality. Drawing inspiration from Womack and Womack, Motown, and Todd Rundgren, the album boasts soul-tinged pop arrangements and captivating guitar solos. 'The Things You Threw Away showcases collaboration with New York's Jay Jay Lozano, infusing classic American musical and romantic song influences. With its rich musical tapestry and poignant themes, Dreamers On The Run is a gem in their stellar discography.
Review: The always superb Sounds Of The City comes through here with some freshness and newness here via their newly minted 'Sounds Of The City, Dark' series. It finds the French outfit Catalogue debuting on the label with a sound that brings a different perspective to the new post-punk movement. Their sound is a mixing pot of an array of different influences and what you get is music that will get you nodding to the grooves while your mind gets lost exploring synthetic elements, angular guitar riffs, robotic rhythms and lovely deep bass.
Review: RECOMMENDED
If you're already familiar with Cate Le Bon's spectacularly accomplished oeuvre, then when we say Pompeii is probably her most complex, innovative, and wildly ambitious effort to date you should understand just how big that statement is. Once Wales' enfant terrible loosely comparable to the PJ Harveys of this world, since arriving circa 2007 her reputation has grown, and she has long been considered among Britain's greatest contemporary musicians, a guitar master, and a songwriter extraordinaire.
The opiate, freewheeling, pseudo-1960s rock vibes have waned in that time, though, making more room for surrealist pop to take the mantle as guiding light. Pompeii uses this more than perhaps any other of her albums, offering listeners a sumptuous adventure through weird operatics, otherworldly balladry, synth-y choral, and much more besides. A triumph, once again.
Review: Riding SCORCHING hot on the heels of their recent self-titled debut, fans could be forgiven for expecting more of the same from Champyun Clouds' second long player of
2021. A hodgepodge of cutting-room-floor-fodder and experiments that would've been b-sides or Japan-exclusive CD bonus tracks in those halcyon days of physical formats' golden ages is not what we're getting. Let's save those for a deluxe anniversary reissue
one day. Nah - sheer, unabashed creativity fuels this album; and weirdly enough, they've managed to branch out in interesting ways while also creating an album that is more immediate and banger-centric. Although Nail's eclectic psych-lounge tendencies and
Asa's irreverent poetry and broad Nottingham lilt remain the key touchstones of CC's sound, opener "Check For Silt"s rough drum'n'bass beats offer an immediate and clear sonic progression for the Nottingham duo. The LP ultimately plays a bit like a haunted
jukebox in outer space - with elements of dub, britpop, early house, trippy, blissed-out sunshine pop (reminiscent of mid-90s His Name Is Alive at their most Beach Boys-aping), William Orbit-esque 90s psych-pop electronica, distorted glam rock shuffles and
garage-y funk. There's a particularly great moment of sequencing at the end of the first half where I got lulled into a state of near-euphoria with the Air-like "The Flowered Crown" before getting slapped 'round the face by "I'm Not Right For You", which sounds
like Nile Rogers producing a demo for Sheila & B. Devotion, except he recorded it at the bottom of a well. Sophomore slump? Never heard of him, mate.
Review: Shoegazers and experimental outfit Cloudland Canyon blend ambient, drone, krautrock, psychedelic, house music into their own unique tapestries. The band, led by Kip Uhlhorn, is now back with this new self-titled album which his another widescreen exploration of the cosmic sonic realm. The band is now more than 20 years into their career and for this one embraced the future by collaborating with AI. This allowed them to generate and create "compositions that sound like they are meant for an alternate realm where both beauty and suffering are both present, but not at odds with one another."
Review: The long-awaited reissue of the debut album from French goth rock outfit, Corpus Delicti, finally arrives to shatter the hopes of Discogs flippers still standing by their 700 quid price-tags. Restoring the original artwork created by the band as well as an insert sporting all of the lyrics; there's never been a more ample opportunity to rediscover a macabre, post-punk classic, teeming with coldwave atmospherics, frosted, jangling guitar work, and ethereal, cavernous production which casts a lysergic despondency over the sonics, at times warring between serene acceptance and jittering, punk-laden despair. It's almost bizarre to process how three decades has done little to dilute the potency of this melting pot project, feeling incredibly of its time while forward thinking in its compositional dynamism.
Review: The Cure's live album 'Paris' catches the band in the summer of 1992. This tour came after a siesmic shift in the previously fairly static line up of the goth pop icons, with original frontman Robert Smith and long serving bassist Simon Gallup joined by drummer Jason Cooper, keyboardist Roger O'Donnell and guitar player Perry Bamonte for the first time, all of whom remain part of their live ensemble 30 years later. The setlist starts with their evergreen opener 'Shake Dog Shake' but this selection double vinyl captures more deep cuts - 'The Figurehead', 'One Hundred Years' and 'Apart' as examples - than hits, although the dark pop of 'Close To Me' does make an appearance close to its end.
Review: Much loved UK outfit Editors have that tag because they always manage to confound expectation and stay one step ahead. They first emerged more than 20 years ago now as a group of friends who formed a band at university. Their debut album was Mercury Prize-shortlisted and since then thy have always been bold and brave in their approach. EBM is their first album since Blanck Mass became a full time member and, as the title suggests, is heavily influenced by EBM with physical and angular grooves, soot black moods and real urgency.
Review: Geese tend not to be many twitchers' favourite taxonomic family of bird, but when it comes to music, many of the best artists pay homage. Goose, for example - the Connecticut indie folkers with a penchant for jammy freakouts - have unveiled the Undecided EP, a four-track studio collection of live favorites. The album tends towards the instrumental side of things, with climaxes emerging out of minimal slow jams, culminating in great brown washes of guitar and sumptuous, melodious crooning. Or honking, if you will; emotive and cathartic stuff.
Review: Much more than just a solo indie project by an alt-music darling (though it does fall under that bracket), Priests' former punk frontgirl Katie Alice Greer presents her first full-length solo LP, 'Barbarism', following a slew of EPs detailing her crazed new electronic sound. An interesting sonic take on the absence of culture or civilization, the LP is a rapturous, entirely unique bridge between indie, art and noise rock, and is packed with rippling nuances and details that make Greer's voice sound quite literally drowned. A strange, dreamy and breathtaking take on a sound that Greer's built up over years.
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