Legendary space rock band Hawkwind return with a brand new collection that blurs the lines between studio album, archive excavation and future transmission. Drawing together unheard recordings, newly reworked classics and fresh material from the current line-up, this latest release stands as a vital and evolving chapter in the band’s ever-expanding sonic universe.
Rather than a retrospective, this forward-facing release presents a snapshot of Hawkwind in motion. Featuring brand new studio recordings alongside previously unheard material from ongoing and unreleased projects, the album captures multiple facets of the band’s creative output, from cosmic psychedelia to driving space rock and experimental electronica.
Category: rock
It was unreasonable to expect Duane Betts’ second full-length long-player, Isle of Hope, to match the passionate match of musicianship and material of its predecessor, Wild and Precious Life. And, in fact, this Sun Records release only comes close and ultimately falls short because the bright moments, most of them instrumental, merely interrupt the mainly sluggish performances of somewhat formulaic arrangements overseen by studio supervisor Dave Cobb. The man who’s produced Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell certainly has a recognizable style that includes pristine audio quality. But this Betts record, recorded in just five days at Cobb’s studio in Savannah, GA, suffers from too many ponderous instances like “Best Wishes.”
District Five’s Glut continues the Zurich band’s push into a sound that pulls equally from art-rock, jazz, post-punk, and experimental noise without fully settling into any one category.
The four-piece has spent over a decade developing a sound that feels loose and spontaneous without losing focus, and this album captures that balance particularly well.
Recorded with minimal overdubs, the record has the tension and unpredictability of a live performance, but the band’s control over dynamics and texture keeps it from spiraling into chaos. Instead, Glut feels like a document of a group constantly reacting to one another in real time.
“Seed” opens the record with uneasy momentum as scattered guitar lines, pulsing bass,…
…compiled by Robert Fripp, including Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Andy Summers, The League of Gentlemen and more.
“[Panegyric label head] Declan Colgan told [Fripp’s manager] David Singleton: ‘Robert has more ampersands in his professional life than anyone I know!’ We went through three iterations of this CD – a David version, a Declan version, and then I made my own comments, and we have this CD that you have. Primarily this is stuff that I want to sit down and listen to. How do we begin? How do we get drawn into this? And then in the middle, when everything sags, what do you do there? And then at the end, well, how do you complete and wind this all up in such a way that the beginning and the end have gone full circle? And there you are.”
Ramshackle Swedish folk, medieval jam sessions, home-spun hymns recorded straight to tape, and albums named after revolutionary communist bands: The world of Gustaf Dicksson’s musical project Blod may seem unbearably esoteric. But a little context helps; Dicksson is a spiritual descendant of Swedish Progg movement of the 1960s and ’70s — not to be confused with prog rock, it was a left-wing, anti-commercial music movement that encompassed a wide range of styles, from psych-rock bands to nationally beloved singer-songwriters. Blod is indebted to the mossier, more experimental ends of the movement, including bands like Träd, Gräs & Stenar. This is the anti-capitalist, DIY heritage which Discreet Music — the record store and label…
Sunflower is the debut album of German/British artist Paul Holland. It features a number of very enjoyable characteristics, from West Coast soft rock to out-and-out folk, via some quite interesting world music. Above all, it has a very relaxed and personal feel to it, making it the perfect sound for relaxing in the sunshine.
It opens with a rocky number, ‘Clouds of Haze’, which jogs along very nicely indeed, with a live feel about it. The track explores the on/off nature of some relationships and certainly encourages the listener to explore the rest of the album, which tends to mellow out as it goes along.
It’s followed by a slower, jazzier track, ‘Feels Right’, which undoubtedly highlights his ability as an astute, talented songwriter.
Dea Matrona have returned to the limelight with their sophomore album Hate That I Care. Written, self-recorded and self-produced entirely on the road, this 12-track body of work vocalises the 10-year history of Mollie McGinn and Orláith Forsythe – from busking on the streets of Belfast to opening for The Beaches, and every story in between. Hate That I Care represents the intrusive thoughts that haunt every listener; the self-reflection, the self-assessment and the choice to stay silent or do something with that self.
Immediately, the feeling of nostalgia is ignited. The beauty in this album is the pure ’80s rock and alternative sound at the core of every song, reminding listeners of The Cranberries or Fleetwood Mac. The title track, ‘Hate That…
Off Course, the new Osees record, is only five tracks, but some of them are long, and Dwyer is calling it an album. It certainly takes you on a journey the way good albums do. The songs are playful, funky, and hallucinatory in a way that reminds me how much King Gizzard owes to this crew.
Dwyer says it emerged from endless jam sessions, a method the Osees hadn’t employed for a while: We went back to an older method of writing for this one. We jammed and jammed and jammed. I took the tapes home and ironed out some mutant tunes. We went back into the studio and burned them to tape live and then I took it home to Stu-Stu-Studio and did the vocals and brought in Tom Dolas & Brigid Dawson to put the finish on…
…four new tracks: new single ‘Should’ve Known Better’ joins unreleased songs ‘Perfect 10’ and ‘Hypothetical’, plus an acoustic ‘Lesbian of the Year’.
The Beaches have been slingshotted to a level of fame seen by few bands this side of the border, with their 2023 smash “Blame Brett” now sitting pretty at well over a hundred million streams on Spotify alone. They’ve been on the cover of Exclaim! and featured on the Freakier Friday soundtrack, as well as playing prestigious festivals and exponentially larger shows — stateside and beyond. The Toronto-based four-piece undeniably have more eyes on them than ever for the release of their third studio album, No Hard Feelings.
At 11 tracks, No Hard Feelings is full of…
Expanded reissue of the cult 1991 Skooshny compilation, now collecting all twenty-one of the LA power-pop trio’s recordings from 1971 to 1981 including four tracks new to this edition.
Skooshny is an L.A.-based psych-folk-pop trio who originally came together in 1971, a time that singer/guitarist Mark Breyer later said was “too late for the Byrds, too early for R.E.M.” Breyer and drummer David Winogrond had been in a Chicago-area trio, Brevity, before moving to L.A. in the early ’70s to try their luck on the West Coast. They met guitarist/keyboardist Bruce Wagner after placing an ad in a music publication and he continued to be an on-again/off-again member. Rehearsals proved to be tough to organize, however, as none of the three had a car and relied on public…
Concertgoers were treated to a 3-hour rock clinic in downtown Atlanta last night, as Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band brought their “Land of Hopes and Dreams” tour to State Farm Arena. The show comes midway through a string of dates that are shaping up to be arguably the most overtly political tour of Springsteen’s career, marked by direct references to current political figures, pointed onstage remarks, and a setlist structured around protest and dissent.
Together, these elements reframe Springsteen’s catalog not as nostalgia, but as a pointed commentary on the state of American life. That sense of urgency was amplified by the presence of special guest Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

What began as a rather bizarre concept has fully blossomed, seven chapters in. Arguably, The Claudettes are the only band to successfully meld soul, rock, punk, and cabaret into an intoxicating stew. The juxtaposition of the two words in the title of Garage Glamour sums it up as succinctly as possible. The Claudettes take the raw, unabashed grit of rock n’ roll with a punkish flair, and combine it with a glitzy club vibe and even shady noir songs, seemingly right out of a soundtrack. In fact, Johnny Iguana, the band’s composer/pianist, is the co-composer of the original score of the Emmy-winning FX/Hulu series The Bear. His co-creator of that score, JQ, joined him to produce two tracks on this album, and Grammy-winning…
When Slift announced their new, fourth album, they promised it’ll contain way shorter tracks than before, which felt tantamount to Usain Bolt promising to cut his own legs off. Since the Frenchmen went surprisingly viral via a KEXP live session during the pandemic, they’ve specialised in increasingly widescreen space rock, pulling metal, krautrock and even jazz into their heady galaxy, up to 15 minutes at a time.
Their vastness has become key to their identity, particularly during the many, many live shows they play each year, where they add hallucinogenic video to the mix and convey the same delirium as the stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Fantasia’s opening title track is the only song with a run-time that could have…
…8-Tracks is, as one might guess, an eight-track condensed overview of Pink Floyd’s ’70s material (save for 1970’s Atom Heart Mother). It includes singles “One of These Days” (from 1971’s Meddle), “Money” (from The Dark Side of the Moon) and “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” and “Comfortably Numb” (from 1979’s double album The Wall), as well as Dark Side album cut “Time” and Wish You Were Here‘s title track. Honoring the format this collection is named after, 8-Tracks will be sequenced in two continuous programs edited by Steven Wilson, with sections from the original multitrack tapes utilized to foster the transitions between songs. Additionally, closing track “Pigs on the Wing” (from 1977’s Animals) will be heard in a rare, longer version that was…
Black Editions presents the expanded and definitive edition of White Heaven’s brilliant third album Next to Nothing. Originally released in 1994 by Tokyo’s Noon Disk, the full album was only ever available in a limited vinyl pressing of 250 copies. Since then, it has become one of the most sought after artifacts of the 90’s Japanese underground and is regarded as a highpoint of Japanese psychedelic rock. Led by vocalist, songwriter and conceptualist You Ishihara, the album finds the group in a phase of refinement. Taking a more intricate and open approach, the music is buoyant and light yet at the same time, nocturnal and introspective. Next to Nothing marks the first time guitarists Michio Kurihara and Soichiro Nakamura appear together on record after having separate turns as lead…
…a freshly refurbished and expanded treatment of 2005’s ‘Tommyland: The Ride’, Tommy Lee’s second solo album after his short-lived side project Methods of Mayhem. ‘Tommyland Rides Again’ also introduce a brand-new bonus track, “Stupid World (feat. Chad Tepper).
Released in conjunction with his book of the same name, as well as his new reality television series Tommy Lee Goes to College, Tommyland: The Ride is the Mötley Crüe drummer’s second foray — not including Methods of Mayhem — into faux-solo land. Tommy Lee lends his name, drums, and some vocals to 12 rockers, power ballads, summer anthems, and emo-drenched exercises in futility that employ the voices and guitar playing of pretty much anybody available.
