Isobel Waller-Bridge has had a highly eclectic career to date. Primarily it’s involved being a film and television composer, working on her sister Phoebe’s smash Fleabag, Autumn De Wilde’s update of Emma and the acclaimed dark comedy Sweetpea. One of the things underpinning these projects across a range of disparate genres is the breadth of Isobel’s score, suiting both period works, epics and intimate character-driven projects.
This range is apparent on her sophomore record, solo project Objects from the seven-minute opener “Pillow”. It has a cinematic quality to it, easy to picture as part of a score, hauntingly beautiful but never feeling its length, full of depth. “Glass” feels like something from a horror film, with background noise and effects at its epicentre;…
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With his tenth Spotted Peccary release Along the Coppermine Ridge, Rudy Adrian reminds us once again of his remarkable tone painting abilities. A scan of its eleven track titles and those of the album titles preceding it also show the New Zealand-born producer to be an ambient artist who fervently embraces the associative potential titling offers. Eschewing abstraction, Adrian gives his pieces titles that trigger strong visualizations, the latest recording’s “Alpine Tarn,” “Serpentine River,” and “Autumn Snow” three examples. Albums preceding the new one, Reflections on a Moonlit Lake and Beyond the Sleepy Hills, likewise evoke clear images and highlight another aspect of his music, its deep connection to nature. There have been times when Adrian’s…
Featuring 25 B-sides & 2 bonus tracks from the period 1972 – 1977. Tracks include ‘Born To Boogie (single mix)’, ‘Cadilac’, ‘Life’s An Elevator’, ‘Tame My Tiger’ and ‘Thunderwing’.
Following the Q4 2024 ‘Bolan Boogie’ definitive hits package, Demon Records are thrilled to present a companion piece in the form of ‘Bolan B-Sides’, a brand-new collection of B-sides and bonus tracks from T. Rex’s hit-packed 1972-1977 period.
Before Marc Bolan’s untimely passing in 1977, T. Rex were a cultural phenomenon that defined a generation. The fervour even earned its own name: “Trextasy,” a frenzy not seen since the height of Beatlemania. Hidden away on the flips to some of the band’s era-defining singles, were some of Bolan’s most captivating musical moments.
…Remastered by Mark Beazley.
‘Will’ might have been released in 2001, but it’s not anywhere near as well known as Grinning Cat. That might simply be because up until that point, Susumu Yokota‘s dancefloor material had been supplied via Tokyo’s Sublime imprint, who released the epochal ‘1998’ and ‘1999’. Having become disillusioned with Japan’s club scene, Yokota handled ‘Will’ himself, putting on Skintone and although it made sense sonically – the release is considered an ode to his loose-limbed Skintone nights in Tokyo – it’s one of his more obscure collections. Listening now, it sounds at times like a speeded up, fattened version of ‘Grinning Cat’, all rickety drum breaks and piano loops. It’s almost like Yokota is challenging himself…
The infectious energy and bombastic grooves of jazz/soul drummer/band leader Makaya McCraven are channelled into the most focused and cohesive overall recording of his career so far on Universal Beings. That the sound quality is more pristine than previous releases certainly helps — it’s no easy feat to get this kind of clarity on a live recording — but it’s the songs themselves that feel the most honed.
While the music is clearly rooted in jazz, the influences on this ensemble’s sound are vast and worldly, if not measurably universal. With “Black Lion,” McCraven and company tap into the deep pocket and simple repetitive hooks of hip-hop, while allowing room for jazzy flourishes filled with subtle nuance to sub in for the absent vocals. Elsewhere, surprisingly baroque violin…
After an eight-year lay-off from the recording studio, the Smithereens released two albums in 2007. However, it doesn’t bode well for their creative process that the first of those albums was comprised entirely of Beatles covers, and the second was a Christmas disc.
However, Christmas with the Smithereens at least features three original tunes (which is three more than Meet the Smithereens!), and as rock & roll Christmas albums go, this is good fun and admirably eclectic. The Smithereens are pretty broad-minded when it comes to what constitutes a Yuletide melody, given the presence of “Christmas,” a not especially seasonal tune from the Who’s Tommy, and they dig up the Beatles rarity “Christmas Time Is Here Again,” as well as…
…includes instrumentals and acoustic versions (plus a new stripped track).
On their first two albums Kit Sebastian — the duo of multi-instrumentalist Kit Martin and vocalist Merve Erdem — hit upon a winning formula. They blended ’60s psychedelia from around the globe with jazz, soundtrack funk, easy listening, and nostalgic pop, then added winsome vocals and catchy, moody melodies played on instruments often unfamiliar to Western music, like oud and saz. Things were working do well that when it came time to record a third album, they didn’t tinker with the approach much.
Maybe New Internationale is a little more focused, taught and more psychedelic in spots? Perhaps a little less jazz and a little more sounds of…
‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) features 12 new recordings by Jeremy Allen White and the cast of the critically acclaimed film.
…Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere centers on the making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, so the soundtrack finds White playing tracks from the iconic 1982 album. He does not, however, cover the full album, missing out on “Johnny 99,” “Used Cars,” and “Open All Night.” Instead, the soundtrack album includes two hits from Springsteen’s Nebraska successor, Born in the U.S.A.: the title song and and “I’m on Fire.” It also closes with covers of two songs that Springsteen and the E Street Band are known to favor — Little Richard’s “Lucille” and John Lee Hooker’s…
…includes two brand new tracks, a previously unheard collaboration with Logan Ledger, and Price’s poignant duet with Billy Strings, “Too Stoned to Cry.”
“I will make country albums again,” Margo Price told MOJO circa 2023’s Strays, her fine, shrooms and psychedelia-led wander off-piste.
What’s a tad surprising, perhaps, is just how quickly and wholeheartedly she has re-embraced her roots. With its classic country lexicon – rhinestones, liquor stores and tear-soaked Kleenex all figure – Hard Headed Woman is the first LP Price has made entirely in Nashville, her home of some 20 years. Tracked in RCA Studio A, that hallowed space frequented by Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton et al, it also has the blessing of Waylon Jennings’…
The history of music is full of artists who have cultivated a certain mythos around themselves and their work. Whether it’s Aphex Twin’s legends of buying bank vaults and driving into parked vehicles in an armoured car, or Sun Ra’s cosmic mythology and claims to hail from Saturn – creating and feeding a lore around yourself rarely hurts.
Enter Elijah Minnelli, a UK dub producer with a studied sense of mystery around him and a story about hailing from a fictional locale called Breadminster – or something. When you strip back the slightly try-hard quirkiness of the image, what you have is a producer creating a highly inventive and often psychedelic take on dub that draws elements of folk and other genres into its heady brew. After a string of singles…
Traditional music finds its popular, cosy home in the carol, despite the uncanniness that surrounds the nativity story, and the fraying thread back to the past that each winter brings. A veteran explorer of the season (in 2020’s sparkling Winter Rituals EP with cellist Kate Ellis, and 2022’s starker New Christmas Rituals, with amplified fiddle-playing from André Bosman), Laura Cannell sets out on her best and darkest journey yet here, exploring the time of year when, as she writes on the liner notes, “joy and heartache try to exist together”.
Named after the line in ‘Good King Wenceslas’ before the cruel frosts arrive, Brightly Shone the Moon begins at the organ – a nod to Cannell’s childhood Christmases in the Methodist chapels and churches of Norfolk.
Culled from previously unreleased recordings from Swedish television and radio archives, Golden Flower: Live in Sweden presents Yusef Lateef leading two different quartets in performances in Sweden in 1967 and 1972. Always commanding on both tenor sax and flute, Lateef is in excellent form on both dates, with each showcasing a different side of his artistic character. While Albert “Tootie” Heath is the drummer on both sets, the 1967 material, recorded at a club date in Stockholm, features Swedish musicians Palle Danielsson on bass and Lars Sjösten on piano. This half of Golden Flower tends to be smoother and more straight-ahead, with Lateef and his group cruising through a cool take of “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” the playful and even silly inclusion…
Combing through a family member’s history following their death is a routine, if sombre and difficult task that falls to many a close relative. Committing to publicly honour that person’s life and work in a tangible way is something else entirely. Over seven years, just such a project has occupied Berlin-based producer Joseph Kamaru, who makes leftfield electronic music as KMRU.
His objective was to memorialise and widen awareness outside Africa of his grandfather, also Joseph, a hugely influential figure in Kenya’s music history and a political activist, who died in 2018 aged 79.
Heavy Combination may be a labour of familial love but like the dozens of his grandfather’s recordings that KMRU has remastered and…
Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of Wamono music, Yoshizawa has published in 2015 the now-classic Wamono A to Z records guide book, which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene. He has also selected a large part of the music in our highly acclaimed Wamono compilations.
For this brand new chapter in the series, Yoshizawa explores King Records’ legendary catalog and unearths exceptional, rare and unknown musical gems. King Records has been releasing music since 1931 and is one of the most prestigious labels…
There are many nighttime scenarios that can prompt a click of the play button: Stumbling through the door and into a recliner after an arduous day at the office; getting behind the wheel for a head-clearing cruise on nearly deserted streets; inviting friends old and new home from the first party to start the second party. To celebrate 15 years of smooth, velvety beats, L.A.-based dance label 100% Silk has honored such moonlit scenes with the new compilation Late Shift Silk.
Any one of the 11 cuts on Late Shift Silk could work for activities best suited to the cover of darkness. “To the Window” by Florida’s El Nalgón channels the feeling of late hours starting to loosen sensory perception, the last few moments before the mind welcomes much-needed slumber.
The Hold Steady is marking the 20th anniversary of their landmark 2005 second studio album, Separation Sunday, with a deluxe new edition arriving on their own Positive Jams label via Thirty Tigers. The expanded release sees the original 11-track album joined by nine newly remastered bonus tracks on vinyl for the first time, including rare demos, outtakes, and four songs previously released as 2005’s internet-only EP, The Virgin Digital Sessions.
“‘Separation Sunday’ changed everything for The Hold Steady,” says frontman Craig Finn. “We found a new lineup, a solidified sound, and through incessant touring started building the THS community that exists today. It was a thrilling time to live through, and to revisit with this new look…
There are few bands like Sand. Borrowing from jazz, industrial, techno and post-punk, somehow everything is mixed up to produce some seriously bowel-shifting grooves. Their 1999 debut Beautiful People Are Evil sees the York band still working on their formula which had been perfected by the time of 2002 follow-up Still Born Alive.
Sand musically walk the line between different worlds. They have played with, on the one hand, dance artists such as Robert Hood, Patrick Pulsinger, Andy Weatherall and Carl Craig and on the other hand with groups such as God Speed You Black Emperor, Squarepusher , Add N to X and ESG. Sand play diverse live events. They have performed on stage with the Karas Dance Company in Tokyo (where they played onstage with…
…includes two new, never released songs.
Okkervil River write dreamy songs with slumber-blurred stories and play them with a drifting, somnambulant gait. The band — named for a river outside St. Petersburg, Russia — filled last year’s eye-opening Down the River of Golden Dreams with gentle ballads about beds and war criminals and forgiveness, but the songs on their follow-up EP, Sleep and Wake Up Songs, are more brittle and fragile, like a light sleeper’s snooze. The EP condenses the album’s best qualities and discards most of its weaknesses, and its brevity makes it all the more emotionally forceful.
“Rapt, in Star Wars sheets/ With my hand across your belly/ We waded through the watercolor,” Will Sheff sings on opener “A Favor”. The song…
Not much is known about the elusive Dove Ellis, but we do have three concrete facts.
One: he’s an Irish singer-songwriter. Two: new-gen rockstars Geese are confirmed fans, with the band inviting him as their sole support act for their North American tour. Three: anyone who listens to Dove Ellis can attest he has one hell of a voice. And with the release of his debut album Blizzard, Dove Ellis delivers on the hype that’s followed on his steady gigging since 2022.
Compared to his larger-than-life live performances, Blizzard is eerily intimate. It’s bedroom pop, if the bedroom was a French catacomb with the tunnels blocked up. You feel every crack in Ellis’ voice, and songs like ‘Little Left Hope’ expand his voice into a ghostly choir that’s…
After lending her versatile skills on stringed instruments (guitar, charango, violin, koto, etc.) to the alternative music scene of Iceland for some time, Ólöf Arnalds released her first solo album, the spare, delicate, and maybe a little magical Við og Við, in 2007. Over the next seven years, the elfin singer/songwriter delivered three more albums that were increasingly expansive, with electronics, electric guitars, and drums contributing to the fanciful, part-acoustic alt-pop of 2014’s Palme. A decade-long break from recording followed during which time, among other endeavors, Arnalds worked as a copywriter, raised her kids, started an artist-led cultural space in Reykjavík (Mengi), and married frequent collaborator Skúli Sverrisson. When she finally returned to…