Jeffrey Ericson Allen’s Chronotope Project embodies narrative convergence, which is as it should be. The cellist, composer and philosopher has spent much of his life as a storyteller, but in recent years, he’s reshaped his own narrative to focus more on the music that has always been a primary focus. Since his librarian days concluded, the mode of inquiry has shifted, so that now, he tells stories in music more than in words. His chief vehicle, the afore-mentioned Chronotope Project, is a solo effort that labeling “ambient” resides somewhere between a deserved badge of honor and a near disservice. Rather, this music shares certain characteristics with one of Allen’s influences, Brian Eno, in that it can function in the background but rewards deeper listening with…
Latest Entries »
“I find the Scritti Politti syndrome absolutely hysterical,” said Duran Duran’s fedora-topped bassist John Taylor, reviewing the singles for Melody Maker in September 1982. “All these… radical Rough Trade bands suddenly deciding they want to be pop stars. They seem to have everything right but the songs. They have no perfect pop writers.” Taylor could speak with commercial authority at least, but the tell was he’d heard about Scritti Politti and their scheme to invade and master pop. Green Gartside’s new doctrine had spread in mere months.
Only in May, Green had laid out his starry ambitions to Lynden Barber, again in Melody Maker. “I think [Songs to Remember] is… a bit of a milestone in British pop,” he claimed.
Listeners could be forgiven for thinking Cold Beat was essentially Hannah Lew‘s solo project. The band’s lineup may have been a revolving door, but her softly compelling voice and fondness for icy electronics were always there. Nevertheless, Lew distinguishes herself as a solo artist on her self-titled debut album. The two albums Cold Beat released before going on hiatus, 2020’s Mother and the following year’s War Garden, were dense, ambitious statements; in comparison, Hannah Lew’s reflections on the opportunity for change that upheaval provides are strikingly direct. Lew describes it as a “wartime album,” and there’s a feeling of liberation from the start.
She begins the album with “one foot out the door/another in the other world” on…
On their debut album One More Thing, Lime Garden‘s unapologetically messy, vulnerable chronicles of the highs and lows of their lives as early twentysomethings were a study in contrasts: irreverent, self-aware indie rock set against introspective ballads. On Maybe Not Tonight, their perspective has shifted. As they trace a night out from beginning to end — and the self-doubt and bravado in between — Lime Garden is bigger, brasher, and a lot more pop.
The band enlisted an A-list producer for their second album (Charlie Andrew, who’s worked with artists ranging from Wolf Alice to David Gilmour) and it definitely sounds like it: Maybe Not Tonight is a wall-to-wall collage of noisy rock and electronic sheen. “Cross My Heart” piles…
Although it still contains signs of the project’s distinctive blend of earthy folk-rock, woozy psychedelic pop, and whimsical electronics and effects, something feels more than a little more mature and serious on Johnny Lynch’s sixth Pictish Trail album, Life Slime. It turns out that it was born of a period of emotional turmoil resulting in his most personal album yet. In another adjustment, Life Slime was produced by first-time collaborator Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at Lindsay’s M.E.S.S. studio in Margate, England, in addition to including contributions from longtime collaborators like Rob Jones and Joe Cormack.
Inhabiting a warm, synthy, midtempo soft rock, the album’s resigned title track includes a reference to the ubiquitous K.C. Green comic of…
There’s an almost supernatural quietude in Juni Habel’s music, a calm that reaches out of the speakers and stills the soul. The Norwegian songwriter tends to sing in a near-whisper, close to the microphone, sometimes competing with the ambient hum of the room, but don’t mistake her low volume for a lack of power. Habel is in total command of all her instruments — her gentle but resolute voice, the fingerpicked acoustic guitar that encircles her singing like a tangle of vines, the subtle strains of organ and piano that serve as moss on the forest floor of her songs. Her third album, Evergreen in Your Mind, is pastoral folk music as slow cinema; meditative but deceptively intense, and impossible to turn away from once you’re under its spell.
“I hate this country, and I hate this island – but sometimes the people make it all worthwhile,” sings Simon Tyrie on ‘Space un the Cab’, the wonky disco banger that kicks off The Itch’s debut album It’s the Hope That Kills You. The track cuts decadent club euphoria with a general feeling of unease while calling out Britain’s slowly eroding nightlife scene. Across the ten infectious songs that follow, The Itch – Tyrie and Georgia Hardy – push back against everyday rage, disillusionment and frustration with party-starting electro-punk tracks that demand human connection.
The community celebration has been there since the start. After years of making music together, Hardy and Tyrie formed The Itch after taking part in the annual Byrne’s Night gig, which…
Damon Albarn’s perspective seems to be firmly placed on Gorillaz, so the arrival of Uncommon Side Effects fills a gap in the market of rapier-sharp and kinetic pop. The album, fronted by Marc Valentine, could easily have been released in 1996, given its bouncy choruses and soaring guitars. Bassist Richie Poynton unveils his inner Alex James, especially on the hybrid art piece “High in the Underground”. Valentine’s imprints are unapologetically British, splashing and dabbling about London nights based on youthful reverie.
Every song stems from an Anglo-centric mindset. The jangly “NY UAP” is the commentary from an outsider looking at the American landmark. “You Are the Jet” – a celebration, perhaps, of Paul McCartney‘s superlative Wings – forms…
It was something of a miracle how long They Might Be Giants managed to preserve their trademark madcap optimism intact. It lasted right through to their last album, Book (2021). In The World is to Dig, they are still holding on to it in some tracks, but in others it is clear that even they have finally succumbed to ubiquitous world-weariness.
Maybe the surprise is that they stayed immune from it for so long. The band’s two Johns, Flansburgh and Linnell, are now in their mid-sixties, their band has been going for over four decades, this is their 24th album. But it is hard to ignore a new vibe of gloom in many songs, starting with the opening track. The lyric “It’s great to be back in Los Angeles” comes from a singer who just sounds mightily hacked off.
To an outsider, Ashley Monroe is a Nashville success story. As she wrote in her Instagram post heralding the release of her latest record, Dear Nashville, during the past 23 years, she has released six solo albums, released four more with Pistol Annies, co-wrote two songs that went to number one on country radio, and has been nominated for Grammy Awards three times. She’s accomplished much more than the typical singer-songwriter looking for glory in Music City.
However, Monroe is not happy with the way she’s been treated by the town. Dear Nashville is a concept record about her professional experiences. The eight songs tell her story as a love letter. She begins with the diatribe “I Hate Nashville” and ends with “Quittin’”, but neither title…
Esoteric Recordings present the release of Gemini – Pieces for Piano, a brand new album by Ant.
Gemini – Pieces for Piano was recorded between October 2022 and October 2025 and features what Ant describes as the best of the keyboard compositions he has written since the release of his previous solo piano album Soirée in 1999. The title of the album comes from a piece of the same name that Ant wrote for the celebrated pianist Martha Argerich, who premiered the work in duet form in 2018. Gemini – Pieces for Piano includes Ant’s solo version of the track. Anthony Phillips has stayed the course, having long mastered the art of the quiet overachiever. While many of his contemporaries have settled into a predictable cycle of nostalgia, ‘Ant’ continues to operate as a singular moodsmith.
Making music that’s jittery, neurotic, darkly comical, but also powerfully catchy, the Violent Femmes are a pillar of the American underground movement, and one of the best early examples of alternative rock.
40th anniversary reissue of their long out of print third album The Blind Leading the Naked. Features fan favorites “I Held Her In My Arms” and “Old Mother Reagan” along with their classic cover of the T-Rex song “Children Of the Revolution.”
A more mainstream effort courtesy of producer Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads). Gordon Gano returns to his troubled teen persona and the Violent Femmes rock harder than on their previous two releases. A nice cover of the T. Rex classic “Children of the Revolution”…
With the release of Great As Ever: Live In Philadelphia ’86, a theme is beginning to emerge in the chronological issues of this archival series. Notwithstanding how this package lives up to its title–it’s actually a reference to the loyalty of the audience from the leader of the band–Gregg Allman’s self-assurance and pride in his work is too obvious to ignore throughout the third edition of concert recordings from the late Southerner’s vault, this one captured on January 11, 1986, at Chestnut Cabaret, Philadelphia, PA.
From the very opening of “Don’t Want You No More”/”Ain’t My Cross The Bear,” the segue taken from the ABB studio debut, much of the set consists of well-known selections from the Allman Brothers’ discography.
Celebrating 20 years of Frank Turner’s solo debut EP Campfire Punkrock, Xtra Mile Recordings release a special anniversary extended edition of the seminal release. Featuring the original EP tracks and 6 further live tracks recorded from Frank’s 50th solo gig in London 2006 – taking listeners right back to where it all began at the very early days of Frank’s incredible solo career. The 12” LP features new reworked artwork with shiny gold campfire on matt black cover plus coloured vinyl.
The original EP was recorded by Frank’s guitarist Ben Lloyd at the Oxford home of Turner’s bass player Tarrant Anderson and mixed by Tristan Ivemy. If features fan favourites ‘Nashville Tennessee’, ‘The Real Damage’ and ‘Ballad Of Me And My Friends’
With the release of Kammerkonzert, Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher) continues his career-long obsession with the intersection of human performance and machine-led precision. However, this 2026 offering marks a significant departure from the improvisational jazz-fusion of his previous eras, opting instead for a rigorous exploration of neoclassical structures through the lens of hyper-modern electronic synthesis.
The album is structured as a 14-movement suite, chronologically titled “K1 Advance” through “K14 Welbeck”. This nomenclature immediately signals a move toward a proto-classical framework, distancing the work from the club-oriented aesthetics of IDM. The “Kammerkonzert” (Chamber Concert) concept is not merely…
Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, the eight-piece collective Fauna offer up a colourful tapestry of sounds in which Eastern instruments and styles interweave with psychedelic guitars, atmospheric effects and electronic beats. Swedish compatriots Goat are an obvious point of reference, though Fauna’s focus is more firmly rooted in the dancefloor. The band are at their best when they slowly build up a blend of musical layers.
‘En Munfull Sand’ begins with tribal drums and circling Anatolian rock guitar riffs before ritualistic flutes, darbukas and chanted incantations create a deep, trance-like groove. ‘Bland Träden’ opens with swirling vocal atmospherics before deep rumbling basslines and tabla beats underpin a slowly unfurling blend of electronic…
After Black Midi called it quits in 2023, bassist/co-vocalist Cameron Picton eventually started making music on his own. Although he was drawn to a more spacious, acoustic sound than that of his former band, his approach was still dramatic and unpredictable in nature. Not quite sure if he wanted to be in another band, he ultimately did bring in collaborators for his debut album, among them members of experimental London group caroline, singer/songwriter/composer Kiran Leonard, and veteran percussionist Steve Noble. Featuring shifting, often trippy narratives (he cited King Crimson as an influence), he named the project and the album My New Band Believe. Without offering much in the way of a through line other than the concept of “dream logic,”…
Nowhere Faster, the 11th studio album by post-rock duo El Ten Eleven, is a bit of something old and something new. The most notable change to the group’s sound is the addition of piano and strings for the first time on any of their recordings, which make the album easily the most cinematic-sounding project they’ve ever released. The duo also decided to bring back the delay pedal which was central to their early sound.
Opener “Uncanny Valley Girl,” meant as a commentary about AI taking over the world, is El Ten Eleven at their best. It starts with an angular but funky bassline which ping-pongs through the speakers as the delay dices it up, and the pianos and strings refreshingly add textural depth. Then the rhythm comes together as…
After Oylam (2010), Judith Berkson, mezzo-soprano, pianist, composer and improviser, returns with another unclassifiable, and strangely compelling, artistic statement. On Thee They Thy, she leads a trio with Trevor Dunn and Gerald Cleaver through a radically changing programme addressing new settings for prayer (Berkson is also a cantor), original songs, vocal experimentation, improvised piano and more. “I view the pieces on this recording as a natural extension of my solo work,” says Judith Berkson. “This idea of songs that are quite intimate and personal, informed by jazz with pockets of improvisation but also drawing from song and avant-garde traditions in their harmonic and melodic material, embracing elements of minimalism…
The lapping water that burnishes the edges of this collaboration between multidisciplinary artists Félicia Atkinson and Christina Vantzou – friends for over 15 years, kindred spirits for eternity possibly – holds the multitudes of humanity’s draw to the sea. These Water Poems sit in a lineage with the trireme of Ancient Greece, sickly Victorians at the coast for healing, writers beckoned to Tangier, and point-and-shoot film photos in a box in your family home, sunbleached and filled with bright swimsuits. Atkinson and Vantzou channel their own oceanside dwellings into ambient sounds tinged with nostalgia, joy and hidden depths.
It manifests in compositions that subvert the usual calm of water-based field recordings. The repeated piano chords and chanted mantras…