Conceived under eclipsed skies, Path of Totality, the new album from The Montvales, unites the vast American diaspora into one collective and cosmic tapestry. Inspired by the long tradition of radical country and folk artists, longtime friends Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson use their passion for literature and storytelling to craft an album that reckons with the current global fever pitch.
The album’s 12 introspective, thematically and sonically layered tracks chart a transformative pilgrimage through an inextricably connected world. A woman desperate to save her community from a gas pipeline in “Plains of Ohio,” a devout grandmother traveling across the world to Yugoslavia in search of the Virgin Mary in “Our Lady,” and a trouble-making Bible College…
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This woozy, wandering album 8Men from Isa Gordon sees the Ayrshire musical magpie presenting four interpretations of trad folk tracks, alongside four eclectic covers. It’s an intense, otherworldly experience that rewards repeated listens. Vocoder laments twist through ambient soundscapes, never losing the melody at the heart of each track, like Laurie Anderson’s O Superman battling it out with the more introverted end of The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World.
The covers are a clever hook that showcase just how versatile Gordon can be. If you weren’t expecting to hear a trad ambient version of War Pigs by Black Sabbath, then today is your lucky day. This has clearly been a labour of love, choosing songs that, despite their diverse heritage…
Otracami, the project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and composer Camila Ortiz, releases her album Runoff, via Figure & Ground.
Across the eleven tracks of Runoff, Otracami layers intricate vocals, field recordings, and samples into full-band arrangements that feel overfull with life, mirroring the album’s central tension between containment and overflow. “I was trying out leaving for the first time—people and jobs and situations with family,” reflects Ortiz. “It was real trial and error—sometimes that really worked and felt liberating and other times I had to turn around and go back. It was a period of big experimentation.”
On Runoff, Otracami draws from both the landscapes of her life in New York and her childhood in Northern California, which…
Formlessness comes in many forms. There is a loose category of music that seems to shift without any noticeable movement, that gathers in dark pools or drifts in gaseous clouds, and we tend to call that music ‘ambient’. But ambient covers a lot of ground these days: beatless music often displays psychedelic or folk influences, elements of musique concrete, field recording or free improvisation. It’s less a genre and more a kind of abstract moodboard, and as such its practitioners are sometimes guilty of a lack of focus, of throwing too much at the wall, or else too little.
But in the right hands, it can be incredibly potent. Gayle Brogan, the mastermind behind Pefkin, understands the fluidity and adaptability of ambient music better than most. A prolific…
For Sassparilla frontman and songwriter Kevin Blackwell, there is one lyric in particular on the band’s eight studio album, Honey, I’m Using Again, that feels especially truthful to where he is at this stage of his life: “Despite all my kicking / My protesting / I’ll be damned that I got old,” he bemoans on ‘I’ll Be Damned’, but inevitability of ageing is just one of the honest looks at the human experience explored on the LP. As its title suggests, addiction is also covered, along with homelessness and death. These are subjects that could feel like a chore to listen to, but with the band’s mix of punk and americana, they make for a fresh batch of invigorating, short, sharp life lessons with a Southern gothic flavour to them.
‘When I Get Off This Mountain’, heavy with…
Kiss Facility is the duo of Emirati-Egyptian singer and songwriter Mayah Alkhateri and producer Salvador Navarrete, aka Sega Bodega, close collaborator of Shygirl and Oklou. Together, they make spellbinding Arabic alt-pop that bridges elements of shoegaze, trip-hop, post-punk, and deconstructed club. The result? A gothic romance with all the poetic gravity of Arabic songcraft and none of the hang-ups of tradition. KHAZNA, meaning “treasure” or “vault” in Arabic, contains passages of unerring devotion and romantic mysticism alongside vows of mutual destruction such that Kiss Facility’s khazna begins to more resemble an impassioned prison.
The springy synths and chugging guitar riffs that open “Lynch” are promptly assuaged by…
…‘Death is real, someone’s there and then they’re not, and it’s not for singing about, it’s not for making into art,’ sang Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum on ‘Real Death’, one of a whole, heartbreaking album of songs recorded in the wake of his partner’s death from cancer. Personal grief is by its nature individual. We can never know exactly what someone else is feeling, even when they express themselves with eloquence or with complete rawness. But that doesn’t mean we can’t gain something from the experience. Elverum made art – eloquent and raw – whether he wanted to or not, and the same could be said for Joshua Burnside, who wrote and recorded It’s Not Going to Be Okay after and about the death of his best friend, the musician Dean Jendoubi.
There’s something transformational about the music of Ellie O’Neill. The Irish songwriter’s debut album Time of Fallow picks you up in one space, and deposits you in another – listening to it, you’re left feeling like a pebble in the current, pushed downstream to pastures new. A pared-back selection of alt folk minimalism, these sketch-like pieces are uniquely powerful, resulting in a debut album that leaves a palpable impact.
Music that discusses memory, grief, desire, and self-reckoning, the material on Time of Fallow was penned in the aftermath of the pandemic, a time when Ellie O’Neill was forced to return to her family home on a County Meath council estate. A period of personal change, the songs came to reflect her queer identity, while also looking…
You could count the number of intelligible words across IOWA on your fingers if you wanted to.
One of them is “January,” and another one is “snowstorm.” The new album from the Brooklyn-based artist Lia Ouyang Rusli, who records as OHYUNG, is both flush with the timbre of the human voice and almost completely empty of language. As OHYUNG’s first ambient album since 2022’s imagine naked!, IOWA joins a growing body of recent work — by more eaze, Lucy Liyou, even Ethel Cain on her more experimental ventures — that positions the voice not as an authoritative anchor at the center of a composition, but as a stray vapor trail daring listeners to draw meaning from its wisps.
Rusli, who lived in Iowa City from 2023 to…
Egyptian singer Abdullah Miniawy has spent the past decade lending his melismatic voice and Arabic classical maqam melodies to a fascinating range of experimental music, and. Alongside French trumpeter Erik Truffaz he released the 2023 jazz-inflected album Le Cri du Caire; in his ongoing collaboration with German trio Carl Gari, his vocals are paired with sparse electronic atmospherics; and his trio features two trombones playing through baroque-inspired compositions.
Since 2020, Miniawy has been working on a heavier, dancefloor-focused collaboration with French producer Simo Cell. Their debut EP, Kill Me Or Negotiate, employed snapping electronic percussion, thunderous trap bass and whispers of jazz horns, and the pair now delve…
Loose collaborations can go in two directions – some sort of loose jams that just might go nowhere, or innovative chipping of ideas that result in some interesting musical results. In the latter case, there is usually a core set of musicians that bring in a sort of semblance to a possible chaos, leading the way to something that is tangible and ultimately listenable.
For At Your Pace, their second album offering, Modha, a core Berlin-based duo of Dhanya Langer and Max Scholl operate as a sort of collective bringing in outside talents of the likes of Shanice Ruby Bennett (bass), Käthe Johanning (Rhodes), Fabiano Lima (percussion), Konstantin Döben (horns), and Tim Sensbach (guitar), as well as a set of guest vocalists/rappers like…
Many extraordinary works fade quietly into obscurity, only to be rediscovered years later. Roland Brival’s Créole Gypsy belongs firmly to this overlooked category, a staggering, deeply political, and intensely beautiful work of Pan-Caribbean spiritual jazz that has remained a ghost in the annals of music history since 1980. Now, rescued from obscurity and newly remastered by Soundway Records, this holy grail of Antillean music finally demands the reckoning it has always deserved. Appreciating Créole Gypsy begins with understanding the life and perspective of its creator. Born in 1950 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, music represents just one dimension of Roland Brival’s versatility. He is a celebrated novelist, poet, literature critic, painter,…
Girl Scout tweak Scandi indie pop’s rich tradition to match the singularity of their stories. They do so by referencing the zenith of 90s jangle-pop and elements of the Cranberries’ cathartic output to engineer a scuzzy alt-rock coded exploration of ennui, parallel possibilities and existential longing amidst the flux of upbringing.
Since their inception six years ago, the Swedish trio have established a solid footing in alternative circles via a lauded debut EP, with Soccer Mommy producer Ali Chant on board, and a much-vaunted European tour with Canadian indie stalwarts Alvvays. Formed during their days as students of jazz at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, lead vocalist and guitarist Emma Jansson alongside Per Lindberg, on drums, and…
Colleen’s music has long been praised for the way its reveals depth and beauty with almost imperceptible shifts. Her gift for building tiny melodies until they arrive somewhere profound remains intact on Libres antes del final, but the greatest shift is in Colleen’s attitude. On Le jour et la nuit du réel, she transformed the way light moves through a room over the course of a day into subtly gripping listening. Here, she pairs her brilliance at evoking and observing with dynamic action. After years of living near the Barcelona coast, Colleen confronted a long-standing phobia and resolved to swim in open water once again. With her trusty Moog Grandmother synth, she translates her battle between fear and freedom into pieces that are darker, and more propulsive,…
St. Vincent has released Live In London!, a new digital album capturing her acclaimed orchestral performance at Royal Albert Hall.
Recorded during last year’s BBC Proms, the album documents a unique collaboration between Annie Clark and conductor Jules Buckley, backed by a 60-piece orchestra. The performance saw St. Vincent reimagine material from across her career, transforming fan favourites and deeper cuts into sweeping, cinematic arrangements.
Spanning 19 tracks, Live In London! draws from a catalogue that stretches from her 2007 debut Marry Me through to 2024’s All Born Screaming, showcasing the evolution of one of modern music’s most inventive artists. Songs including Digital Witness, Los Ageless and Slow Disco are given…
Danny George Wilson follows up the Danny & The Champions of the World album, You Are Not a Stranger Here, with a collection of introspective, powerful songs. The cosmic landscapes of You Are Not a Stranger Here give way to something more plaintive, rawer and earthier. It may or may not have been Wilson’s intention, but the two albums make wonderful companion pieces. Arcade seems to find Wilson at a crossroads: it feels retrospective and nostalgic, but, like Janus, also seems to look forward – although sometimes it feels as if Wilson is stumbling towards the future.
If Arcade finds Wilson in a moment of transition lyrically, this is not the case musically. Wilson has, for a long time, been a brilliant songwriter, singer and master performer. There is now…
Attachment Theory, features 11 tracks that analyze and reflect on the barriers we face when dealing with others as potential life partners. Dating is hard. Sellers has noted, “This record was born out of heartbreak, with the theme of attachment theory running through it in different ways. I’ve always been fascinated by psychology, especially people’s personalities and quirks, and how they function in relationships.” These songs address the issues creatively and thematically, but Sellers takes things one step further by launching a podcast series that explores the psychological theories behind such behavior for each of the 11 songs.
The first episode of Attachment Theory: The Podcast, “Villain of the Week”, delves into how dating apps attract emotionally unavailable…
The most exciting and terrifying parts of dreams (or nightmares) are the ones we recognize. Familiar fragments collide and reassemble into something strange. Things we thought we knew are turned upside down or ripped apart and sewn together backwards. That unnerving thrill – the shiver of recognition followed by disorientation – is at the core of Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1, the latest collection of covers from prolific music provocateurs Xiu Xiu. Jamie Stewart, Angela Seo and David Kendrick warp and distort classics spanning decades and genres – from 1950s rock n’ roll to new wave, Robyn to Throbbing Gristle.
Xiu Xiu are no strangers to interpretation. Since the group’s inception in 2002, they’ve regularly paid homage to artists they revere – from…
Supertramp followed an unusual path to commercial success in the 1970s, fusing the stylistic ambition and instrumental dexterity of progressive rock with the wit and tuneful melodies of British pop, and the results made them one of the most popular British acts of the ’70s and ‘80s, topping the charts and filling arenas around the world at a time when their style of music was supposed to have fallen out of fashion.
Supertramp was formed in 1969 by pianist and vocalist Rick Davies. Davies had been a member of a group called the Joint, who had found a financial backer in Dutch millionaire Stanley August Miesegaes; Miesegaes had grown disenchanted with the Joint, but saw promise in Davies, and he offered to bankroll a new band if Davies wanted…
The latest from the Nashville-based duo Paper Wings will reward fans who embraced their signature amalgamation of literate folk with bluegrass, as well as their lyrical willingness to explore the territory beneath the thin veil of decency people and societies present. On Mountains on the Moon, though, the prevailing themes are longing and abiding resilience through individual strength. A stern sense of self-reliance and clear-eyed hope may be the most political statement of the album – songwriting partners Emily Mann and Wila Frank have plumbed depths both personal and universal before. Here, they seek defiance through resolve and eschew despair in favour of cautious optimism.
The opener, ‘Fumbling’ alliteratively asks…