A band founded sixty years ago during the same emergent British psychedelic art-rock scene that brought the world Pink Floyd is still putting out new music. Soft Machine’s Thirteen refers to this being their 13th studio release, the third since they resumed making records under the Soft Machine moniker after a thirty-seven year lull.
Soft Machine’s last new release arrived three years earlier; the Other Doors quartet still boasted two members from the mid-70s lineup and a third from that era appearing on two tracks. In the interim, long-time drummer John Marshall passed and bassist Roy Babbington’s phase-out became complete. Guitarist John Etheridge remains the last link to the classic era while keyboardist/saxophonist/flautist Theo Travis…
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Five years on, Mark Turner returns to the studio with his pianoless quartet to record the follow up to the hugely impressive Return from the Stars and see how much further they can collectively take the music forward.
As with the earlier recording, Turner once again draws his influence from his love of science fiction with the Patternmaster novel by Octavia E. Butler published in 1976, and which in the distant future humans are sub-divided with the dominant Patternists ruled by a powerful telepath known as the Patternmaster.
With a similar fascination with science fiction, Turner likens Wayne Shorter to the Pattermaster of Butler’s novel to the extent that the title track is a cleverly disguised contrafact of…
… and the boisterous brothers are back. No, not that pair from Manchester, but Chris and Rich Robinson, with a follow-up to 2024’s Happiness Bastards. Labelled “The Most Rock ‘n’ Roll Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World” by the Melody Maker, it’s not difficult to guess what’s on offer with this latest release, A Pound Of Feathers.
Profane Prophecy starts off with a transplanted Rolling Stones groove and cowbell. There’s lots of energy, handclaps and foot stomping aplenty and even a dog imitation at one point. Exhilaratingly fun and a good opening choice. Cruel Streak, which follows, keeps up the pace. It’s an up-tempo rocking blues (what else?) with nicely juddering staccato drums and a key shift which gives it extra bite.
The Long Ryders were once the shit, to use the appropriate slang expression from back in the day. Their albums from the mid-1980s (Native Son, State of Our Union, Two-Fisted Tales) were part of the onslaught of New Wave Cowpunk bands such as Jason and the Scorchers, Green on Red, Rank and File, and the Beat Farmers, that generated excitement among college-age audiences who were turned off by mainstream country acts.
The band took a long hiatus, although they sporadically got together for brief reunions. They released a new studio album in 2019, 32 years after their previous effort. Bassist Tom Stevens died in 2021. The group released their fifth album in 2023 and have been semi-active performing live.
The Long Ryders’ latest record,…
After nearly four decades together, German experimental icons The Notwist have just released their most mature album to date. This isn’t a sneaky way of implying they’re starting, nor a suggestion that they hadn’t already reached full artistic maturity long ago, only recognition that, in a vast catalog spanning growling grunge to synth-splashed pop, News from Planet Zombie contains the most reflective material they’ve ever recorded. Their original sound, developed in the early ’90s, represented the Teutonic equivalent of Seattle grunge. With brothers Markus and Micha Acher still at the helm, News from Planet Zombie is a far cry from those days, but this is no random mutation, merely the natural end result of an evolution that’s unfolded organically,…
Every once in a while, you get the chance to hear an album that refuses to meet your expectations of what music should sound like, not because the band or artist is pushing boundaries, but because the culture that informed the record is completely different from the one you were born into.
Hoggar, the tenth studio record from the Tuareg band, Tinariwen, is just such an album. It’s hard to imagine a culture more different from the United States than that of the Tuareg, a nomadic people group that inhabits parts of the Sahara Desert in Mali, Algeria, Libya, and Niger. Tinariwen came of age musically amid rebellions and political unrest.
But for over three decades, Tinariwen has been active on the world music scene with a successful career playing a style of music that…
Modular synthesizers aren’t just instruments. They can be a way of life, with practitioners getting deeper into the circuits, erecting walls of patch bays and cords, and transforming them anew each time they plug another module into the rack.
Thomas Ankersmit plays a Serge, which was originally devised in the early 1970s by CalArts professor Serge Tcherepnin. It’s the way to go if you want to make music out of imagination and electricity.
But for Ankersmit, a Dutchman who lives in Berlin, the gear is never an end in itself. When he first came on the scene a quarter century ago as a young associate of Phill Niblock and Kevin Drumm, he toted a saxophone, which he used to blast long notes at the walls. The sound of…
Just weeks before unveiling their highly anticipated third studio album, Getting Killed, New York City’s Geese take the stage at The Blue Room at Third Man Records in Nashville to debut the record in full. Recorded live, direct-to-acetate, the performance captures the band’s raw intensity and the electricity of a sold-out crowd hanging on every note, bottling the urgency and excitement surrounding one of the most talked-about bands of the moment.
What makes Geese compelling live is their ability to simultaneously feel tight and sprawling. Songs move with the precision of a disciplined ensemble, yet there’s always room for chaos and spontaneity—moments that suggest the band is discovering themselves as much as the audience is discovering them. It’s a paradoxical energy…
It took some time before Motorpsycho and Theo Buhara found each other again.
The Italian director first collaborated with the Hans Magnus “Snah” Ryan/Bent Sæther nucleus to score neo-Western “The Tussler” back in ’94. Why he chased young bucks notorious for feral stalkers with bass quakes dense enough to kill elephants from the inside (that “How Was I to Know,” son, yow) is anyone’s guess.
But it worked. The assignment seemed to center them. Off went the fuzzbox for a C&W kick some yonks before the Supersuckers or Ween’s attempts.
Thirty years later, the band’s still around, older, seasoned, refined. Buhara’s with us, too: at 74, a fistful of hourglass dust examining his legacy in countdown. Of course, he’s achieved more…
In 1974, Phaedra redefined the landscape of electronic music. What began as an experimental session at Richard Branson’s Manor Studios in Oxfordshire became a seismic event in modern sound.
Using the Moog sequencer for the first time, Tangerine Dream – then comprised of Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann – crafted an album brimming with innovation, mystery and discovery.
Half a century later, Tangerine Dream performed the landmark album at London’s Barbican, reimagining it for a new era.
50 Years of Phaedra: At The Barbican captures a transcendent live performance, in which the current line-up – Thorsten Quaeschning…
Reconnection is one of the projects (and second quintet album) of violinist and composer Tuva Halse. Tuva who? OK, you are not in Norway (that is your right). The entire Norwegian music scene, from jazz to folk, rap and contemporary music, even Eurovision, knows Tuva Halse. She stopped critics in their tracks in a duo with Joshua Redman last summer, which they described as historic. Three years after graduation at the prestigious jazzlinja at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, she is emerging on the international scene. Listen to this album today so you can look smug in a few years: “Tuva Halse? Yes, where have you been?”
Let us make introductions. Halse: baroque, occasionally carnatic-flavoured violin, voice,…
With her latest album, Isaiah, the expansively creative Japanese violinist and composer Meg Okura proves once again that she stands among today’s most distinctive musical visionaries.
Rhythmically fluid and stylistically adventurous, the record represents contemporary world fusion at its most refined. A testament to her eclecticism and athletic command, the album showcases her acclaimed Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble in celebration of its 20th anniversary. The tentet’s unfettered explorations are amplified by a roster of distinguished guests who elevate the ensemble’s dynamics, arrangements, and interplay to a higher plane.
The exuberant fusion of “Sushi Gadol”, a tribute to Okura’s brother — who transitioned from…
London-based, Wrexham-raised artist Art School Girlfriend releases her third studio album Lean In, via Fiction Records. Armed with the freedom and space to experiment, Lean In was self-produced in her own East London studio and sees Art School Girlfriend set to move from cult bedroom artist to one of the UK’s most vital artist/producers operating at the moment, tackling alternative rock, electronic pop and experimental ambient sounds in her most cohesive work to date.
Starting off with a looped beat, followed by some ambient sounding synthesiser, Doing Laps is an interesting track to start the album. It feels almost dreamlike with Art School Girlfriend’s whispery sounding vocals, with a backdrop of ambient synths, almost new age…
Last year, Tobias Jesso Jr. made an album with his former gardener. Now, Juliana Hatfield is sharing a surprise record she made with her contractor. It’s called Bets, and it arrives on the heels of December’s Lightning Might Strike.
…The beginning of the project is as fascinating as its music. While Hatfield was renovating her home, she found out that her contractor also loved music. This shared interest turned into a creative partnership and they created Bets. They spent several months working together, combining Hatfield’s unique style with new ideas from her collaborator.
Bets mixes Hatfield’s indie rock background with a variety of other styles, creating music that feels both familiar and new. The album…
…newly remastered and features six bonus tracks that were previously unreleased or hard to find.
The members of Vermont’s Guppyboy went on to form Ladybug Transistor and the Essex Green. With their 1997 debut on Sudden Shame Records, they experimented with their poppy variety of folk/country indie pop. The disc starts off with the slow and reflective “Washington Square,” which is followed by “Trouble,” which includes a healthy dose of banjo and could easily be mistaken for Wilco. “Avalon Ballroom” is a duet that has an awkward pause in the middle. Once the song finds its pace again, it’s an enjoyable and relaxed collaboration. “Affection” includes bittersweet and distant vocals, creating a haunting feeling throughout the track.
Prince Edward Island, on Canada’s eastern seaboard, is a hotbed of musical talent, with a revolving community of extremely talented musicians who are helping to preserve the Celtic/folk traditions of the area while advancing the genre’s boundaries by infusing them with elements of pop, swing and country.
One such is the formidable group The East Pointers, formed in 2014 by Tim Chaisson (fiddle and vocal), Koady Chaisson (banjo), and their cousin Jake Charron (guitar/keyboards), one of the most exciting live bands in the genre.
Tim Chaisson had already made something of a name for himself as singer-songwriter of some ability, having been a member of the band Kindle in his early teens and joining with others…
Cody Diekhoff (aka Chicago Farmer) grew up in an Illinois farming community in the tiny community of Delevan, and his grandparents were a pivotal part of his upbringing, with his grandfather being a master storyteller as well as a first-class farmer. Young Cody listened to these stories with fascination, and the effect they had on him has stayed with him all his life. Diekhoff has now recorded his debut album with the help of his recent touring band, The Fieldnotes. They are Charlie Harris on bass, Cody Jensen on keyboards and mandolin, Frank Kurtz on drums and Jaik Willis on guitar.
Listening to these songs, there’s a raw immediacy to them with Diekhoff’s vocals being delivered as though it’s his last day on earth.
Magnus Granberg was born in Umea in northern Sweden in 1974. He studied saxophone and improvisation at the University of Gothenberg and in New York in his late teens and early twenties. He was self-taught as a composer.
In 2005, he formed his ensemble Skogen which on November 12th 2010 recorded his composition “Ist gefellen in den Schnee” at Atlantis, Stockholm. The nine members of Skogen included Granberg himself on piano, an instrument he had taught himself. The album was released on Another Timbre in February 2012. As with many of Granberg’s compositions, he used other music as inspiration for his own, without copying other composers’ work. As sources of inspiration for “Ist gefellen in den Schnee” he said he had referred to two…
Sublimatio Mortis is a Canadian duo that, at least on this latest release, focuses on deep, slow drones with bassy throat singing and chant.
Over the course of three long tracks spanning 55 minutes, Ghur is an exercise in wall-shaking frequencies coupled with, electronics, static, and guttural vocalizations that provide a haunting yet modern atmosphere.
The sound palette on these tracks is often sparse – overlapping drones that buzz with dark energy, growls from the abyss, and perhaps a chromatic sweep from a synth. This is not ambient music in the usual sense, but an act of transforming raw emotion into tectonic vibrations that physically and psychically pummel the listener. As the album progresses, the palette expands…
Connor Armbruster excels at reinvention. The multi-instrumentalist based in Troy, New York, has released numerous albums over the past several years that tackle a wealth of styles and themes. Phonehenge (2019) was a folk concept album about technology. Masses (2022) consisted of a solo violin recorded in the sanctuary of an empty church. Can I Sit Here (2024) tackled distortion and noise rock. He even released an EP last year, Bednight Snack, consisting entirely of traditional songs he regularly sang to his daughter.
Now, with Half My House, Armbruster tackles traditional Irish music, a somewhat more conventional release, but still imbued with the grace and skill he’s known for.
Joining Armbruster (who sings, plays violin,…