Aaron Shaw is one of the “Friends” in Carlos Niño and Friends, and the song titles on the saxophonist and flautist’s new album reflect some the vibey California positivity of that L.A. percussionist’s crew: “The Path to Clarity,” “Echoes of the Heart,” “Jubilant Voyage,” “Inner Compass.” Niño shows up to do his customary rattling, tinkling shaman thing on several tracks, and helped record a chunk of the record. But Shaw goes for something darker and less touchy-feely on his debut as a leader than its New Age trappings would suggest.
And So It Is does have traces of the warm, atmospheric jazz that’s emerged from the West Coast in recent years. Opener “Soul Journey” features Shaw’s gentle bass clarinet, flute, and sax, all floating together in a velvety haze.
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One of many bands to have explored the country’s more perilous frontiers of DIY culture, Brighton-based bass & drum sludge-punk-noise-rock duo Human Leather finally slam their fury down on tape with their long-awaited debut album, Here Comes the Mind, There Goes the Body. An album that underlines the world’s incessant failures, Human Leather don’t mince their words, rightfully pissed off and unafraid to tells us about it.
The tripwire tension between the two-piece assault team of Amée Chanter and Thomas Close is like a calcified ball of bile and rage. Renowned for their intense live shows, so often the sharp-edged ferocity of a band’s live performance is blunted between the studio walls. Not the case here, however, and it’s thanks to…
Postulate soundtracks a shattered life, mixed and strewn beneath your feet. The album vibrates with menace, as if every track were cut from the same glass that explodes outward in the poem accompanying it. “To your fear, another is added — the fear of windows. / Your transparent, imagined shield has become a weapon of entropy, / tense and ready to kill, / piercing your fragile flesh with a thousand fragments. / Stay away from windows. / Better to move through corridors. / Remember the rule of two walls.” Ujif_notfound transforms this fear into a sonic condition, a landscape where transparency is a lie and safety is an illusion. The record refuses mediation or softening; it is angry, unfiltered, and unapologetic, and it has earned the right to be so. Every sound here is…
A recording consisting solely of the sound of water droplets? As the practice of field recordings continues to expand and extend in to multiple forms of music, that notion is not as odd as it once might have seemed. But this reissue of Shizukutachi by Japanese sound artist Masaaki Takano confounds categorization. Takano began his career in the 1950s developing sound effects for stage, film and broadcasting and working as a recording engineer at music studios. By the 1970s he moved away from sound effects and began performing using self-made sound instruments and collecting field recordings of natural sounds. These two practices intersect in Shizukutachi, his first release from 1978. The project was inspired by a Japanese garden ornament and sound…
Luminous, barely breaking the silence with miniscule gradations and returns, a Jacob’s Ladder of chimes ushers in Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), the 2022 piece for piano, percussion, viola and chorus which also serves as DACAMERA’s new label debut.
A DACAMERA co-commission with Houston’s Rothko Chapel and composed in celebration of its 50th anniversary, the piece’s opening gesture reflects and anticipates, conjuring sounds conjured for the chapel’s inauguration while prefiguring its own development and distilling Sorey’s compositional approach.
Pianist, writer and DACAMERA founder Sarah Rothenberg’s liner essay describes the work’s genesis. She, percussionist Steven Schick,…
After a decade of silence, Chloe Harris returns as Raica with an album that is garnering lavish praise. Chloe’s roots run deep – a veteran stalwart of the US and global electronic scenes – starting out working in record shops, to a wildly successful radio career, leading to establishing herself as one of the most in-demand international DJs. From there her production took-off with support from some of the biggest names in the house/techno world.
…Alongside this she’s also the founder of the seminal Further Records and runs the truly underground store of the same name in Seattle. An endless musical curiosity and open-mindedness runs through Chloe’s psyche, and an important part of this is experimental and…
Between 2023 and 2024, James Shinra quietly carved out a distinctive sonic path with his Meteorites series — a constellation of digital tracks that injected new energy into the braindance and experimental electronic community. Now, Analogical Force gathers the complete collection into one cohesive release, available both on vinyl and digitally, presenting a dozen tracks — half of them reimagined for 2025 — that shimmer with invention.
The result is an electrifying fusion of intricate rhythm and textured melody, as if transmissions from a parallel electronic universe were compressed into punchy, melodic bursts. These compositions are brisk and bumpy, laced with razor-sharp percussion, elastic breaks, and…
On November 1, 2024, The Cure released Songs of a Lost World and that same night, they performed the album in full at London’s Troxy for 3,000 fans, while more than a million others tuned in via a free global livestream.
That performance has now been transformed into The Show of a Lost World, a recut, remixed, and remastered concert film that presents all 31 songs from the night across a generous two hours and forty-seven minutes. Directed by Nick Wickham, with a new surround sound mix by Robert Smith, the film upgrades the original broadcast into a cinematic experience that does justice to both the intimacy of the venue and the scale of the band’s legacy.
Beyond the novelty of premiering their first…
There’s something electrifying about a record that feels forged in the cracks between shifts, under fluorescent lights, and in the ache of repetition. Muffled Ears, the World Sounds Bad Quality, the new full-length from Reading’s Sightseeing Crew, pulses with that energy. It’s a record that grabs modern disorientation by the collar and turns it into something cinematic.
Written over a year split between manual graft, bar shifts, and desk hours, this is a body of work that understands routine from the inside. You can feel the grind in its rhythm, but instead of sinking under that weight, Sightseeing Crew explode it outward. The result is a kaleidoscopic blend of swirling sax lines, expansive guitar atmospheres and melodies that feel slightly bent out of shape.
“Three people will die listening to this album,” the Bandcamp description of Nashpaints’ first record since 2020, Everyone Good is Called Molly, reads. “Zzz they will endup in the same place.” There’s no backstory to Finn Carraher McDonald, only mystery and angelic voicings spread across decaying pop tapes with a butter knife.
Lead single “Boyfriend First” is this seven-minute mass of swirling noise with guitar streaks you’d have to break your nails just to make. There’s a lot of color in here even as the static fattens and the synths undress, because McDonald has melodies coming out the eyes. “Boyfriend First” sounds more like Natalie Imbruglia covering Deerhunter-or maybe it’s Deerhunter covering Natalie Imbruglia-in a sewer tunnel than the Duretti Column…
Ween were the ultimate cosmic goof of the alternative rock era, a prodigiously talented and deliriously odd duo whose work traveled far beyond the constraints of parody and novelty into the heart of surrealist ecstasy. Despite a mastery of seemingly every mutation of the musical spectrum, the group refused to play it straight; in essence, Ween were bratty deconstructionists, kicking dirt on the pop world around them with demented glee. Along with the occasional frat-boy lapses into misogyny, racism, and homophobia, the band’s razor-sharp satire cut to the inherently silly heart of rock & roll with hilariously acute savagery; fueled by psilocybin mushrooms and an all-consuming craving for hot meals, Ween created their own self-contained universe, a parallel dimension…
Lucy Mellenfield began self-releasing her music while studying at the University of Southampton. It was a move to Birmingham to continue her education via a master’s in Jazz Voice that began to shape the songs on her debut album Tell the Water, She Will Listen. Twelve tracks produced by Chris Hyson take us through a sonic landscape of keyboards, guitars, saxophones and drums. At over 75 minutes in total, there is plenty to get involved with here.
The opening ‘Like a Feather’, which was released as a single, is a good example, starting with haunting piano-backed vocals before building to a crescendo of sound. The feather is a symbol of fragility, and that’s a theme that runs throughout the album. ‘Paper Thin’ reflects…
The original lineup of LA post-punks Wall of Voodoo are one of the most unsung groups of their era. Marc Moreland rivaled Gang of Four’s Andy Gill for his ability to pack tension into minimal riffs — and added Morricone flourishes that set him apart from all the other angular guitarists of the time. Joe Nanini was an equally inventive drummer with a massive arsenal of percussion instruments and rhythm boxes at his disposal. And frontman Stan Ridgway brought a distinct noir element, thanks to his use of synthesizers, paranoid lyrics, and a vocal style like no one else’s. Together, nobody sounded like them, and their debut EP — with its spine-chilling cover of “Ring of Fire” — and first two albums are all great.
Wall of Voodoo had a breakthrough with…
Not to be confused with Stranger Things: The WSQK Collection — a fun, in-world treat from the same season — this official soundtrack for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things includes much of the same that fans have come to expect: beloved classics and forgotten throwbacks that tie neatly into the plot of the show. While there’s no big “Running Up That Hill” moment here, the mixtape feel of the track selections makes it a decent compilation. One can imagine — if one is old enough — sitting in front of a boombox with the pause and record buttons compressed, waiting for just the right moment to bridge an early Michael Jackson gem with a Tiffany smash hit. Meanwhile, ABBA, Bowie, and Iron Maiden weave seamlessly with Pixies, Butthole Surfers,…
A live album capturing their first Japan tour in 2005, realized 33 years after their formation, is finally being officially released 20 years after the recording!
Emerging from the Canterbury, England musical community that also launched Gong and Kevin Ayers’ the Whole World, the whimsical progressive rock unit Hatfield and the North formed in 1972. Named in honor of a motorway sign outside of London, the group’s founding membership brought together a who’s who of the Canterbury art rock scene – vocalist/bassist Richard Sinclair was a former member of Caravan, guitarist Phil Miller had tenured with Robert Wyatt in Matching Mole, and drummer Pip Pyle had served with both Gong and Delivery. After a series of lineup…
The pearl of Aotearoa, Bic Runga, returns with her sixth album Red Sunset, an aesthetic blend of the familiar with a lively, blossoming charge.
In the decade since her last album, the largely covers project Close Your Eyes, and the 15 years since her last album of all original songs, Belle, Runga has expanded her indie-pop palette even further. The subtle electronics, old-school R&B, and French exotica first introduced on Belle are now joined by elements of gritty, lo-fi funk, nu-disco polish, and bedroom synth pop, adding up to a greater depth of sound that feels recognisably hers, yet slightly alien in an appealing way.
Returning to Paris – the city that birthed her stellar 2005 album Birds – inspired Runga and her partner Kody Nielson to start work on…
To parse the logic of Sex Mad, one must first inhabit the isolation of 1985 Victoria, British Columbia: a provincial capital where middle-class security doubled as a picturesque cemetery for the newly wed and nearly dead. Here, as the looming artifice of Expo 86 threatened to modernize the coast, the Pacific horizon acted as a literal dead-end and the Wright brothers’ basement as a laboratory. While the global hardcore scene was calcifying into a thudding caricature – The Exploited’s gurning pantomime merging with the metal-hocked bluster of the US crossover set – Rob and John Wright were busy deconstructing the very physics of the power trio.
When guitarist Andy Kerr completed the circuit, internal pressure reached a critical mass.
The guys who make up the country group the Mavericks began their professional music career performing together at rock clubs in Florida. Now you might think that’s a long ride from Nashville, but they found their way easy enough. Once they did, they didn’t leave everything they learned in those rock clubs behind though, and listeners won’t miss the rock & roll flavor that the Mavericks stir into a number of the songs on this 1998 album, It’s Now! It’s Live!
As the title foretells, this is a live album. It was made during a couple of shows the group did in Canada. This is great country-rock music done the way the Mavericks do it best, but the album is a little short with only seven tracks. The songs are fan favorites though, like…
The Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi embraces the imperfections and transience of creation. A potter might express wabi-sabi through the art of kintsugi, the mending of broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with dust from precious metals. Raúl Sotomayor expresses his version of wabi-sabi on the latest album from Sotomayor, his duo with sister Paulina, which represents a shift from seeking perfection to pushing sonic boundaries. “When I started making music, I tried to make everything sound clean and proper,” he said in a recent documentary on his creative process. “Now it’s how much can we clip it or distort it, or how much can we stretch it and it’s still gonna sound good?” The result is a record both calculated and chaotic, crafted by artists who have…
Released by Houndstooth (the in-house record label of London nightclub Fabric) in partnership with Mastery-a London sound studio best known for putting on installations and live shows with a host of performers-Quantum Sound is billed as a record “for listening with eyes closed.” You can listen to each of the comp’s 12 tracks in its entirety or, for maximum transcendence, an hour-long continuous mix crafted by composer and club supremo Hannah Holland, who also contributes two excellent productions of her own. The vinyl even comes with an eye mask if you buy it from Fabric’s website.
The air of peace and tranquility permeating this music is to be expected. But it comes from several unlikely sources, author and TV personality…