Manslaughter 777 are powerhouses of forward-thinking rhythmic music and production. The duo, composed of drummers/programmers Lee Buford (The Body, Sightless Pit, Dead Times, Everyone Asked About You) and Zac Jones (MSC, Nothing, Braveyoung), combine their prowess as percussionists and producers into beat-centric music that delights in turning unexpected sounds into razor sharp rhythms. Buford and Jones, along with engineer/producer Seth Manchester of Machines with Magnets (The Body, Model/Actriz, Liturgy), have collaborated for nearly two decades, consistently shattering genre boundaries and redefining the role of the studio in the process. God’s World uses innovative sound sampling to create expansive sonics driven…
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Anyone approaching this album unawares needs to be warned that its playing time of 36′ 34″ is divided into sixty nine tracks ranging in length from six seconds to a minute and 41 seconds, and that the tracks are labelled as Roman numerals from one to 69 with 10 of the track titles being extended by dedications to unidentified individuals (for example, “XXXIV to Sisa Wandeler”). For anyone keen to know more, the track titles are printed on the rear sleeve. Given the album’s release day, this is not an elaborate joke…
The clue to this mystery is in big blue letters on the front of this album sleeve — “Yet Dish” “Gertrude Stein.” Born in Pennsylvania in 1874, Gertrude Stein was a renowned American novelist, poet and playwright who moved to Paris…
It turns out that Patricia Brennan is not the only vibraphonist exploring ambitious concepts these days. On this album, Yuhan Su brings the idea of dual consciousness into music, with the musicians in her group often playing along two separate paths simultaneously.
Su was born in Taiwan and is now based in New York. Living in both those cultures at once gave her the idea to explore that concept musically.
There is constant motion and activity in this music often done in two contrasting tempos and volumes at the same time.
Clashing rhythms dart everywhere creating an effect reminiscent of the choppier aspects of Steve Lehman’s and Steve Coleman’s music, but in a denser and more expansive form.
…Musician, composer, producer, collaborator and more, Kramer, of Noise New York/Shimmy Disc/Half Japanese fame, is so prolific in so many fields that the fact that it’s been five years since his last solo album barely registers. For those who are aware of him, he’s a presence, rather than a specific kind of artist. For those who aren’t …and the crimson moon whispers goodbye, “a 4-part ambient drone-poem for The Living and the Dead,” will give an idea of some of the sides to his talent. It is maybe as good a place to start as any, since there’s no such thing as a typical Kramer album.
Compared to his work of the early 2020s like Music for Films Edited By Moths or And the Wind Blew it All Away, …and the crimson moon whispers goodbye feels almost conventional,…
This is Portuguese singer Lina_’s second album in a matter of months. And it is not a bad call. After a slightly disappointing collaboration with Dead Can Dance’s Jules Maxwell, which followed successful previous collaborations with Raül Refree and Justin Adams, her new partnership with Spanish pianist Marco Mezquida is a relief. Not that working with Maxwell was a failure, but it felt like Lina_ had fallen into the trap of a mandatory unexpected move with each new record.
O Fado is a sort of cautious step back. Relying solely on voice and piano, no other electronic or out-of-the-box gimmicks involved, Lina_ finds herself on solid ground again. Mezquida proves to be a consistent partner in crime when the two of them venture into fado atmospheres…
Moon Orchids delivers stately country rock ballads that explode into squalls of guitar noise, shards of trumpets embedded in their Crazy Horse-like roar. This first full-length, following the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based band’s Skin/Skein EP and a single, evokes Neil Young certainly but also the Band and, in quieter moments, Bill Callahan.
That Callahan reference derives in part from bandleader Jacob Simon’s hollowed out tenor, but also from his offhand grace with lyrics. The words are simple and straightforward, but they slant sideways revealing mystery beneath the skin. In “Gospel Tree,” one of this disc’s best cuts (Simon liked it enough to include it twice), the image of castrati monkeys singing falsetto is striking, this tossed off couplet is maybe…
There was a time, around the start of this millennium, when rock music got its act together and offered something new and refreshing, something satisfying and so much more than the usual style over substance that the genre is known for. Bands like The Strokes, The Killers and Arctic Monkeys arrived on the scene and started delivering music woven from both style and substance. Listening to “America’s Favourite Pastime” makes you think this could be the opening sonic salvos being fired for another wave of such greatness. And, of course, the secret to such success was that those bands were more than just rock acts. Sure, the music kicked some arse, but it was also forged of indie coolness and no small amount of pop accessibility too.
A staggering 36 years into their mission to explore strange new sounds, to boldly embed themselves inside rewardingly thorny knots of riff, Brighton-based mavericks I’m Being Good’s fascination for the delectable complexities within subterranean noise thrives unabated.
Their ninth full-length is the sound of insatiable curiosity on the prowl, an exercise in just how many dangerous twists and occasional jump-scares this kind of post-math, post-prog, post-post-rock music can encompass. Spaceshitter’s not simply out to unnerve you – that would be ungentlemanly, and the group have plenty more ideas in their quiver. But this is definitely a record that savours every curveball it sends out there.
Like forebears Polvo and contemporaries…
Caspar Brötzmann, founder and leader of the avant-rock power trio Massaker, has been away from the spotlight for a while without being inactive. The band went on hiatus after releasing five glorious albums between 1986 and 1994, and touring the globe several times.
They continued to play live occasionally, but weren’t interested in recording. The guitarist recorded an album with his father Peter Brötzmann’s tentette (The März Combo Live in Wuppertal), issued three duo albums with F.M. Einheit, Page Hamilton, and Robin Guthrie, and did session work. In 2013, he formed the power trio Nohome and issued an eponymous album. In 2017, Brötzmann teamed with bassist Massimo Pupillo and drummer Alexandre Babel for…
Not since Cities and Memory’s The Chimes has an album delved so deeply into the resonance of church bells; and Campana Sonans (Ringing Bell) has the dual advantage of being a single-artist LP and a physical release. One may even purchase a printed stained glass tote bag to carry one’s record (plus 19 more)!
After relocating from LA to Berlin in 2019, Jake Muir became enamored with the sound of the city’s church bells. This led him on a Europe-wide trek as he began to record and examine the vast differences between sonorities and approaches, most especially the staid practices of Germany versus the melodic sequences of England.
But of course the album is not just bells; Campana Sonans is a reflection of history and…
Youkali, for Kurt Weill, was the land of desires, promised but never to be attained – a strong image for an exiled and itinerant composer.
The 1935 song in which he captured the idea, a lilting tango, forms the lodestar of Katie Bray’s voyage through Weill’s chameleonic songwriting career, undertaken alongside the pianist William Vann, accordionist Murray Grainger and double bassist Marianne Schofield, the latter moonlighting from the Hermes Experiment.
First, we hear a haunting, unaccompanied musing on the Youkali melody, then more of these punctuate the programme until we reach the song in full at the end. The journey takes in numbers in German, French and English – some familiar, some not – including a couple of songs…
Given Marilyn Crispell’s moody, evocative albums on the ECM label with Joe Lovano and under her own name, and her two subdued albums from last year (one with guitarist Jakob Bro and the other with Danish drummer Michala Østergaard-Nielsen), you’d be forgiven for forgetting her noisier roots. The pianist came to prominence in the ‘80s, playing with avant-garde titan Anthony Braxton, and her first album as a leader, 1983’s Spirit Music, features free violinist Billy Bang. Crispell may have worked mellower territory in the ensuing years, but Live at the Hungry Brain, documenting a Chicago record-store performance from 2023, proves that she hasn’t left the fire behind.
Working with the trio of Jason Stein on bass clarinet, bassist Damon Smith and drummer…
Even though he has surely heard this more than a few times, Gregory Groover Jr. is a pretty hip name for a jazz saxophonist. Not so much for the pastor of Boston’s Charles Street AME Church, the position held by the Groover for whom he is named, Gregory Sr., who no doubt grooves in his own way. Gregory Jr. plays high-energy tenor on Old Knew, the second recording under his name, wherein he leads a sturdy quintet through its paces on ten of his original compositions and one (“Retrograde”) by pianist and composer Jason Moran.
The mood is mostly sunny and upbeat with Groover and vibraphonist Joel Ross assuming the lion’s share of melodic oversight while pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Kendrick Scott enhance the rhythmic…
In late 1967, the BBC launched Radio 1 as an attempt to fill the void created by the banning of the pirate radio stations that had been beaming pop music into homes around the nation. Leaving the more experimental sounds to John Peel at night, the DJs played a bright and sunny mix of pop music, something that the minds behind Grapefruit’s 2025 collection All Things Bright and Beautiful: The UK Pop Explosion 1967-1969 have sought to recapture. Over the course of three CDs, a parade of hooks so sharp they could cut glass do battle with melodies so sweet they would scare a diabetic and harmonies so rich they might need to move to the Isle of Man.
Big names like the Hollies drop in occasionally with big hits like “Carrie Anne,” but for…
Even if you are the type of person not to overthink the notion that it should be “Irish goodbye” instead of “Irish exit” — not for nothing, but The Temple Bar can’t sufficiently resolve its origins — in the very specific case of Tantrums in Tandem, it’s still something of a misnomer. Ryan Palmer’s first full-length under this alias follows an accelerated origin of its own that’s resulted in a hello denizens of any nation could recognize and one of the year’s better indie rock debuts.
Palmer is an artist on the ascent, but he hasn’t come from nowhere. The Marine Park resident has spent time playing in Brooklyn bands that include Screwbawl, Wince, Best Girl and Kid Nice, most of them associated with the mischievous Cropsey Records (aka “Brooklyn’s…
Yeah, mostly is a new collection of 11 songs resembling a collection of short stories traversing a person’s relationship with their dishwasher, a grandparent’s funeral, an ungodly cold night in Los Angeles and other scenes that float in and around the rhythms of daily life.
It is the most personal and self-assured album yet from Will Epstein – also known for his work under the moniker High Water, in addition to collaborations with Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington (Darkside) – as well as the most seemingly effortless application of his songwriting talents. His work composing for movies, like his recent IDA Documentary Award-nominated score for Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV, bleeds into his recent, more accessible work.
Throughout her debut record, Things I’ve Said Before, classically trained folk musician Remi Goode relies solely on a nylon-stringed guitar. While this is not unheard of for country and folk musicians — Willie Nelson has been playing one for 55 years — it’s certainly not the norm nowadays. But the choice gives rich warmth and softer tones to an already ethereal sound.
The nine-track record – the recording of which was split between various bedrooms and a proper studio – has an intimacy to it that feels almost intrusive. With “Don’t Drive Me Home,” the set begins on a mellow note — acoustic guitar and soft violin framing Goode’s warm, confident vocals in a bittersweet song of conflicted love. While not every song that follows is as placid,…
For lovers of bluegrass and americana roots music unable or unwilling to visit the USA at present, a short flight to Norway provides a very serious alternative as a source of inspiration. Surprising as it may seem, there is a thriving scene, the annual Strenger I Gress festival bringing together many of the bluegrass bands that have sprung up in recent years. Names like Strengeplukk, Oystein Sunde and the Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra have been around a while, developing their own form of what might be termed ‘Scandigrass’.
The North Carolina bluegrass quartet Chatham County Line have been frequent visitors to Norway for around twenty years and their impeccable harmonies and mastery of their instruments will no doubt have inspired many…
Looking for a guaranteed smash hit for your next world music dance party?
Look no further than Acide Balkanique, the second album by Bucharest-based multi-instrumentalist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici and electronics wizard Alin Zãbrãuțeanu, a duo who do their genre-melding under the moniker Balkan Taksim. Acide Balkanique is a collection of eight trippy tracks slathered in psych-rock reverb and dark ambient space effects, pulsing with techno energy and carrying melancholic melodies drawn from Carpathian/Balkan folk music.
The all-instrumental ‘ORHIDEJA’ (Orchid) blossoms with a traditional desert-style beat rendered on frame drums in support of a Farfisa-sounding organ, fuzzy electro-saz and…
When solo and collaborative releases are counted, the discography Ian Hawgood‘s amassed is nothing short of staggering. What makes it all the more impressive is that, as this latest release shows, he’s still capable of creating vital and imaginative work unlike anything he’s produced before. One of the ways he accomplishes that is by devising ever new strategies for creating material, in the case of Savage Modern Structures the sound-generating gear he used, specifically guitar and that beloved prog standby, mellotron. It’s all Hawgood, though in October 2024 he and Will Bolton brought the album to its final form by using the AKG BX20 spring reverb units at Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm to give the material extra analog warmth and organic reverb.