The Sabres Of Paradise – Sabresonic / Haunted Dancehall The two albums work well but in different ways, and for any fan of intelligent and leftfield electronica are are rather essential. They stand up well over thirty years later and Warp’s re-issues are very […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Whilst arguably having missed a few opportunities, Touch is nevertheless a roundly decent latter-day #Tortoise record that reassures us that the internal alchemical artistry – even if not as effervescent as it once was – retains a distinctive potency […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

MXLX – Apocrypha (Solo Piano) Building on the dictaphone rawness of Matt Loveridge’s Atworth release as MXLX comes a devotional enrichment minus the tape hiss atmospherics, eight tracks that delve deep into the hammered soul of the #piano. #musicreview […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The Utopia Strong / Andrew Liles (live at The King Arthur) ... a delirious bagpipe-led trance concoction, which drifts just the other side of the line between Dionysian and line-dancing. Even the band seem a little surprised, as if this had come from […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The Utopia Strong / Andrew Liles (live at the Cube) A slowly evolving space full of tapering shapes and vortexed growth. Mr York adding flute to the modular carpet Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi supplied. A rich and heady concoction, edged in feathery floating […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Urchin Harris Dickinson takes full advantage of his mushrooming acting career by making a writing / directing debut with this defiant and supremely tightly wound drama about Mike, a former prisoner struggling to rebuild his shattered life despite a mess of […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Crime And The City Solution / Joshua Murphy / Jack King (live at the Jam Jar) Why they aren't playing to at least a few hundred people per night is a complete mystery, but they clearly enjoy their peripatetic lifestyle... enjoying the enthusiasm of those […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Georgia Duncan – Four Ways To The Sun Spread across ten tracks, Four Ways To The Sun highlights Georgia's warm, mysterious voice and paints her imagery in a balm of soft focus jazz and folky flecks. It is a dreamy, ethereal sound that opens the album with a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Bobby Conn – Bobby’s Place It is always a pleasure and a journey of discovery to receive a new Bobby Conn album and even after nearly thirty years of releasing his personal yet immensely memorable missives, this latest, his second for relatively new home […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Johnny Richards and Dave King – The New Awkward Experimental pianist and composer Johnny Richards is probably best known for his part in Shatner’s Bassoon.. For his latest, he teams up with Bad Plus drummer Dave King and by a series of transatlantic […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

New Brutalism – Requiescat Record Another well-chosen but overlooked group reconvening with a release on Computer Students is Knoxville, Tennessee's New Brutalism who, as the name may suggest, purvey a sharp modern high-intensity take on #punkrock that melds […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Sam Prekop – Open Close / Scholars Of The Peak – Transmissions From Mother Hill / Harder Than Concrete – Quark Life Venturing once more into the overflowing world of wires, elemental sounds and wordlessly channelled conceptualism brings us to three more new […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Nad Spiro – Limbo Channel Cusping the halo of consciousness, Rosa Arruti AKA Nad Spiro conjures up a sonically charged space full of moth-like flutters and abstracted transits on Limbo Channel. An investigative inventory of sibilant vocals and murmuring […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Various – Telepathic Fish: Trawling The Early 90s Ambient Underground ...chill out and really feel the music move around you. This collection, the first to really embrace the ethos of the nights, brings together some favourites of those involved and runs the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Kaukolampi – Synestopia Variations 1-4 ...continuing to approach the sound horizontally was the breakthrough he needed to bring the album to its inevitably longitudinal conclusion. Instead of a singular piece lasting an LP’s length, we are given the pleasure […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Sloan – Based On The Best Seller Yep Roc At this point in the lifespan of Sloan, a new studio album is not really about reaching out to new audiences. It’s much more about sustaining creative consistency and keeping the Canadian power-pop institution’s […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Eve Adams – American Dust conjures up ten #windswept songs of yearning and love with a voice that is warm and worn but bright like the #desert sun. .. songs echo through the desert canyons, moving languidly, shimmering guitar often sparing through the thin […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues Everyone’s favourite ersatz #heavymetal band is well and truly put back together for a sequel to one of the cultiest films ever cultivated, 1984’s groundbreaking and enormously influential mock-#rockumentary This Is #spinaltap […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Gabriel Alegria Afro Peruvian Sextet – El Muki With songs generally written by trumpeter Gabriel Alegria or sax player Laura Andrea Leguia, those instruments tend to be at the forefront, but they are only a part of a series of ever-evolving soundscapes which […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The Loves – Live At The BBC / The Cords – The Cords / The Last Of The Lovely Days – No Public House Talk “Hey hey, my my, indie-pop can never die,” as Neil Young didn’t quite sing. From the boom years during the 1980s and into the 1990s, through a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Jackie O Motherfucker / Six Organs Of Admittance / Riley/Radley (live at Strange Brew) A show of shimmery frets and arrowed harmonics carpeted in the subtle ebb of swirling effects. The bayoneted brilliance of Tom Greenwood’s words hazily biting that drumless […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Monks – Black Monk Time Over the course of the next year, the band evolved a unique musical style: stripped-back and heavily focussed on rhythm, powered by new equipment including the crunchy Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal, and embellished with unusual […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Christian Wallumrød – Percolation Alone on #piano, #synth, #harmonium, #autoharp and #drummachine, the album veers between three different recording sessions and switches from pensive, echo laden minimalism to deliberately mis-stepped but more elaborate […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Eric Wetherell – Sky: Original Soundtrack To The 1975 HTV Series The eerie pull of Sky's otherworldly atmosphere was ignited by Eric Wetherell's #soundtrack that for its time felt #futuristic. Butterings of tensive harpsichord along with glockenspiel, timpani […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Prolapse – I Wonder When They’re Going To Destroy Your Face ...deeply omnivorous plundering from whatever sources serve the band’s collectivist broken mirror reflections upon the world. A modus operandi that is also visually illustrated by a none-more-fitting […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Benedicte Maurseth – Mirra .. curls of fiddle appear like breath from the reindeer's mouths as the light touch of snow across the landscape obscures the steaming bodies. Sounds scatter and sprawl against a circular vibes motif and a wider selection of […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Nobody 2 Bob Odenkirk makes a welcome return in this vehemently entertaining #action #comedy as Hutch Mansell, the retired government assassin who just wants a quiet life with his family, despite having a name so butch he might have climbed out of the womb […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Tristan Rhys Williams and Ob Od Æourth – Dylan Eil Ton texturally resplendent in the lowercase clamber of nature, the hissy brush of branch and canopy, the leafy scrunch of wondering feet. #musicreview #ambient #experimental #cymru #wales #ynysmon #anglesey […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Eddington Ari Aster’s bleak and self-indulgent #neowestern epic casts its Panavisual eye over a New Mexico town riven not only by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by a mayoral election that divides and threatens to conquer its microcosmic society of cowboys […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Avi C Engel – Mote ...a collection that casts a spell across any continental boundaries through its stunningly intimate yet deceptively intricate arrangements and desolate but dreamlike atmospherics. #musicreview #folk #canada https://freq.org.uk/reviews/avi-c-engel-mote/

Thighpaulsandra – Acid And Ecstasy If like me you loved #Thighpaulsandra‘s debut or the panoramic nature of his Golden Communion album, I’m glad to report the big-band sound is back with a vengeance on this new offering. ... Acid And Ecstasy is another […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Coil – Live One Retractor Unfortunately I didn’t get to see this show in its Teletubby flesh, but did catch Coil live the Royal Festival Hall later in the year for their straitjacketed and bulb swinging Persistence Is All performance. What a show — an […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

James Holden and Wacław Zimpel – The Universe Will Take Care Of You The Universe Will Take Care Of You is genuinely an album that gives you something more with every listen and a must for everybody with a sense of musical adventure #musicreview https://freq.org.uk/reviews/holden-zimpel-universe/

Michael Arbenz meets Andy Sheppard – From Bach To Ellington: Live This album has an exquisite touch and a warmth and generosity that only comes from familiarity and respect. From Bach To Ellington is a lovely collection that does find you hankering after the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Statues In Fog – Statues In Fog Evocative, enigmatic and enthralling throughout, for a collection that took years to mature on Glen Johnson’s home studio hard drives this is far more than just a digital cupboard clearance exercise, which should certainly be […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Herbert and Momoko – Clay Renowned electronicist and collaborator Matthew Herbert has joined forces with drummer and vocalist Momoko to produce a warm and inviting collection of downtempo dancefloor-affiliated tunes that highlight the latter's inventive […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Tropical Fuck Storm – Fairyland Codex For all the anarchic trappings that proceed Australia’s profanity-framed Tropical Fuck Storm, there is a clearly a lot more craft and imagination at play ... Fairyland Codex bares the hallmarks of finding a creative sweet […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Late Shift Having played a schoolteacher in The Teachers’ Lounge and a journalist in September 5, Leonie Benesch completes a triptych of undervalued public servants in this claustrophobic, episodic drama about a nurse juggling the demands of a cluster of […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Small Blue – Furrow Furrow uses the trio as a means to find a home for those pieces that are less about improvisation and more about the feel of a classic #jazz format. But where this selection differs and what gives it its variety is that they are inspired […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Tom Lehrer's work should and can be celebrated in many forms “permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of […]

She’s Analog – No Longer, Not Yet Italian trio She's Analog have an intriguing and atmospheric approach to instrumental #improv. With No Longer, Not Yet, their second album, they attempt to create a space that is liminal, somewhere that movement and creation […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Morten Haxholm – Aether II There is care and consideration here and the pieces often feel as though there are dancers softly moving, wearing slippers so as not to disturb but fully engaged in the sinuous rhythm.... Aether II may seem cosy and soft but the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Rose Room – It’s Been A Long, Long Time It's Been A Long, Long Time is their first album in ten years, but that time has been well spent honing their skills live and by the sound of the virtuosity on offer here, this selection of jazzy standards have […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The Reds, Pinks And Purples – The Past Is A Garden I Never Fed The Past Is A Garden I Never Fed, the first release for Fire Records from Donaldson’s addiction-primed enterprise, which rounds-up a choice compendium of previously digital-only non-album cuts […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Landrose – Brut Capturing a year's worth of live performances in a visceral overload, Brut combines hectic speed drumming with obsessive looped samples and electronic slashes to create an intense journey that gives the sensation of a dancefloor wired up to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Beiggja – Morning ...the way the whole range of shades is filled in is quite a feat and one that makes the album very easy to return to. As a one-off it works perfectly; a chance meeting destined to live in the memory. #musicreview #jazz #quartet #norway https://freq.org.uk/reviews/beiggja-morning/

I Know What You Did Last Summer Belated sequel to the derivative and half-forgotten horror potboiler about a group of teens who cover up a deadly car accident, but are pursued a year later by their own collective guilt, and more immediately by a mysterious […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Silver Biplanes – Coming Up For Air EP / The Motorcycle Boy – John Peel Session 14.09.87 Precious Recordings is clearly in it for an Olympic marathon, albeit with a few sprints along the way. Hence, following on rapidly from a still-fresh trio of seven-inch […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Silberstreif – Ich Suche Dein Gesicht ...just what Bureau B is about as there has been no pressing since the original release, plus they have unearthed three previously unreleased tracks and a shorter version of the the A-side to flesh it out to album length […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Rothko – My Life For A Week At Least Amongst the pastoral birdcalls and wind rustling the leaves, the bass has retreated to a liminal throb, an ancient heartbeat its low tones giving a grounding to the natural sounds that move around our heads and open our […] [Original post on mastodon.social]