Review: Gothenburg trio Amateur Hour is Hugo Randulv, Julia Bjernelind and Dan Johansson, and Gar I Kras is their fourth album. It builds on the expansive Krokta Tankar Och Branda Vanor from back in 2022, and though still experimental and out there, it might also be their most accessible and polished work yet. Dreamy lo-fi pop meets gritty electronics and sound collage throughout as damaged linger above humming basslines and grimy guitars underpin detached vocals. It's a haunting but beautiful soundtrack for outsiders who like music from the fringe but that retains a sense of human warmth and soul.
Review: James Ford is one of the most important unsung heroes of contemporary pop and rock. As a studio producer, he's helped craft and hone incredible work from Fontaines DC, Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur and more. As an artist in his own right, he's perhaps more incredible. So, his impact on the latest and long-awaited new addition to Black Country New Road's catalogue should not be underestimated. Nor should the result of splitting the songwriting and vocal duties between members Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw. "It's definitely very different" said one of the trio about how this compares to preceding long form outings. We'd say it's definitely very different to most music you'll hear this week. It's folk, soft rock, experimental garage something, and none of the above, with tracks that almost seem at odds with themselves, chopping and changing, evolving and progressing, until you hear them as a whole.
Review: Every once in a while, you get a band emerge from the vibrant London music scene that you notice aren't like all the other bands. You sense they have something a bit special. BC, NR are like that - they offer something so rich musically that it appears immune to any potential threat that could come from changing trends. This third studio album of theirs comes under what looked like difficult circumstances from the outside. Their lead singer and songwriter Isaac Wood left the band shortly before the release of their second album. But they've withstood the pressure incredibly and are on top form here. There's more emphasis than ever on sharing the role of frontperson so the album is like a smorgasbord where you sample different voices and songwriting styles that exist within the group. Lead single 'Besties' is violinist Georgia Ellery's. It thrives off of its dynamism with explosive Phil Spector-esque wall of sound moments set in alongside elegant indie folk. A truly massive chapter awaits.
Review: BC, NR are now onto their third album. The Ninja Tune-signees gained attention for not posing as if they're in a band, but looking like an ordinary group of students, or twentysomethings house-sharing. Their bold look, where they're smiling in the press pics, as opposed to donning a moody pout, has thankfully been backed up with some terrific music. Their debut, For The First Time, earned them favourable comparisons to post-rock trailblazers Slint and their second album Ants From Up There is the Gen-z equivalent of Arcade Fire's Funeral, thanks to its grandiose anthemics. Famously, singer and lyricist Isaac Wood left the band on the even of the release of their second album, which sparked outcry and paranoia from their ever-growing army of fans about what that might mean for their future. But the band have kept at it and the remaining six members have chosen to share frontperson duties, thus relieving the added pressure that comes with being a designated frontperson. This third album - and first post Isaac Wood - is proving to be a striking new chapter, with the lead single, 'Besties', an immediately likeable way of introducing it to the world. Georgia Ellery, also of Jockstrap, takes lead vocals here and offers an unforgettable off-kilter indie pop cut reminiscent of Aldous Harding. Zutons-y sax stabs scattered in make for a beautiful touch and leave us feeling that this is the album that's going to send BC, NR onto a stratospheric level, where they're spoken about in the same breath as Radiohead as one of Britain's finest bands.
Review: Causa Sui's In Flux is the dynamic follow-up to last year's From The Source, reflecting a more spontaneous, experimental face of the band. Where in its predecessor we heard a hermetic 45-minute LP, In Flux embraces a looser, freer structure, charting fuz-off riffs through to a Hot Rats-style jazz fusion, in the end finding notes of oceanic post-rock building on influences from Talk Talk to Can. On 'Spree', the band eschew guitars entirely, going full Death in a wild doomsynth embrace. The 16-minute 'Astral Shores', meanwhile, stands as the album's centrepiece, mesmerising us listeners through heavy folk psych shearwaters. Causa Sui continue to operate in the manner of unmoved movers, unstoppable as they come.
Review: Recorded in October 1997, but lost and rediscovered two decades later by digital artist Gvoon Arthur Schmidt, GVoon: Brennung 1 is one of countless gems nestling in the sound archives of the late, great Holger Czukay. Described as a "futuristic sound meditation" by remastering engineer Dirk Dresselhaus (better known as experimental electronica producer Scheider TM), the single, expansive piece was created by Czukay at a point in time when he was happily working with German techno and electronica producers (Westbam included) while exploring the potential of digital music-making and production technology. The results are typically immersive, enveloping and off-kilter, sounding as far-sighted and ahead-of-their-time as they no doubt did when the piece was originally recorded in 1997.
Review: After a period of roughly three decades, German soundtrack artist and onetime Karlheinz Stockhausen apprentice Holger Czukay shares a surprise trove of lost tapes, which are said to have been once recorded by the artist for "free disposal" and which were presumably forgotten about at the time. Now available, all of said material is said to date back to at least the 1990s, and marks the forward thinking and "ahead of its time" (as remarked by fellow producer Schneider TM) approach to cold Kraut and experimental wave that informed Czukay as he experimented freewheelingly with beatmaking while in the company of further fellows Dr. Walker and Air Liquide. Also evolving in temporal conjunction with an experimental live show involving body tracking tech, fashioned by mixed media artist Arthur Schmidt, there are implicit themes of virtual reality and haptic sound control here. Way ahead of its time indeed.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.