搜索结果

Review: Skep Wax's first Under The Bridge compilation, released in 2022, reunited the bands, songwriters and producers who populated cult early '90s indie label Sarah Records. This hotly anticipated follow-up repeats the trick, presenting 20 recently recorded cuts from the Bristol-based imprint's original roster of artists. It too, is a hugely successful - and understandably nostalgic - exercise, with hi9ghlights including the bright-and-breezy indie jangliness of Action Painting's 'Just Who Are The Cockleshell Heroes', the shoegaze-influenced dream pop haziness of Soundwire's 'Everything Is Real', the near Balearic soft focus shuffle of 'Double Nine' by GNAC, and the saucer-eyed excellence of The Orchids' 'A Final Love Song'.

Review: On his return to China in 2019 after a period away, Brock van Wey noticed a "strange, sound emitting item" on the table. It was a handmade 'steel tongue drum', a unique percussion instrument associated with spirituality and meditation in Asian culture. A few days later, van Wey recorded an extended jam of himself playing it, and later overdubbed electronic sounds, melodies, chords and textures. The result is The Depth of Rain, the long-serving ambient and drone artist's second Bvdub album of 2024. Where some of van Wey's ambient sets can tend towards the intense and claustrophobic, The Depth of Rain is a genuinely melodious, evocative and spring-like affair that ebbs and flows wonderfully throughout, providing entertainment and sonic bliss in equal measure.

Review: The impeccable Lithuanian label Greyscale is a real leader when it comes to dub techno and already they are racing into 2024 in fine style with a first full-length of the year from label head Grad_U! The sublime and immersive Sustain has eight larges ambient soundscapes that are detailed with field recordings from another planet. Each one is alluringly empty and beautiful, intriguing and unsettling to make for an escapist trip to another dimension. The way the producer manages to conjure up what feel like familiar emotions in such a faraway world is second to none and will leave you wanting to do it all over again the second it ends.

Review: Julia Holter has subtly shifted focus on new album (her sixth in total) Something In The Room She Moves, moving away from exploring memory and dream-like states to instead focus on (in her words) "the complexity and transformability of our bodies". To create this rather distinctive (and rather good sound world), she added her own ethereal vocals to self-created backing tracks rich in electric fretless bass, warming wind and reed instruments, and distinctive synth sounds plucked from a Yamaha CS060. The results are predictably immersive and soul-enriching, with highlights including stunning opener 'Sun Girl', the percussively inventive 'Spinning', and the pastoral, dreamy 'Evening Mood'.

Review: Prolific London outfit Ill Considered are a talented bunch, with the vast majority of their tracks starting life as freewheeling improvisations built on quality grooves and memorable melodic themes. Interestingly given their penchant for releasing a new album every few months earlier in the career, Precipice is actually their first new studio set for three years. There's plenty to set the pulse racing throughout, from the wild hard-bop solos and ambidextrous grooves of 'Jellyfish', and the 60s spy-movie jazz of 'Vespa Carbro', to the breathless Afro-jazz of 'Kintsugi', and the exotic, slow-burn delight that is 'Solenopsis'.

Review: Originally recorded and released in 1993, On The Move was the last studio album James Brown collaborator Bobby Byrd recorded during his lifetime. While it may have been recorded after Byrd's 1970s heyday, musically it offers full-throttle funk - albeit with slicker and more expansive musical arrangements - of the kind that he and Brown used to deliver in their sleep. It's a great set all told, with this (delayed) 30th anniversary edition also including instrumental versions of all eight original tracks. It also boasts a couple of rare non-album tracks recorded at the time: the slow-motion, horns-and-guitar solo laden 'Sunshine' and the effortlessly funky, low-down and addictive 'Don't Throw Your Love in the Garbage Can'.

Review: Brian Williams' Lustmord project has existed in different forms for over 40 years, though it's only in the last couple of decades - when it has become a vehicle for his solo work - that new musical missives have become a regular occurrence. On Much Unseen Is Also Here, the former industrial musician turned soundtrack composer once again showcases his mastery of pitch-black sonics, creepy soundscapes and horror-inspired dark ambient workouts. As you'd expect, the sound design is incredible - listen on good quality headphones for the ultimate listening experience - while Williams' penchant for throwing in suspenseful chords, billowing aural textures and unsettling vocalisations adds further layers of paganistic mystery.

Review: There's been rather a lot of noise about Jaguar II, Victoria Monet's much-delayed full-length follow up to 2021's Jaguar mini-album. The hype is, in many ways, understandable - it did recently scoop the 'Best R&B Album' award at the GRAMMYs. More importantly, it's also very good, with the decorated songwriter-turned-pop star confidently serving up retro-futurist gems who's punchy 21st century r&b beats come cloaked in musical motifs that frequently offer nods to black American music of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s. The plentiful highlights include Lucky Daye hook-up 'Smoke', the dancehall-fired excellence of 'Party Girls' (featuring Buju Banton), the Fugees-esque beauty of 'How Does It Make You Feel', and the glossy disco-soul dreaminess of 'Hollywood', where her young daughter Hazel and Earth, Wind and Fire both play starring roles.

Review: 40 years after the band's formation, The Jesus & Mary Chain have delivered their eighth studio album, their first full length release of new material for seven years. Admirably, the Reid brothers have refused to rest on their laurels and offer-up something undeniably nostalgic - catnip for long term fans if you will - but instead have fused elements of their familiar sound and style with plenty of fresh ideas. There are audible nods to Suicide, Kraftwerk and the improvisational practices of jazz, but also tons of fuzz, feedback and aural chaos. It's an invigorating mixture that's best exemplified by 'Jamcod', where the pair's red-raw guitars, low-slung bass and acid-fried vocals rise above a skittish electro beat, the slipped shoegaze-goes-dreampop flex of 'Chemical Animal', and the pleasingly spiky and punchy 'Girl 71'.

Review: Leeds-based duo Hawthonn express their inspiration from Coil in their artist name (a tribute to the late Jhonn Balance) and it doesn't take long listening to their music to hear that indelible mark on their sound. Earth Mirror marks Layla and Phil Legard's second album for the Ba Da Bing! label out of NYC after 2018's Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing). Weaving a compelling mixture of low, murmuring industrial tones and pastoral folk with an occult twist, the duo move through enveloping, atmospheric spaces. At times Layla Legard's voice cuts through the mist, and elsewhere we reside in instrumental pastures, but the mood remains haunting and evocative from start to finish, not to mention masterfully rendered.

Review: While not as celebrated as some of his Jamaican contemporaries, Winston Holness AKA Niney The Observer was a hugely successful record producer. This excellent two-disc set does an excellent job in rounding up the best of his output between 1973 and '75, a period where he enjoyed countless hits at home and over in the UK. There's naturally plenty of goodness to be found amongst the 49 tracks on show, with cuts featuring now well-known Jamaican scene stars - think Junior Delgado, Delroy Wilson, Big Youth, Max Romeo, Junior Byles, Horace Andy, U-Roy and ska survivor Tommy McCook - being joined by more dubbed-out 'versions' (credited to his studio band The Observers') and local hits by artists whose fame rarely spread beyond the Caribbean (Winston Wright, Hubert Lee, Earth & Stone). In an indispensable introduction to one of Jamaica's finest producers of the 1970s.

Review: Legendary prog rock icons Pink Floyd performed live at the KB Hallen, Copenhagen on November 10 ,1972 and this is a digitally remastered recording of that night. It's a great bit of musical history, capturing the band across two CDs that feature many highlights, not least the epic 24-minute rendition of 'Echoes' which is about as prog as prog can get. As well as that, the album takes in the entirety of The Dark Side Of The Moon plus extra tracks 'One Of These Days' and 'Careful With That Axe Eugene,' all of which make it a superb addition to the collection of any fan.

Review: Fresh from high-profile collaborative sets with Metro Boomin (2020's Savage Mode) and Drake (2022's Her Loss), 21 Savage has finally delivered a new solo set for the first time in six years. We say solo set; as is the way with blockbuster hip-hop and r&b albums, the set contains a strong cast list - Metro Boomin, Doja Cat, Travis Scott and Young Blud included - while thematically it offers insight into the UK-born, Atlanta-based MC's journey across the pond and eventual rise to stardom. His rhymes are more honest and "real" than ever before, while the luxurious and expansive musical backdrops combine punchy trap beats with carefully selected samples, sweeping orchestration, and the kind of big-studio production associated with rap and r&b's most high-profile artists.

Review: BBE has delivered something of a future classic here, as decorated Eastern European harpist Alinha Bzhezhinska and British tenor saxophonist Tony Kofi join forces on a picturesque full-length excursion dedicated to the memory of spiritual jazz maestro Pharoah Saunders. It's a genuinely unique and hugely evocative affair, with Kofi's meandering, mesmeric melodies and inspired improvisations snaking in and out of Bzhezhinska's dreamy harp motifs and melodic percussion instruments (think bells, marimbas, vibraphone, xylophone and so on). It's not a familiar musical palette, but it's one that consistently delivers - and then some. Our picks of a very strong bunch include lucid opener 'Tabula Rasu - Blank Slate', the exotic and psychedelic 'Audite Me - Hear Me', and the picturesque, meditative closing cut, 'Altera Vita - Another Life'.

Review: Second time around for Sneaker Pimps' Six Underground, the lesser-celebrated follow-up to the duo's renowned 'Spin Spin Sugar' single (famous, of course, because of Armand Van Helden's influential 'Dark Garage' remix). While the revisions included here - all initially released in 1996 - did not make as big an impression, all four have stood the test of time impressively. The headline attraction is a pair of Two Lone Swordsmen rubs, which are amongst the earliest reworks Weatherall and Tenniswood laid down under the alias. The vocal and instrumental takes are low slung trip-hop tracks overlaid with heady electronic elements. Elsewhere, Nellee Hooper channels the spirit (and sound) of his work with Massive Attack, and Hull boys Fila Brazillia lay down a typically deep, dubby and slowly evolving downtempo workout.