Norwegian producer and singer Ellen A W Sunde has produced yet another elusive, shining sad gem. Mutual Dreaming hits that half awake/half asleep tender spot. Her dreamy, often whispered vocals cast her as sonic somnambulist, and songs like Night Eyes, OK and the title track are like drowning in pixels. It’s elusive, warped and prettyContinue reading “Album Review: Sea Change- Mutual Dreaming”
Category Archives: Review
Album Review: Boris-W
For well over two decades, Japanese experimental doom band Boris have been treading their own path, through line-up and label changes. Too avant-garde for the mainstream, they nonetheless have a loyal fan- base, not least because of working alongside collaborators like Sunn 0))). This, their first album for Sacred Bones, has enough light and shadeContinue reading “Album Review: Boris-W”
Album Review: Sanctuary
A mighty collaboration between the Colombian composer Jose Parody and Grayson Sanders and Leviticus Penner, Sanctuary Vol. 1 and 2 is steeped in the kind of quietude that is neither comforting nor kind, but still incredibly beautiful. Truth is meditative, sparse and features voices that weave in and out drones. Smoke In The Halls isContinue reading “Album Review: Sanctuary”
Album Review: Laura- Mary Carter- Town Called Nothing
Blood Red Shoes frontwoman Laura-Mary Carter has always been a wonderful musician, and her new solo project is equally fascinating, but this time, her post- grunge shredding has been replaced by a country noir mini-album. Town Called Nothing invokes dusty, ominous Westerns, the eerie moment before the showdown. It starts off deceptively pretty, with fineContinue reading “Album Review: Laura- Mary Carter- Town Called Nothing”
Album Review: Holy Other- Lieve
Stockport musician and producer David Ainley has created a wonderful piece of post-ambient beauty here. It invokes the illogical themes of dreams: figures with heads that are never seen, fragmentary buildings, the sense of hazy, unresolved issues. Glitches, sighs and ghostly soundscapes permeate throughout the album. The title track, featuring saxophonist Daniel Thorne, fizzles andContinue reading “Album Review: Holy Other- Lieve”
Album Review: Modern Nature- Island Of Noise
Imagine this. You’re in the Lake District perhaps, or by a boathouse. Take a moment to lie down in the still of the night. Can you hear it? There’s a bàbbling stream. Birds twitter. There’s no Twitter, no social media, no hassles here. Modern Nature have created an album that is sheer bliss, as ifContinue reading “Album Review: Modern Nature- Island Of Noise”
Album Review: Parquet Courts- Sympathy For Life
You could be forgiven for thinking this is just another ebullient, scrappy album from the New York indie stoners, or however we’re stereotyping them this week. After all, the irresistible bounce of Walking At A Downtown Pace seems to personify this, with Max Savage’s rollicking rhythm and their trademark shouty refrain. But album seven isContinue reading “Album Review: Parquet Courts- Sympathy For Life”
Album Review: Lotic- Water
MusIc that knocks you sideways and rearranges vital organs is rare these days, but occasionally, something appears that sounds so otherworldly that you feel quite changed. Water by Lotic does this to me. It’s like experiencing an infatuation. It’s experimental electronica, future- soul, with bewitching, hard to fathom sounds that are impossible to shake off.Continue reading “Album Review: Lotic- Water”
Film Review: Here To Be Heard (2017)
There was no one quite like The Slits, and there never will be again. It’s eleven years since lead singer and force of nature Ari Up passed away from cancer at just 48 William E Badgley’s documentary charts the first all-female punk band and their formation in 1976, featuring interviews with Kate Korris, the originalContinue reading “Film Review: Here To Be Heard (2017)”
Overlooked Classics: Cutie and the Boxer
Why don’t more people know about Zachary Heinzerling’s remarkable, delicately moving documentary film from 2013? Cutie (Noriko ) met The Boxer (Ushio Shinohara) when he was forty one and she was just nineteen Shinohara was already an established presence in the New York avant-garde art scene of the sixties, with his action paintings, where heContinue reading “Overlooked Classics: Cutie and the Boxer”
Hit The North 