• Björk – Utopia

    November 27, 2017 - By 

    A concise title is such lovely gift. Being able to neatly summarise a complex and expansive piece of art is a pure form of poetry. Björk’s latest LP has one of those titles: Utopia. Of all the words that she could pluck out of her expansive multilingual dictionary, why did a word which such loaded connotations leap out at her? On a global scale, any form of utopian ideal is running threadbare as pretty much everything around us falls into a state of disarray. In the context of Björk though, this is her first album after the emotionally raw exploration…

  • Five to Two – How Tall Do You Think You Could Grow (If You Wanted to Be So Tall)

    November 25, 2017 - By 

    Crudely speaking, size can be determined by a multitude of factors including environment, competition and space to grow into. Handily, for the sake of this review, the same biological principles can be transferred to culture, and as a subsection, music. Let’s put the Dublin jazz scene under the microscope here for a minute. In terms of environment, JJ Smyth’s has consistently flown the flag for Dublin’s jazz and blues scene for years, but is limited by its size and accessibility, whilst Sugar Club is arguably the best suited venue but is a challenge to book for jazz promoters amongst events…

  • Sufjan Stevens – The Greatest Gift Mixtape

    November 24, 2017 - By 

    The release of Sufjan Stevens’ last album proper, 2015’s Carrie & Lowell, proved him to be an artist still very much at the top of his game. A decade on from the breakthrough of Illinois, the album saw him swap that record’s lavish arrangements, and follow up The Age of Adz’s oddball electronics, for a return to the hushed folk and introspection found on 2004’s Seven Swans, this time themed around his parents in the wake of his mother’s passing. The album’s tracklisting seemed so perfectly formed – he tended to play all eleven tracks at subsequent live shows, as…

  • Morrissey – Low in High School

    November 22, 2017 - By 

    To say that Steven Patrick Morrissey is a different artist to the one so many of us flocked to in our teens seems a platitude at this stage. In The Smiths, Morrissey’s marriage of equal parts teenage melodrama, small town misery and genuine wit struck a chord somewhere between Paul Weller, Oscar Wilde and Holden Caulfield. There have been plenty of smart-arsed indie singers since, but not one can hold a candle to what this man was when at his best.  The persona of a sensitive, working class and vehemently anti-Tory frontman is long gone though, and has given way to an increasingly…

  • Yung Lean – Stranger

    November 15, 2017 - By 

      Yung Lean is the kind of artist that only could have achieved fame with the aid of the Internet. He lives in between the lines of meme and artist so effectively that it’s hard to know whether he exists as parody or not. He is the rap game equivalent of an imitation Picasso painted by a golden retriever. If it looks like a Picasso and feels like a Picasso does it really matter? The answer depends on how seriously you take your art… Lean rose to prominence in the last hay days of Tumblr. Like a last wish before…

  • Exploded View – Summer Came Early

    November 14, 2017 - By 

    Exploded View’s self titled debut was easily one of the finest albums of last year, even if it did fly a little further under the radar than it deserved to. Then again, it did come seemingly from nowhere. Vocalist Anika had already put out some promising solo material with the members of Beak but her work had been dominated by covers so its shelf life seemed limited. After finding a natural chemistry with a backing band assembled for some shows in Mexico, Exploded View were born, and the resulting, all-original album – self-described as being “for fans of Can, dub…

  • Angel Olsen – Phases

    November 13, 2017 - By 

    Last year Angel Olsen released My Woman, an evocative record which exposed experiences of vulnerability that would later become lyrics brimming with defiance: “I dare you to understand what makes me a woman”, and so forth. Typically then, listening to an Angel Olsen song incurs a fleeting foreboding feeling. It’s a feeling akin to glancing through a diary that you shouldn’t be sifting through but it’s there in front of you, waiting to be consumed and picked apart. It’s human nature to be curious, especially in the context of dissecting lyrics that are forthright in their meaning. It can be…

  • Converge – The Dusk In Us

    November 11, 2017 - By 

    Any discussion of contemporary hardcore or metal is always going to lead right to Converge. To describe the Salem five piece as influential is an understatement. Since 2001’s Jane Doe they’ve been working at a level that none of their peers could match. Not only did they lay the blueprint for their own sub-genre, but they have consistently delivered the best records it has to offer. 2004’s You Fail Me. 2009’s Axe To Fall and 2012’s All We Love We Leave Behind were great records with vitality, technicality, and unadulterated fury. Wisely, the band has bucked the album-tour-album two-year cycle…

  • The Cyclist – Sapa Inca Delirium

    November 9, 2017 - By 

    Derry’s Andy Morrison AKA The Cyclist has produced some of the most compelling home-grown club-ready cuts in recent memory and it’s arguably down to the fact that he’s so singularly focused. “Tape Throb”, a line of peculiar yet inviting analogue elements that Morrison has applied to his output since 2013’s Bones in Motion, typically exhibits a crackling warmth in tone and dulled melodic sheen. For the most part, this transformative “filter” morphs dance-floor orientated releases into sub-sonic grooves that bury themselves in your ear and refuse to leave – see 2014’s wildly unshakeable Flourish. With Sapa Inca Delirium, his first album…

  • James Holden & The Animals Spirits – The Animal Spirits

    November 8, 2017 - By 

    It’d be an understatement to say that there’s been a few high profile career curveballs of late. Private complaints resulted in the resignation of a defence secretary, sexist Facebook comments culminated in the suspension of an MP and Beyoncé announced her first foray into acting. Heck, even the Queen turned out to be a shareholder in rent-to-buy retailer BrightHouse (kinda). Spare a thought for James Holden, who amongst all these revelations has quietly executed a brilliant career change of his own, albeit with much less than his fair share of the limelight.   Holden has always had a taste for…