• Little Dragon – Season High

    May 8, 2017 - By 

    Little Dragon are a band that have bumped along quietly since they first appeared with their self-titled debut album in 2007. While they’ve never troubled the top of the charts, they’ve trodden their own path, making solid synth-pop albums while also collaborating with various acts in the hip-hop/R’n’B firmament, with singer Yukimi Nagano lending her vocals to tracks by Big Boi, Mac Miller and Kaytranada among others. After ten years, four albums and numerous EPs they’re on to their fifth full-length effort, ‘Season High’. The album, much like their previous efforts, is a mix of styles with multiple genres being…

  • Thurston Moore – Rock N Roll Consciousness

    May 8, 2017 - By 

    There is barely a facet of modern rock and indie that doesn’t have at least some minor degree of separation from Thurston Moore. During and since his time with Sonic Youth, Moore has collaborated with a formidable raft of musicians, be it via stage or studio, not to mention giving Ian McKaye a run for his money in the talking head department when it comes to music documentaries. His presence in modern music is ubiquitous, so it seems almost slack that Rock n Roll Consciousness is only his fifth solo release. Give him a break, though. Moore is a busy…

  • Ciaran Lavery – A King at Night: The Songs of Bonnie Prince Billy

    May 5, 2017 - By 

    Will Oldham, aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, releases his new album Best Troubadour this month, a collection of covers of songs by Merle Haggard , who Oldham describes as his “forever hero”. Yet the prolific Oldham is something of a hero himself to many, name-checked in songs by Half Man Half Biscuit and Jeffrey Lewis, cited as a primary formative influence on a young Arab Strap and covered by the likes of The Frames, Mark Kozelek and even Johnny Cash, yet he remains firmly in the “cult favourite” bracket, where in a more fair and just world he’d surely be subject to the…

  • Perfume Genius – No Shape

    May 5, 2017 - By 

    With No Shape, Mike Hadreas AKA Perfume Genius has produced one the strongest releases of the year so far; simultaneously one of the bravest and most vulnerable. A step away from the more commercial vibes of Too Bright in 2014, the sound here is more akin to the Perfume Genius of Put Your Back In 2 It – an introspective, soul-searching struggle with the self, and with the universal concepts of loss, and love. When No Shape was announced Hadreas spoke about how the sound of this release is about “unpacking little morsels, magnifying my discomfort, wading through buried harm,…

  • Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog

    May 4, 2017 - By 

    “Mellow” is a word that, quite obviously, always sprung to mind whenever Mac DeMarco breezes into conversation. And indeed, no other word could be more fitting for This Old Dog, his third full-length release and the eagerly anticipated follow-up to his 2015 EP, Another One. The self-proclaimed king of “jizz-jazz”, loved for his goofball sense of humour as well as his chill lo-fi sound has carved a niche for himself since his 2012 debut 2, always decorating his music with a hint of melancholia and a tongue in cheek self-awareness. DeMarco seems nothing if not comfortable in his own sonic world. Comfortable though,…

  • BNQT – Volume 1.

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    “I think we could all use a restart but what does that mean?” asks Midlake’s Eric Pulido in BNQT’s (pronounced “banquet”) glam-rock tinged opening track. He goes on to explore this question across Volume 1’s ten collaborative offerings with contributions from the front-men of Franz Ferdinand, Band of Horses, Travis and Grandaddy. As the artists stretched across the globe, Pulido guided the way with these recordings split both with travel to Denton, Texas and remotely over the net during the course of a year. Over that year and with some change, the songs grew from demos to fully realised recordings.…

  • Gorillaz – Humanz

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    We should all be honest and accept that this record was never going to match the expectation that preceded it. Gorillaz have been a reliable stalwart for over a decade now and their brand of politically motivated electronica and hip-hop has consistently delivered. They’ve soundtracked environmental decay, an Iraq war, and a recession and now, with a despot in the white house, it’s unsurprising that Damon Albarn chose this moment to return. What is surprising though is how limp and muddy it feels. Humanz is not the record it could be. It’s unfocused, messy and, worse still, pedestrian. A guest…

  • J Dilla – Motor City

    May 2, 2017 - By 

    If you ever want to lose yourself on a lazy Sunday just take a walk into the discography of one James Dewitt Nancy, better known as J Dilla. The producer, sometime rapper, beat maker and hip hop arbiter now has a dizzying amount of work available in the public sphere and each mixtape, album and bootleg is worth a listen. First you’d have to consider his massive contributions to The Pharcyde’s essential LabCabinCalifornia, his work with De La Soul, Q-tip and Common. Then you may choose to wade through his work with neo-soul luminaries like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo. All…

  • Slowdive – Slowdive

    May 2, 2017 - By 

    The irony is perhaps hard to avoid when describing Slowdive’s career. The five-piece did indeed go diving and sadly with much less grace than their name suggests; Their 1993 sophomore effort Souvlaki remains one of the definitive albums of the early 90’s shoegaze era, quickly followed by one of the most forgettable in Pygmalion. Languid and limp throughout, Slowdive dismantled their wall of sound not brick by brick but with a wrecking ball almost overnight. The band were soon dropped by their record label Creation only one week after Pygmalion’s release and have themselves since admitted they’d lost their energy and…

  • Daithí – Holiday Home EP

    April 28, 2017 - By 

    Daithí teased listeners as far back as last year with the first scintillating, electro-pop banger from his latest endeavour, Holiday Home. The snappy five-track release lands today and, just as that first single, ‘Falling For You feat. Sinead White’ suggested, it shows Daithí continuing his progression in maturity as a producer, providing a collection that exudes confidence. The Galway/Clare-based producer continues to craft fascinating, atmospheric tracks that cross- weave traditional Irish cultural elements with modern-day electronica. He’s managed to ramp up the sophistication on this one, continuing to transcend boundaries by inventively fusing together electronic, folk and synth elements. With…