• Laurel Halo – Raw Silk Uncut Wood

    July 18, 2018 - By 

    Somewhere in Apple Music headquarters, an employee, perhaps under the instruction of watchful label publicists, or not, input “techno” as the genre tag for Laurel Halo’s latest project, Raw Silk Uncut Wood. The Berlin-based experimental producer has spent the past eight years pivoting from frenetic, full-bodied techno and unconventional club electronics to dense, sentient ambient-pop, and back. Admittedly then, it is difficult to keep track. Her breakout album, Quarantine, released in 2012, was disembodied pop simmering beneath an off-kilter electronic surface—spearheaded by her drifting voice. It was, above all else, her ability to synthesise anxiety into quivering, twitching soundscapes that gave…

  • Various Artists – A Litany of Failures Vol. II

    July 17, 2018 - By 

    To be a contemporary “independent” band in Ireland isn’t merely a genre categorisation, but a complex creative actuality. There’s often a socio-economic subtext to the term, as happens when a multitude of younger or less experienced creatives don’t have the resources to view music as a full-time pursuit just yet. They must therefore look elsewhere to meet the frequently unforeseen costs that stack up when making music – gear upkeep, travel, recording/rehearsal space fees, etc. This can lead to an absence of parity at the level of industry power relations. Simply look at the cultural-economic logic followed by certain festivals…

  • Let’s Eat Grandma – I’m All Ears

    July 5, 2018 - By 

    Those who find themselves in their orbit have been quick to describe Let’s Eat Grandma’s rawness and genre-agnosticism as otherworldly. This is probably a fair assessment: Their experiments are, on the surface, unrelentingly other, as much as they are worldly. Up until now though, this is a space that these childhood friends have constructed and conjured for themselves. The beatific mini-universe that first emerged on their 2016 debut, I, Gemini, flooded with vibrancy, uninhibited imaginations and shared experiences — It was the kind of world energised by sugar-rushes and spurred on by way of red-eyes glued to early-morning cartoons. A…

  • Snail Mail – Lush

    July 4, 2018 - By 

    Snail Mail’s Lyndsey Jordan has spoken about her frustration at the media’s lingering focus on her age and it’s easy to understand her consternation. Barely 19, the poison chalice of being a young female musician irritatingly ensures that her music is often viewed through a very particular lens and often described in qualified terms: “Full of potential rather than fully realised”, “Precocious rather than simply gifted” etc.  Bearing this in mind it’s important to break that pattern and clearly state plainly that Snail Mail has made one of the brightest, most insightful and coolly understated albums of the year – No ifs,…

  • Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch

    June 30, 2018 - By 

    Trent Reznor has been throwing shade at practically everybody on this most recent press tour. The Nine Inch Nails frontman has railed against Trump, Kanye and the contemporary state of music. At times, there have been well-formed ideas spoken with a confidence and authority that implies a level of consideration and forethought. At others, it’s amounted to little more than “Old man yells at cloud”. With all this bluster, the release he was promoting got lost in the fold. In fact looking back at this coverage, the most interesting aspect of this current mini-album, Bad Witch, is that it was, in…

  • Girls Names – Stains on Silence

    June 26, 2018 - By 

    The fourth Girls Names full length has been a long time coming. A little under three years isn’t such a big gap between albums these days in an increasingly part-time industry, but recording updates were coming thick and fast from the Belfast band some time ago before seeming to dry up. As it turns out, an initial mix of the album was finished long ago before being shelved for 6 months and then ultimately aborted. The band then began reworking the material, taking it apart and rebuilding it with new edits and recordings. This drawn out process, as well as…

  • Melody’s Echo Chamber – Bon Voyage

    June 25, 2018 - By 

    Melody Prochet delivers her sophomore record, Bon Voyage, after a lengthy six period, refueling her psychedelic-pop ensemble Melody’s Echo Chamber. It follows a decent debut that made somewhat of an impression among critics and fans. For Melody’s Echo Chamber’s  self-titled debut, Prochet had enlisted her former-partner and Tame Impala frontman, Kevin Parker to build a wall of psychedelic sounds. On that release, the Australian held both production and co-writing credits and his distinct style is unmissable throughout that album, particularly on ‘I Follow You’, ‘Crystallized’ and ‘Bisou Magique’ and instrumentally it all sounded as though it could have featured on…

  • Lily Allen – No Shame

    June 25, 2018 - By 

    No Shame is Lily Allen’s most comprehensive album to date. What may at first, to naysayers, appear like a feeble attempt at bringing the charm of the noughties pop into the modern world, soon veers into a dark journey through Allen’s very real and personal struggles the moment you scratch the surface. The honesty portrayed in this album is far from alarming and it’s not Allen’s intention to play up to shock factor or trigger any radical change in the ethics of relationships. Instead, Lily Allen shares these jarring truths with us without shame or fear, giving herself to the…

  • Nas – Nasir

    June 23, 2018 - By 

    Nas prefers a raucous homecoming to the sanctum of a rustic ski-resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, it appears. Beneath a constellation of NYC lights, in the imperialistic surrounds of Queensboro Bridge — a staple of hip-hop iconography made famous by MC Shan in 1987 — lay double-decker speakers blasting amid a sense of godly reincarnation. It’s the first-listen party for Nas’s latest full-length record, Nasir. One time wunderkid, Nasir Jones, chose his city, his borough, to celebrate this album’s release; where he spoke, for the first time, his tightly-wound, unadulterated, street-scholarly truth. Where he first etched his name into hip-hop…

  • Snowpoet – Thought You Knew

    June 22, 2018 - By 

    Two years on from its well-received eponymous debut on Two Rivers Records, Snowpoet returns with a sumptuous offering of sweet melodies, meditative textures and poetic lyricism. Snowpoet is now part of Dave Stapleton’s Edition Records – one of the UK’s most progressive labels, and one with for big ears for some of the most adventurous music currently produced in Europe. Essentially the song-writing vehicle for vocalist Lauren Kinsella and bassist Chris Hyson, Snowpoet has played in everything from a duo to a quintet setting, though here the duo is joined by core Snowpoet collaborators Josh Arcoleo on tenor saxophone, Nick…