• Arborist – Home Burial

    November 28, 2016 - By 

    If there is a unifying and constant sensation which runs throughout Arborist‘s Home Burial like some arterial chord it is that of gloom. A cursory glance at the cover art paints a startlingly accurate depiction of what the next 40 odd minutes entails: a gothic, rustic farmhouse sits against a grey, unsettled sky with an impending destructive force looming on the horizon. While it looks like the sort of place Robert Smith might spend a Summer holiday, it does set the stage perfectly. This is not an album of joy, redemption, and salvation, it’s forlorn expedition through the emotional wilderness as our…

  • The Japanese House – Swim Against the Tide

    November 23, 2016 - By 

    If there is one figure which looms large over every moment of Swim Against The Tide, the new EP by pop songstress The Japanese House, it is that of Imogen Heap. With its glitchy beats, emphasis on textured electronics and distinct English twang running through a vocoder, the spectre of the former Frou-Frou vocalist is consistent and undeniable. While the disc never actually manages to escape from Heap’s shadow, it’s still a surprisingly solid slice of ambient dreamy music. Japanese House frontwoman Amber Bain has described her output as “a sad little puppy listening to Beyoncé to cheer itself up”…

  • A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service

    November 18, 2016 - By 

    While Bowie’s Blackstar is no doubt the most important musical epilogue of 2016, A Tribe Called Quest’s final chapter, featuring the sadly departed Phife Dawg, is a minor triumph in itself. The group have a legacy in hip-hop like few others: their one-two of landmark records, 1991’s The Low End Theory and 1993’s Midnight Marauders, are as close to perfection as the genre gets. Arriving when rap was dominated by Dr Dre led West Coast gangsta rap, NYC’s Tribe rejected the violent posturing and casual misogyny of the former while paying homage to the more abstract, arty influences that informed…

  • Douglas Dare – Aforger

    November 16, 2016 - By 

    Whelm, the 2014 debut album by London-based songwriter Douglas Dare, was a bold opening statement. It was held together by Dare’s powerful voice in spite of its musical idiosyncrasies; a voice that was immediately striking in its delivery and cadences, but which later revealed a fragility that suggested it was the tenor of a man in emotional distress. He has always written from a personal place, but his second album, Aforger, amplifies that to the nth degree. It’s an album in which the music is complex (almost to a self-conscious degree) and whose lyrics speak of deep personal strife; a struggle against…

  • Robocobra Quartet – Music for all Occasions

    November 15, 2016 - By 

    Take some seedy post-punk jazzy brass, heavy anchored basslines, sporadic nuanced drum fills, and the expressive vocal stylings of the beat generation’s slam poets and you’re left with a vaguely accurate depiction of Belfast’s own Robocobra Quartet. Music for all Occasions is a fascinatingly fierce attack on the Irish music scene. The nine track collection is refreshingly ambitious and entirely bold throughout, with wandering variations of song length, style, and approach. It’s a very complete record designed to be listened to and appreciated from beginning to end. Lead single ‘Correct’ opens the record and immediately sets the tone for everything…

  • Bayonne – Primitives

    November 14, 2016 - By 

    There is a delicate, reserved complexity in the opening of Austin, Texas multi-instrumentalist Roger Seller’s third album Primitives. The LP, which was originally released in 2014 was recently re-issued on Mom + Pop Music to coincide with Seller’s newly adopted pseudonym, Bayonne. As the intro builds with cascading layers and loops of guitars, keys and vocals, the rhythm manages to be dizzyingly off-kilter while maintaining a enthralling punch. And that is by and large how the album plays out. It is an LP of measured technicality, celestial melody and an infectious pulse. While its perfectly polished production and careful restraint may prevent it from being…

  • We Cut Corners – The Cadences of Others

    November 4, 2016 - By 

    The first time I saw Dublin’s We Cut Corners was on a nasty, raining evening in October 2014. I’d never heard of them but a friend dragged me out and I was in the mood to be distracted. They had just released their sophomore effort Think Nothing. Each song they played that night was a masterstroke of brevity, every line smacked with authenticity, sitting gingerly on top of John Duignan’s clanging guitars and Conall Ó’Breacháin’s drums. By the end, lyrics like “You live by the sword and get hit by a bus” and “Maybe in the future I will say more…

  • Bell X1 – Arms

    November 2, 2016 - By 

    It’s been 16 years since Bell X1 released their severely overlooked debut Neither Am I and began a steady ascent towards their current status as one of Ireland’s most reliable bands.  They’ve existed in a curious niche since their inception, their sound too broad for the quick-fix pop set with whom they found favour with singles such as ‘Rocky Took A Lover’, ‘The Great Defector’ and ‘Velcro’: crowd-pleasers all, but as the trio have grown as musicians, their modus operandi has become more difficult to pin down. They’re much more of an albums band than most people realise, and since…

  • Bantum – Move

    October 31, 2016 - By 

    With a three year gap since Legion, his debut full-length album, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Bantum (aka Ruairi Lynch) would want to execute a fairly insular, idiosyncratic affair with his latest effort. Instead, it’s the relationships that Lynch has formed in the interim that sees Move thrive as an essential addition to the 2016 Irish release calendar. Having enlisted the likes of CC Brez, Loah, Rusangano Family, and a few more familiar names to inject proceedings with a veritable feast of homegrown talent, Lynch’s vision becomes one of celebration and appreciation. Move feels like one of those records…

  • Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker

    October 26, 2016 - By 

    After 82 years of experience, a hundred thousand cigarettes later, and more than a few near-perfect words of love, life, death, and every notable human occurrence between, Leonard Cohen has returned with You Want it Darker – the 14th studio album from the “Godfather of Gloom”. Regardless of the album’s suggestively bleak title and the monicker the poet and author established for himself back in ‘71 with his controversially downbeat yet critically acclaimed album Songs of Love and Hate, this record as a whole is actually more sombre and settled. It sounds entirely certain of itself. The songs are notably sparse in their…