rescuing musical virtue in distress.
London-based The Heliocentrics have long stirred a bewitching brew of funk, jazz, psych and library influences. Labelled by Pitchfork as “a live-band culmination of every obsessive hip-hop-era producer's drive to fall deeper into a rabbit hole of the previously unheard”, the band’s far-reaching influence meant a natural knock-on in being cited by hip-hop royalty: namely,... Continue Reading →
Following an exclusive premiere with Rolling Stone Magazine India, Scottish post-rock band VASA are streaming brand new track 'Everything Is Golden' today on all good digital service providers. The single is the latest to be taken from their new album, Heroics, with the band revealing the artwork and tracklist for the record today alongside the... Continue Reading →
First impressions are massive in life, that split second when your mind sub consciously decides whether something can be trusted or not, liked or not, goes a long way to how you feel about something long term. Music is the same, the opening few notes of an album can keep you interested or make you... Continue Reading →
‘Hope In High Water’ has a backstory that would suit a Hollywood movie, bored of their day jobs the duo decided to move to the country, live in a caravan and live the life they wanted to live. A life of music, connection to the great outdoors and pursuing a life with a little more... Continue Reading →
With a vocal delivery sitting somewhere between contemporary r’n’b and, at it’s most rapid, lyrical rap flows, Lifeline is pretty much all you need to know about where alt-pop, for want of a better term, is at today. Alt-pop might be an unexpected label to give this track but Lifeline certainly ticks the required boxes... Continue Reading →
In a world teeming with identikit pop wannabes pushing the same sonic template, of would-be indie-folk troubadours and urban, musical dead ends, Rae du Soleil offers something which I haven’t encountered in far too long. Class! Whilst her contemporaries are racing around trying to out-cool, out-market, out-sell each other with music which barely stands up... Continue Reading →
Imagine if you took all the fun bits of music and moulded them into a single song. Imagine funky grooves being woven around solid clubland beats. Imagine infectious rhythms driving soulful vibes. Imagine immediate and accessible lyrics blending around cool background harmonies. Imagine pop music taken to its ultimate form…all killer, no filler. Well, thanks... Continue Reading →
There is something both primal and angelic about the a cappella introduction to Old Soul, which takes us gently by the hand and leads us into this exquisite album. If music is about emotive communication then Steve McCormick and Heather Donavon, the people behind Love Me In The Dark, are some of the most effective... Continue Reading →
Get Your Shit Together is like little that you have heard before. Well, it’s like little I have heard before and I basically listen to music for a living. I guess the clues where there to see in the track titles. What does Observation of Obfuscation really mean? Is it actually possible to have a... Continue Reading →
Hip-hop has always dreamt big. Whereas many quarters of music have struggled with the battle of perceived integrity versus commercial success, Hip-hop artists have largely been okay with proudly saying - “I want it all and I want it now!” It pays to be honest, I guess. Ro$ewood Renegade is one of those artists happy... Continue Reading →
Music makes the perfect platform for people who have something to say. In fact having done the work to get your creations to a point where you have a captive audience, where you have developed your own sonic signature so effectively that it is heard above the white noise of the modern musical world, it... Continue Reading →
We have all been there. Lying awake in the early hours of the morning, the silent world outside punctuated only by the occasional noise - a lone car passing, an animal going about its nocturnal business, a distant shout - but for you sleep seems to be ever illusive. Oh Well’s latest four song suite... Continue Reading →
With German maestros of doom-laden classic rock meets dark wave Mono Inc. releasing their 11th album, it felt like the perfect time to catch up with frontman Martin Engler to find out about the twenty year journey of the band, how such music is perceived in the current musical climate and where the band are... Continue Reading →
Is it too early to be talking about album of the year? It probably is, especially as the album in question was actually released at the tail end of 2019, ok I admit it, I’m still getting through the last few albums of last year, but that doesn’t change the fact that ‘If Wishes Were... Continue Reading →
I did it again! I took one look at the band name, the artwork, the track's title and jumped to conclusions. Everything suggested that what lay beyond would be some sort of strange electro music, digital dalliances made up of synth textures and angular, programmed off-beats. Well, you know what they say about judging books... Continue Reading →
You get so used to hip-hop and rap being built of sharp lyrical edges and pounding backbeats, of being bombastic and in your face that when something like Live to Ball comes along it seems like a wonderful breath of fresh air. What King Femi seems so good at is taking all those tried and... Continue Reading →
As this album kicks off with short opener Hate Me, you wonder if your speakers are going to survive. The bass line that drives the song is less about creating a groove and more akin to sonic warfare, a strange blend of rap, industrial drone music and sonic aggression. From there things calm down a... Continue Reading →
I love when bands take a genre and push it a little to see where things lead, it’s a strange, yet refreshing, brew that makes up the duo’s second album, ‘The Dark Ages’. Pitched as something called ‘dark folk’ the music sits somewhere between David Lynch and the Brothers Grimm, it’s time to say cheerio... Continue Reading →
If you are going to do pop you might as well tick all the boxes, pop done half heartedly is a waste of everyones time. Those boxes include things like, infectiousness, addictive grooves, danceable beats, euphoric lyrics and a sense of adventurousness, abandonment and escapism. Kamryn Marie makes music which visits all of these stations... Continue Reading →
If Deep C Divers has always made music with a certain clever understated quality to it, here they wind things back even further and prove that less is certainly more, familiarity is a fine quality for music to have and that music doesn’t have to be big when it can instead be clever. And this... Continue Reading →
You shouldn’t judge books by covers but occasionally it is okay to judge a band by their name. Rio Trio immediately suggests something latin, something with a jazz vibe, something subtle and sensuous, something cool and charming. And Footprints is exactly all of those. A sweet blend of flute, guitar, saxophone and percussion, Rio Trio... Continue Reading →
Inhabiting a space somewhere between contemporary country and bluesy southern rock, Judgement Day both sits comfortably within traditional sounds and pushes boundaries too. There is a lot that fans of such southern sounds will warm too immediately (though it should be noted at this point that David is actually from North Dakota but geography has... Continue Reading →
There is certainly something about Katrina Stuart’s brand of R&B driven, clubland pop that sets her apart for those around her. It isn’t so much the sounds that she uses or the type of song she is writing, for those aspects, whilst still cleverly wrought, stay within the generic norms for someone with an eye... Continue Reading →
Labels are rubbish, genres even more so. I read the words “indie” and “rock” used as a handle and I immediately think of 5-piece rockers who have polished their sound off sufficiently to have a crack at the charts. I think of predictability, lack of integrity and of tried and tested formulas. I certainly don’t... Continue Reading →
As the world becomes a smaller place it is only logical that sounds and styles merge, cultures and musical traditions weave together and even languages become interchangeable. Not that Acapulco, Mexico and California, USA, the two places that La Sinclair has called home, are that far apart but her ability to deliver her songs in... Continue Reading →
They say that everyone has that one novel in them. I think the modern equivalent is that we all have that one song in us…and it is probably about having your heart broken. Denial is Fawaz’s break-up song, a sweet slice of R&B infused pop, driven by slow, trippy backbeats and dripping with emotion. Such... Continue Reading →
What’s in a name? Well, in the case of the curiously named Gemtarra, plenty. A combination of two Italian words Gemilli’ which means twins and ‘Chitarra’ which means guitar, it is a name which sums the band up perfectly. We are used to seeing brothers in the same bands - from The Kinks to Oasis... Continue Reading →
If rap and hip-hop and the more modern sounds which have coalesced around them are defined largely by the lyrical flow and dexterity of the delivery, then one listen to Trust from Lil Dream’s latest e.p. proves that this is an artist who deserves to be on a very exclusive short-list. Not only does he... Continue Reading →
There is redemption in creativity. More and more often people are turning to artistic pursuits - art, poetry, writing and particularly music - to help combat inner demons and past problems and that is exactly the reason that Austin Arndt was drawn to the music making process. Under the name YT (a stylised version of... Continue Reading →
I get my fair share of country music passing beneath my nose, I would guess fifty percent of the new music I get to hear is country-based, be it country, country and western or that blurry genre of Americana. Obviously, some is good, some is bad. Some decides to tread the tried and tested formula... Continue Reading →
