What a beautifully bleak, baroque piece of pop-music. You don’t hear too much of the Tindersticks‘ soul-inflected sound on this album, What you get, instead, is music that pulls from folk, goth (yes, if you can believe it), and even hints of work from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. The orchestration is deep, Stuart A. Staples‘ voice is filled with pathos, and as heartbreaking as the songs feel, it makes for a glorious listen.
The name Circuit des Yeux has come across the laptop several times over the past year, and each review and interview (see this one at The Quietus) raved about her work, so I decided to give it a listen. It was, undoubtedly, a rewarding experience. Haley Fohr is the singer and the Yeux in question. With a four-octave voice and the most lush production values I’ve heard out of an album that isn’t ethereal or prog rock, I have to say that this left me floored. It is as if Fohr has the husky, dusky voice of a female Scott…
This Z Tapes release left me floored. Rapt are a folk band out of London who have an ethereal sound which reminded me of musicians like Nick Drake fronting a band on 4AD. Think, perhaps, of a more airy-sounding This Mortal Coil gone neofolk. The sound is folky without being stale, and adding elements like shoegaze and dreampop make for a rich, rewarding listen. I really like this.
This release came out in 2020, and Align In Time’s John Boles sent this to me during a time I was flooded by a wave of emails that I’m still, after all this time, going through. Align In Time are an American post-rock band out of Providence, Rhode Island. The band’s sound reminds me of impressive post-rock bands like Caspian, We Lost The Sea and other instrumental rock bands. Surprisingly, I can hear a touch of Fugazi in here as well, at least in some of the guitar playing. It’s mellow, sumptuously recorded and a generally fine listen.
A pleasant surprise out of Edinburgh, Scotland. Jonny Martyr is a pianist who manages to, “build a world of sound with contemporary classical, electronica, post-rock and serialist influences.” There is truth in advertising in this release, as each track manages to balance these genres perfectly. It looks like Martyr has a few albums to his credit, and it’s nice to finally come across his work. This is quite a warm lake of music to swim in.
Z Tapes is a small-but-mighty label out of Bratislava, Slovakia, who release everything from bedroom pop to properly polished indie music. They have a massive roster of artists they work with, and also, bucking the current trend for vinyl, offer cassette releases. There is a lot of appealing music on this comp, but the track that sold me on how good this record was was 動物園 by Stargirl, which you can hear below.
There seems to be an explosion of indie bands popping up around Iran, and this one seems to be one of the most interesting of the lot. Crows In The Rain hail from Tehran and produce a very melancholic form of post-rock mixed with neo-classical influences. Solid material.
Albert Kuvezin (Альберт Кувезин) is a legend in the ethno-rock and World Music community. He was one of the founders of the band Huun-Huur-Tu, which brought throat singing into prominence. He went on to form his own band, Yat-Kha, who I came across in 1993. He was managed to meld together traditional Tuvan music (the region in Russia close to Mongolia and not so terribly far from China) with post-punk and even country music. On June 21, Yat-Kha’s latest album, We Will Never Die, is due for release as a download and will be available on CD and vinyl. The…
The Utopia Strong are a band out of the United Kingdom which blew me away. Praise to Chris Morley for alerting me to the band’s existence. It sounds something like Krautrock or psychedelic rock which goes funky. It’s almost as if you can dance to some of this material. The musicianship is excellent, reminding me of Gong or groovier elements of bands like Embryo or even Neu! It turns out that I was right to think this, as the pedigree of the band is impressive. Personnel: Kavus Torabi (Gong/Cardiacs/Knifeworld/Guapo) Steve Davis and Michael J. York (Coil/Teleplasmiste/Guapo) The Quietus Magazine also…
I almost feel bad for only promoting the download of this release. Our dear friends over at Meticulous Midgets, one of Russia’s finest experimental/avant-music record labels also releases a magazine to go with the album, and it’s a stunning affair. This is the second one I have had the pleasure of reviewing, and it makes me pleased to know that promotion of new music in the country is in good hands with my Moscow-based colleagues. What’s more, they don’t rest with promoting local acts. The artists on this comp hail from the United States, the United Kingdom, German, Spain, France,…