• Music

    Cecilia Ann – Azul

    Cecilia Ann are an indie-rock group out of Granada, Spain, who have a wonderful jangly pop sound which reminded me of acts like Biff Bang Pow!  The production is crisp, the sound is garage-friendly and the label they’re on, Elefant, produce a lot of amazing music.

  • Music

    Alif – Aynama​-​Rtama

    I trust you, my friends, had a lovely Gregorian-Calendar Boxing Day. I spent mine listening to a Lebanese experimental band called Alif. At least as the liner notes on their Bandcamp site explain, it looks to be a collaboration between Lebanese and Egyptian musicians, and features the talents of the following musicians: Khyam Allami (Oud) Tamer Abu Ghazaleh (Vocals/Buzuq) Bashar Farran (Bass) Maurice Louca (Keys/Electronics) Khaled Yassine (Drums/Percussion) The music is so rich and complex that I’m having a bit of trouble putting to words how to describe it, but the best crack I can give at the moment is…

  • Music

    Tindersticks – No Treasure But Hope

    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.

  • Music

    Various Artists – Meticulous Midgets compilation 2021

    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,…

  • Music

    Brendan Perry – Songs of Disenchantment – Music from the Greek Underground

    Dead Can Dance singer and multi-instrumentalist Brendan Perry is absolutely enamored with Greek culture, and it’s obvious because a lot of DCD’s work has an affinity towards it.  Perry is especially appreciative of rebetiko, the local variant of the blues in Greek culture.  This album is his paean to his adoration of rebetiko, and is perhaps the first time some of these ballads have been recorded in English.  This disc is a labor of love.

  • Music

    Tommy Guerrero – Sunshine Radio

    Tommy Guerrero’s music came to me via a recommendation of a friend online.  I had heard his name bandied about years ago because of friends of mine who were into skateboarding, but I had no idea he was making music.  And such good music, I must say. The album is full of instrumental psychedelic tracks.  According to Tommy, influences such as Ethio-Jazz, Afrobeat and spiritual jazz inflect the album, and you can hear this from the first few notes.  This is one I’ll be coming back to frequently.

  • Music

    Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs – Bonus Disc

    This has to be one of the most charmingly weird, frankly unclassifiable discs I’ve heard in a while.  Andrew Paine & Richard Youngs manage to pull together a collection that should sound like a mess, yet it’s a rather enjoyable one.  The music goes from lo-fi disco tracks (which for some reason, remind me heavily of the ur-supergroup Big In Japan) to outtakes from a later-era David Bowie session.  This is a gritty gem of a disc.  The only shame is that it took me six years to come across it.

  • Music

    Toronja – QuedarseIrMorirEgo

    This one-track release was in my queue while I was doing some work, and when it came on, I assumed it was a track of Spanish cold wave from the early 1980s.  Toronja, as it turns out, is a Chilean project from this year, and they manage to do a good job making a sound that is at once fresh and vintage.