England’s Pressure Sounds continue to release mind-blowingly good reggae compilations. This one features the production work of Bunny Lee pairing up with such luminaries as Eric Donaldson (whose raw version of Cherry Oh Baby adds grit to the warmly produced original. From the Bandcamp release website: “In 1971, despite his Continue Reading
United Kingdom
The York Waits & Deborah Catterall – Christmas Musicke
The York Waits are a group out of York, England (no surprise there, right?), who specialize in Renaissance music from the 14th Century. This album is a reissue of a 1996 album where they paired with vocalist Deborah Catterall, who, 25 years after the release of this disc, served as Continue Reading
The Scorpios – Let’s Go
The Scorpios are a Sudanese/British Afrobeat band with an incredible pedigree. Regia Ishag, the band’s singer, is the daughter of the guitarist of one of Sudan’s funkiest bands, The Scorpions (obviously not the German hard-rock band bearing the same name). This new generation band maintains the funkiness of their forefathers Continue Reading
Rosie Turton – Expansions and Transformations: Part I & II
Rosie Turton came to my attention a while ago with her EP Rosie’s 5ive, which served as a stellar introduction to her work, but this latest album shows how incredibly expressive a trombone-led band can be. So many players in London’s Nu-Jazz scene are leaving a mark that there will Continue Reading
D^mselfly – DF/C30-RW
From Hreám Recordings‘ website: Originally released as a double-header with St James Infirmary’s ‘Apport’, here now on it’s own and sporting a batch of new jelly-green shelled and cased cassettes…. DF/C30-RW features six re-imagined and re-worked tracks from the first three Damselfly albums. Focussing on some of his more delicate Continue Reading
Various Artists – Wounds of Love: Khmer Oldies, Vol. 2
Death Is Not The End is a profoundly interesting record label (and radio program on NTS) operating out of London, and how they find such oddball gems like this I’ll never understand. What is clear, though, is that the Khmer music scene really got into music from France (from colonial Continue Reading
Flora Yin-Wong – Holy Palm
After coming across an interview over at The Quietus with the London based composer Flora Yin-Wong, I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of her work. The new album they discussed, Holy Palm sounded fascinating, less so by the interviewer’s rather tepid questions but more so by the evocative Continue Reading
Oceanic Vibrations – Vol. 1
This is one I’ve been waiting to hear for some time, and it did not disappoint. American poet Shane Beck (who happens to be a very old friend) paired up with British electronic musician Dave Onley as Oceanic Vibrations to join their worlds together elegantly. Beck’s voice lends itself to Continue Reading
Rapt – None Of This Will Matter
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, Continue Reading
Santiago Fradejas – The Light Through The Springs
The guitar, all by itself, can serve as tool for making a haunting orchestra’s worth of sounds. My good friend Santiago Fradejas, now resident in Kent, of all places (!) presents a mini-LP’s worth of brooding, swelling, lilting soundscapes. There is a menacing element tying the album together, as though Continue Reading