Our beloved friend A.M Ferrari Fradejas has a new album out consisting of six tracks filled with lush, yet quite heavy, progressive rock tinged with black metal if you listen closely. The release features some guitar work by her husband, the inestimable Santiago Fradejas, and the whole album smolders wonderfully.
We have an unsolicited gem today, folks! This live EP by Heelhooks clocks in at around 15 minutes, and the music is aggressive laptop sound deconstruction put together by the London-based duo of Hans Lo (Unk) and Rob Shields (Sunplus). The lads describe their sound way better than I can: “Initially starting as a pure noise project, Shields and Lo instead decided to change their approach in 2021 with a cleaner, sharper production using modular synthesis and realtime laptop processing. With a blend of scattered drums, deconstructed dance genres like deep house and techno, and samples ranging from body horror…
Progressive rock was the genre that launched my journey into weird music, and it’s nice to delve into the genre now and again. If you’re going to listen to good prog, K-Space seem to be the label producing the best of the genre. A case in point is this stunning example from The Pineapple Thief. Because most of the readers of this blog seem to be well-educated musically, I won’t talk too much about the history of the band save to say that it’s incredible to hear King Crimson’s Gavin Harrison give life to the sound structures on this disc. …
What a charmingly weird discovery this is! Yiğit Bülbül is a London-based musician whose roots are in Turkey, and this mini-album combines the experimentation of artists like Holger Czukay with the dulcet sounds of Serge Gainsbourg’s backing band in their calmer moments. A surreal release this one…
First, a debt of thanks goes to my friend, the “Last American Poet,” Shane Beck, for reminding me what a sublime album this is from Cousin Silas, who was a friend of my previous blog, and an artist whose work I respect immensely. This album is filled with wispy rhythms that let you relax and get lost in thought, something like melding George Winston with the Durutti Column, but with more of an edge to it. Our dear Cousin delivers yet again.
The Boomtown Rats and I seem to be on the same wavelength. Serbian summers are nasty!
There is, apparently, a documentary film coming out on the life of Shirley Collins, the grand dame of British folk music who worked with such artists as disparate as Davey Graham and Current 93. This compilation is tied to the film, and features artists like Lee Ranaldo, Alasdair Roberts and Angel Olsen, but the standout track is The Murder Of Maria Marten, eerily performed by Ela Stiles. 45 tracks of well-done covers.
Strawberry Switchblade were my first musical crush, and perhaps the most charmingly twee band I heard during the 1980s and there was a lot of competition in those days. This EP from 40 (!!) years ago sounds as fresh as their eponymous debut album, but the sound is far rawer, more post-punk and less synth-sounding. Rose McDowell, of course, went on to work on many worthy solo projects and collaborate with acts like Current 93, and Jill Bryson started writing music in 2013 with a new band called The Shapists, but this album reminds me of just how good Strawberry…
Don Leisure is a Cardiff based producer and DJ whose latest work, dedicated to his legendary uncle, the Bollywood actor Nasser ‘Shaboo’ Bharwani, left me wondering how I didn’t hear about him before. From his Bandcamp website: “‘Shaboo Strikes Back‘ is a much-awaited sequel to the 2017 smash, and again features a modest 25 tracks. Psychedelic fuzzy samples and phat beats aplenty, Don Leisure once again takes us on a far-out trip across soundscapes. A real tapestry of flavours, from jazz to reggae, and from the soulful to the spiritual, this time round he’s invited a few special guests to…
Longform Editions is a boutique record label out of Australia which does many things well, but specialized in releasing short albums packed with electronic experimentalia from all over the world. This one brings Los Angelino Carlos Niño and a world traveling sax player whose work I’m quite new to in Kofi Flexxx paring down a two-hour session. Carlos explains more about the session below, courtesy of Longform’s Bandcamp site: “For me, extended, deep listening is it! I listen a lot and journey eternally within. Hearing and feeling, in, of, with and around, playing music is extending, deeply listening, being at…