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, Continue Reading
United Kingdom
Don Leisure – Shaboo Strikes Back
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 Continue Reading
Carlos Niño & Kofi Flexxx – In The Moment, Part 3
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 Continue Reading
FRKTL – Prose Edda
FRKTL is the nom de plume of British-Egyptian composer Sarah Badr, and her work straddles so many genres that it’s quite hard to describe accurately (a wonderful thing, as it means her work is incredibly fresh-sounding). There are, of course, long, drone-y elements to the music, but once you go Continue Reading
Dragon & Jettenbach – Tales from the Algorithm
This is so pleasantly dark and focused that I don’t think calling it ambient would do it justice. Dragon & Jettenbach are a project out of the United Kingdom who produce a sound that, while bleak, is also musically organized, reminding me of some of the modern Berlin School electronic Continue Reading
Chris Conway – When Pianos Dream
Though his bio on Bandcamp calls him a superlative jazz pianist, I would have to add that Chris Conway handles modern classical music with as much aplomb. He has also worked with some stellar musicians, including Guy Barker, Andy Sheppard, Stan Sulzman, Martin Speake and the legendary Finnish sax player Continue Reading
Various Artists – Tape Rolling! with Bunny Lee and Friends
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
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