Premiers
Single Premiere: Something in the Water – AudioGust (reviewed by Dave...
There is no substitute for good songwriting. Forget all the studio gimmicks, the clever tricks, and zeitgeist-driven sonic fashion statements; if there isn’t a...
Rock/Punk/Metal
Enemy Within – Bloodkin (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
This first taste of Bloodkin’s latest album, ‘Enemy Within’, is a song that works on several levels. The most honest and immediate one is the...
Post Punk/Goth
Vox Populi – Deadlight Dance (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
With all things goth, post-punk, and darkwave having a real resurgence of late, Deadlight Dance finds itself perfectly placed to surf the dark prevailing zeitgeist. Not...
Shoegaze/Dreampop
Sky Bleeds – MothBreath (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Most of the music that lands on my desk is merely work. Of course, I put the effort in, but at the end of...
Indie
Midnight Blue – Scroungy Dogs (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I know it is pretty much my job, but I have got to a point where I’m less concerned with genre demarcations, sonic pack...
Pop/Power Pop
Change – Lee Miller Matsos (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
“Change,” the new one from Lee Miller Matsos, is a song with many sonic moods. Not just moods, but various pacing and variable poise, clever...
Folk/Country
Good Luck, Nice To Meet You – The Mighty Pines...
To call the sound that greets you as the title track kicks off this, The Mighty Pines’ third album, as roots-pop might make things sound a...
Singer-Songwriter/Acoustica
unfinished conversations – Meli Foster-Turner (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
We are constantly hearing about the industry movers and shakers looking for the new Dylan or the successor to Joni Mitchell. I must admit, it all gets...
R&B/Soul
Under The Stack – Matt Herzog (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Matt Herzog is, amongst other things, living proof that genres are rubbish and the best music is best described as just that…music. Give Under The Stack a...
Reggae/Ska/Dub
A Fistful of Covers – The Hempolics (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
A band releasing an EP of recordings covering their favorite songs is nothing new. A band doing that while also offering a dub reworking...
Dance/EDM
Thank You For Your Feedback (i) – Cognitive Constellation Corps (reviewed...
Thank You for Your Feedback (i) is a transformative affair, in many senses of the word. Even the title is a great example: such a...
Hip-hop/Rap
00′ Shawty – Ja Fearce (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Taken from the EP of the same name, Ja Fearce's latest single, "00' Shawty", sits in a beguiling middle ground between artistry and energy....
Jazz/Blues
Get Up Ya Honky Tonk – Cam Cole (reviewed by Dave...
It is perhaps, in part at least, the process of modernisation and homogenisation, sanitisation and bastardisation that has taken place in blues music in...
Classical/Instrumental
Things Fall Apart – Nathan Amundson (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Music and literature are my twin passions, so it is always great when the two occupy the same space for me. Not only is Nathan Amundson's...
Avant Garde
David – Mazmere (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
David is an EP of music connected by a stark theme: loss. It wasn’t intended that way, but both via subject matter and collaboration,...
Interviews
The Method in the Musical Madness: A conversation with Anastasiya Bazhenova...
Less a debut album, rather what Anastasiya Bazhenova prefers to call her “first complete artistic statement”, the release of From Mendelssohn to Madness was the perfect opportunity to sit...
Live
Grasslands @ The Richard Jefferies Museum, Swindon, 4th July 26
If ever an artist and a gig location were perfectly suited, it was watching Grasslands in the shaded courtyard outside the museum dedicated to...
Swindon
Vox Populi – Deadlight Dance (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
With all things goth, post-punk, and darkwave having a real resurgence of late, Deadlight Dance finds itself perfectly placed to surf the dark prevailing zeitgeist. Not...
News
A Shared Experience – recollections of Jimi Hendrix
The authors of a new book on Jimi Hendrix are looking for your help. Following the well-received first volume of 'A People's History of...
Playlist
That Was The Music Week That Was – 080825
Another busy week at Dancing Towers, plenty of cool grassroots artists put under the pen, lots of great music mused over, and lots of...
Books
How Not To Write About Music – III: Starting the Week...
One of the joys of writing about new music is that it stops you from getting trapped in the past. Of course, bands like...
6 of the best
Thank You For Your Feedback (i) – Cognitive Constellation Corps (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
Thank You for Your Feedback (i) is a transformative affair, in many senses of the word. Even the title is a great example: such a...
More and More – Duane Hoover (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is fair to say that Duane Hoover has always revelled in the sound of the sixties, that his songs always echo, to some degree, with...
Good Luck, Nice To Meet You – The Mighty Pines (reviewed by Dave...
To call the sound that greets you as the title track kicks off this, The Mighty Pines’ third album, as roots-pop might make things sound a...
Get Up Ya Honky Tonk – Cam Cole (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
It is perhaps, in part at least, the process of modernisation and homogenisation, sanitisation and bastardisation that has taken place in blues music in...
Devil By Your Side – Wayward Sparrow (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
There is a purposeful brevity to the music that Rich Clark makes as Wayward Sparrow, not so much music stripped back to its essence, but rather a...
You Want Love – Ava Renn (reviewed by Dave Franklin)
I’m going to start with the obvious… man, Ava Renn has an amazing voice, one that blends rock power with a vibrato-infused arabesque and no small...
