rescuing musical virtue in distress.
If, like me, you first encountered Cori Elliott playing weaponised bass and kicking ass as the focal point of The Vim Dicta, then Too Far Gone might come as a bit of a surprise. Then again, perhaps not. They were always a band who knew how to work with drama and dynamics, build atmosphere and... Continue Reading →
When you look back over the history of classical music, it is interesting to see how it has moved from been something exclusive, being performed for the upper echelons of society into a modern world where it has found perhaps a new found sense of purpose, being accessible to the masses by its perfect matching... Continue Reading →
Will Lawton and his band of sonic Alchemists have always made music which is challenging to write about. But that is what also makes them one of the most appealing bands to write about too. As a writer you tend to find yourself pulled towards adopting a certain literary tone, one which matches the music... Continue Reading →
Good music is either the easiest or the hardest thing to describe, it is only average music which requires cliche. Great music even makes you resort to non-musical references to help you make sense of what is going on. And Ruheman makes great music. It is the sound of space being filled with an encroaching... Continue Reading →
Haunting and beguiling music isn’t just the domain of the gothic set. After all, most of the wailings and wallowing that was emitted from that corner of the music spectrum over the years has been largely hammed up and over-theatrical, music made by people who have watched one to many episodes of Buffy the Vampire... Continue Reading →
Not all music needs the direct communication of a lyrical component. In fact sometimes it can really get in the way. A smart artist knows that music is just as powerful a medium as words when it comes to getting your message across and Joe McCann is a smart artist for sure. The difference is... Continue Reading →
Music, all too often, sounds very much like the product of the human world. Even when it is trying to express more abstract concepts, talking about the wider world or dealing with intangible ideas such as emotions and feelings, it still generally sounds, without wanting to sound obvious, man-made. How could it not? What has... Continue Reading →
Greg Smith has always had a way with understatement. Even when mining a more upbeat sonic seam he does so in a spacious and tasteful way, employing the minimal amount of musical building blocks to the maximum affect. Here, he really takes that idea to its logical conclusion. In the Vicinity of Miracles is gentle... Continue Reading →
There are a few words which get over used in music writing. Words such as haunting, ethereal, otherworldly, I should know as I, as much as anyone, have been responsible for their dissemination and proliferation. But how can you review music as gorgeous, as unique, as unusual, as mystical as David Åhlén’s without at least... Continue Reading →
We get so used to hip-hop's core sound being used as a vehicle for hard-hitting, socially aware, sonic salvos and lyrical attacks that we forget that this is only one of many avenues down which it is possible to take the music. What if you took those same beats, and ways of sampling and styling... Continue Reading →
It isn’t so much the case that Sebastian Reynolds hops genres or even attempts to merge them like some sort of sonic alchemist, it is more that he floats without concern above them. And whilst you could make a good argument for elements of avant-garde classical, trip-hop, free jazz and ambient experimentation all finding their... Continue Reading →
“I like working alone and also I like collaborating.” Andy Ellis’ seemingly dualistic statement may have been an irreconcilable conundrum in a previous age, but thankfully the technology of the modern world means that he can still weave his magic with the other half of Black Lab, Paul Durham via the long distance file-sharing that... Continue Reading →
He doesn’t do things by halves does that Mr Lawton. Whilst most other musicians are using the current restrictions to add half-baked covers of songs I never really liked in the first place to the ubiquitous flotsam and jetsam that is modern, on-line music, he has contributed something truly original, truly necessary and perhaps more... Continue Reading →
The fact that both classical piano and avant-garde metal have featured in Leah Hinton’s past comes as little surprise when you listen to the first full blown Murmur Tooth album. It’s not an obvious thing but it might account for the fact that the album is on the one hand peppered with a sense of... Continue Reading →
Whilst this debut album from YYY might be genre-hopping, musical gene-splicing, sonic scatter gun of sounds and ideas, the more you play it the more you are drawn less to the mad eclecticism and more to its common factors. Less to the building blocks and more to the cement…as it were. There is an obvious... Continue Reading →
There is a point where chilled dance music and a more ambient, cinematic vibe seem to merge into something which is the best of both worlds. It is music which takes the beats and energy of the former to give it a rigid structure and then uses this as a framework on which to drape... Continue Reading →
Why make noise when you can manipulate silence? And odd thing to say perhaps but if anybody can make a noise (and they pretty much can) trapping silence inside exquisite sonic bubbles take a whole different set of skills. But that is what Mr Dog The Bear continues to excel at. Already you could level... Continue Reading →
If only as an antidote to the madness of the world at the moment, the hustle and hassle, the knee-jerk reactions and the lack of thought, the self-centred view points and the narrow-minded visions, a new album from Astronomical Twilight feels like the perfect healing process. The first thing that hearing such ambient drifts and spacious... Continue Reading →
I cover so much contemporary, western music on this site that it is easy to forget that culturally, as well as, geographically, the world is still a very big and diverse place. It is music such as Moon Rituals which makes for the perfect reminder of such a fact. For every chart-seeking pop star with... Continue Reading →
There is an art to making understated music. As any musician worth their salt, sea salt in this case, will tell you, playing is easy, it's knowing where to leave the gaps that is the harder discipline to master. And if you take that skill set to the most virtuosic levels, you end up with... Continue Reading →
Space, the final frontier. A phrase as true in 60’s sci-fi as it is in modern music. Too many artists see the blank sonic canvas and feel the need to completely cover it with their sound. Space, when utilised properly is a powerful tool. It is the atmospherics which collect between the lingering notes, the... Continue Reading →
In an earlier time, those seeking to describe Nandan Gautam’s music would have simply have labelled it “world music” and moved on. But what does that even mean? It’s a term which takes in everything from recordings of traditional Balkan folk singers played at middle class dinner parties to muddy, outdoor musical festivals made up... Continue Reading →
In a world where music is often reduced to a commodity, a product to be marketed in ways akin to cans of beans or the latest trainers, where fad and fashion is king, it is easy to forget that such creativity is at its best when it is made for more honest reasons. You can't... Continue Reading →
Electronic music always had more potential than the guitar scene that it had to fight its way through. I, being old, remember the way it was treated in its infancy, how it was derided for not being real music, but even in those early, monophonic keyboard days, as ex-punks bent broken keyboards to their will,... Continue Reading →
Even before the music casts its ambient spell on you, and it will, the titles of the tracks alone will have conjured wonderful images and painted wild scenes in your head. Titles such as “Just Before Nightfall In The Forest” and “In The Late Autumn Afternoon Rainstorm” say as much in their one line as... Continue Reading →
With instrumental music, such as this elegant offering, I find myself making the same point as I do when reviewing music with lyrics that are in a language other than my own. Take away the direct communication that the words provide and you are left with just the music itself as the bridge between the... Continue Reading →
Arrival is one of those songs which works at its own pace. It isn’t in a hurry to please the listener or to get to the pay-off, instead it slowly builds out of minimalist beats and ambient sound washes, hypnotic repetitions and dream like hazes, it’s even a minute and a half into the track... Continue Reading →
It’s always great when a band gives you some indication of where their musical influences lie, of where they draw their inspiration but like most background musings accompanying a Mr Dog The Bear release, how helpful that might be is questionable and you find that the information to hand raises more questions than it answers.... Continue Reading →
With instrumental music, such as this elegant offering, I find myself making the same point as I do when reviewing music with lyrics that are in a language other than my own. Take away the direct communication that the words provide and you are left with just the music itself as the bridge between the... Continue Reading →
It is when we fear that the worst is happening that we find ourselves focusing on what is really important. The false missile alert in Hawaii last year probably made a few people think about what really mattered to them in those minutes between thinking the worst and realising that it was all a big... Continue Reading →