There’s always been something bewilderingly claustrophobic about Sweeping Promises sound. The economy and density of the duo working so tightly together can feel gleefully intense. From the lockdown-era discovery of Hunger for a Way Out through...
Is what’s being touted as Olivia Rodrigo’s most mature album also her most complicated? In the rollout to the album’s release, the single drops, press interviews and surprise festival spots it’s clear that the...
For decades, Scottish brothers Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison, of course much better known as Boards of Canada, have occupied a strange and sacred space in electronic music. Their sounds are perhaps too emotionally...
For more than a decade, Scattered Purgatory (破地獄) has existed in a self-made border zone: not quite drone or folk and not quite kosmiche rock. instead they’ve been something ritualistic and weathered that’s risen...
This year’s album list (unranked) isn’t about one dominant style or one “scene.” It’s an array of contrasts, often between despair and hope, or the sacred and the profane. As much as they’re an...
Bug Teeth’s debut full-length arrives softly, building and scrutinising loss down to its fine veins, even as it gazes upward to the skies. With a title drawn from Robert Hooke’s 17th-century scientific text magnifying...
Calling Chin Up Buttercup a breakup album may be factually accurate but it’s woefully inadequate when describing the music aimed at reconstructing life after turbulent relationship heartache and loss. The experiences used to flesh out each...
Debut albums introduce a band and they can be tricky beasts. The sound, attitude and mood all tie in to create an image but there can be an urge to throw the kitchen sink...
When Howling at a Concrete Moon introduced us to Pynch, we met a band wrestling with the disillusionments of youth, already sounding world-weary, defiant and bruised. But for their follow-up, Beautiful Noise, it seems like they’ve turned...
Let’s not call this album a “re-issue”. Being kind and less cynical we’ll go with the PR blurb and say it’s an “expanded, digital deluxe edition” aimed at enhancing the listening experience…the thing is...
