31.07.2024-LAURA MARLING Alas, I Cannot Swim (Virgin,2008)

 

FOLK

   Where Adele sounds like a method actor, Marling weaves secretive threads of thought that suggest she’s agonised over things long enough for them to come together with a thud in plain-spoken full stops.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/nw2uz6

30.07.2024 PASSENGER Songs For The Drunk And Broken Hearted (Black Crow,2021)

 

INDIE FOLK

     Songs for The Drunk and Broken Hearted is just like any other good pop album that is great to listen to, but those art lovers who are drawn to more wistful concepts will find themselves investing in the dark cloud that hovers over this album more than perhaps they foresaw.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ehjqfr

29.07.2024-GROUPLOVE Never Trust A Happy Song (Canvasback/Atlantic,2011)

 

ALTERNATIVE ROCK

   Never Trust a Happy Song’s finer moments arrive when Grouplove is crafting sun-kissed anthems that deserve to be blared across beaches or, at least, from the speakers of any open-top car en route to the shore. When Christian Zucconi is howling like Isaac Brock over swirling guitar parts and impassioned drum beats that never show any sign of relenting, something clicks, and on the aforementioned album opener, the feverish curtain call “Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten,” and especially on “Colours,” the band shows they have a real knack for boisterous pop jaunts.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/euo9ek

28.07.2024-SHANNON WRIGHT Division (Vicious Circle,2017)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Wright continues to challenge with her most recent record, the brooding Division, a melancholic and revealing album that includes heavier synth work than on previous releases. Wright’s work has always featured a darkness, a kind of raging malaise that figures into her work, but it has rarely been so world-weary, with moments of deep vulnerability couched between plodding dirges. For Wright, it’s as much the strain of giving and performing as it is the economic side of things. Touring abroad has given her perspective on how different cultures value art, a kind of anxiety that seeps into her music.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/l7ikf0

27.07.2024-JOAN OF ARC 1984 (Joyful Noise,2018)

 

INDIE ROCK

     The entirety of 1984 is written and sung by the newest member of Joan of Arc, Melina Ausikaitis, a solo and visual artist who’s played with the group for roughly five years and sang backup on He’s Got The Whole Land This Land Is Your Land in His Hands. It is first of all a vocal album, characterized by Ausikaitis’s idiosyncratic voice, while behind her the rest of the group (Kinsella, Theo Katsaounis, Bobby Burg, and Jeremy Boyle) assemble drone hums, improvisational melodies, field recordings, and empty space into an intimate and strangely intense piece of emotional landscape.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/gi8dwm

24.07.2024-JENSEN SPORTAG Stealth Of Days (Cascine,2013)

 

ELECTROPOP

   While their formula of whispy R&B adorned with pretty, sparkling flourishes isn’t earth-shatteringly original in itself, Jensen Sportag do have a knack at crafting more complete-sounding tracks than many of their soundalikes.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/9vtjtq

23.07.2024-KORELESS Agor (Young,2021)

 

ELECTRONIC

   Arriving a full 10 years after his debut single, Welsh producer Lewis Roberts’ first album is a bravura display of brain-bending editing that’s more concerned with big feelings.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ybi3ya

22.07.2024-ENGINE EARZ EXPERIMENT Symbol (Circus,2017)

 

DUBSTEP / AMBIENT

   Synth sounds and futuristic drums are intertwined with a selection of nature samples and voice clips. The organic and natural backdrop to an album heavy on production, and a chance for the layers to shine through in an immersive mix. The album feels minimal at first listen, but the further you delve, the more incidental sounds and beautiful layers you find. Prashant’s production unfurls the more you listen, and once this album gets its teeth into you, you are going to want to keep listening.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/m5b671

21.07.2024-MAVERICK SABRE Lonely Are The Brave (Mercury,2012)

 

SOUL / RAP

     At his best on the crisp retro-soul arrangement of "No One", he comes across like a male Amy Winehouse, engagingly feisty and vulnerable. Too often here, however, he opts for undistinguished breakbeat grooves to carry his reflections, and he seems almost solipsistically obsessed with his own past, in track after track reminiscing about his hard childhood. But he's developed a pleasing balance between catchier cuts like "Let Me Go" and "Running Away" and a slower, more thoughtful vein of soul-blues rumination, such as "I Can Never Be".

https://www.sendspace.com/file/7cxe7x

18.07.2024-GWENIFER RAYMOND You Never Were Much Of A Dancer (Tompkins Square,2018)

 

FOLK

     There’s a dark undercurrent to much of the folk music coming out of the tradition of the British Isles; maybe that has to do with the region’s history. But that brooding vibe pervades the style, adding weight and mystery to the already intriguing music. Welsh-born Gwenifer Raymond’s debut release, You Never Were Much of a Dancer showcases the style, though Raymond describes herself as (among other things) an “American Primitive” musician. Ultimately, her music draws from the folk traditions of both England-Ireland-Scotland-Wales and the American variant.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/5fsq68

17.07.2024-MISTY MILLER The Whole Family Is Worried (Relentless,2016)

 

ALTERNATIVE ROCK

     Some will see similarities with Chrissie Hynde's Pretenders II swagger; better to recall The Breeders' Kim Deal on Girlfriend, Next To You or Devil, where even the devil rejects her. Is Misty mark two the real deal? Yes.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/z987xg

16.07.2024-HUNX AND HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Hardly Art,2011)

 

PUNK ROCK

     Bogart has a nasal, pop punk voice, which works well in this genre. The girls have beautiful full voices. Their interplay is dynamic sometimes, but at others the disparity shifts the focus onto the thinness of the songwriting.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/vl1b0d

15.07.2024-BAD BREEDING Divide (La Vida Es Un Mus,2017)

 

HARDCORE PUNK

     The self-described ‘best punk band in Britain’ has a sound that’s just about as punk as it comes, with only three of the ten tracks on the record spanning more than three minutes. This focus on short, sharp bursts of anger will once again appeal to the working class masses, who feel out of touch with modern punk, and this energy is likely to spill over to create overly aggressive live shows.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/upaiwf

12.07.2024-ALUNAGEORGE I Remember (Island,2016)

 

ELECTRONIC

     Augmented by a handful of collaborations, and more musically scattershot than their debut – Mediator channels Sade, Not Above Love is Blu Cantrell’s Breathe updated, Wanderlust is shimmery chopped and screwed balladry – the outward-looking I Remember feels driven by a thirst to experiment. As a result it occasionally loses focus, but overall the decision to open up has worked wonders.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/htl8s2

11.07.2024-MY DARLING CLEMENTINE The Reconciliation? (Plane Groovy,2013)

 

COUNTRY

     Why is it that classic country music is so often characterised as good for a laugh and little else? It's time may have gone but when Tammy and George sang of their problems they were reflecting the dismal lives of millions of ordinary Americans. That is the connection British duo My Darling Clementine, aka wonderful singer Lou Dalgleish and songwriter Michael Weston King, celebrate with this, the second of what are effectively tribute albums to a genre. The follow-up to cult success How Do You Plead? stretches the duo with more personal songs, notably Ashes, Flowers and Dust (for their late parents), while Dalgleish's No Matter What Tammy Said (I Won't Stand By Him) twists the genre to take on wife abuse. The playing is top-notch and their love of the music rings true.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/cpwerz

10.07.2024-FAY HIELD Old Adam (Soundpost,2016)

 

FOLK

   For Old Adam, Hield has expanded the Hurricane Party to include percussionist Toby Kearney (The Emily Portman band) and bass player Ben Nicholls (Kings of the South Seas). These musicians together with Sam Sweeney, Rob Harbron and Roger Wilson (plus guests Jon Boden and Martin Simpson) create sounds and textures that, whilst being full of interest, are always at the service of Hield’s vocals.

   This change in sound is apparent from the first track, Green Gravel. With drums and bass to the fore the song, text taken from Alice Gomm’s ’Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland’ with music by Hield, it is a strong opening number full of rhythm and life.

As Hield’s excellent liner notes tell us, this album is made up of stories. You won’t find any insipid love songs here, these pieces explore what it is to be human.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ncsoya

06.07.2024-GRIMES Art Angels (4AD,2015)

 

ART POP

     Shape-shifting pop diva ups her game, stays delightfully weird.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/gv3h1m

05.07.2024-LA VAMPIRES + MARIA MINERVA The Integration (Not Not Fun,2012)

 

ELECTRONIC

     What makes The Integration LP a pleasing collaboration, however, is an apparent agreement in desired outcome. While both Brown and Minerva share keen aspirations to continue with electronic music exploration, the format they have chosen here allows them an easy escape hatch: there is no commitment other than to the songs they have created together. As a consequence of that acknowledgement, each number remains concise, pensive, and embracing, with only subtle diversions in style and approach. This points to a synthesis in collective determination, as opposed to the birth of a brand spanking new outfit. As accomplished and catchy as the album is, it sounds as though the artists have left themselves with hardly any room to breathe.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/25m6d0

04.07.2024-HOLY OTHER Held (Tri Angle,2012)

 

ELECTRONIC

     Calling it 'electronic music' is, of course, a somewhat vague definition. The work of Holy Other has been variously described, along with other releases on the Tri-Angle label, as dubstep, R&B, ambient and witch house. It’s somewhere between all these genres really (although I couldn’t tell you with any real confidence what constitutes ‘witch house’). Certainly it seems to share lineage with Burial’s atmospheric, late night travails, and there’s even some overlap with The Weeknd’s distinctive brand of creepy R&B.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/fu4keb

03.07.2024-YUCK Stranger Things (Mame,2016)

 

INDIE ROCK

     As on their previous records, Yuck's influences, ranging from Dinosaur Jr. to Smashing Pumpkins, are easily recognizable, but the reverence they show thereto is sometimes detrimental to Yuck really establishing their own sound. Closer "Yr Face" drips with warmth, but it's more nostalgia for My Bloody Valentine's reverb ooze than a sonic statement of their own.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/v235s3