30.10.2024-SARAH JAROSZ Song Up In Her Head (Sugar Hill,2009)

 

FOLK / BLUEGRASS

   Her voice is lovely, glowing and unfurled at only the right moments, and two well-done covers—Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s “Come on up to the House” and The Decemberists’ “Shankhill Butchers”—attest to her skill as much as her taste. But the songs Jarosz wrote herself more pull their own weight. The eleven originals bubble with questions, toe-tapping impatience and a dreamy yearning, and they’re strung through with twinge of poignancy that’s completely refreshing. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/j2jux8

29.10.2024-PATRICK KELLEHER You Look Cold (Osaka,2009)

 

ELECTRONIC

   Not only does his backing band regularly change their name (The Sick Fucks, The Wet Dreams and His Cold Dead Hands have all prevailed as monikers), but his debut album, self-played and self-recorded using a variety of conventional and not-so-conventional instruments, sounds like it was pieced together in a damp shed, with only the fixed, baleful stares of garden gnomes for company.

    Imperfect, but completely imaginative, this is an album that truly embodies the spirit of DIY indie music.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/0f4aul

28.10.2024-SELEBRITIES Lovely Things (Cascine,2013)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Known for their ability to capture the sound of neon New York, the band shows a softer, subtler side to their songwriting with the new material. Tracks like 'Found' and 'Fell to Earth' are pensive musings on the impact of relationships, whereas 'Temporary Touch' and 'I Could Change' are bouncier-style jams that Selebs' fans adore.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/7yeed3

27.10.2024-CLAIRE The Great Escape (Island,2013)

 

ELECTROPOP

   The Great Escape is the first full-length release by up-and-coming German quintet Claire. Claiming to be “somewhere between synthpop, electronic-pop, half-time beats, hip-hop and indie” on their official website, the group definitely focuses their music around electronic instrumentation. Though their initial EPs have built them quite a following, it remains to be seen if they can maintain that kind of momentum across an entire album.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/zn8si2

24.10.2023-ALEX CLARE Tail Of Lions (ETC,2016)

 

INDIE ROCK

   It can be hard to find inspiration when we’re constantly bombarded by technology. Alex Clare discovered the perfect solution: laying tracks down for his new record on a boat, with bassist Chris Hargreaves. The resulting long-player, Tail of Lions, finds the British singer maturing as a songwriter, while keeping in tact his signature sound that catapulted him to worldwide acclaim in 2011 with the double platinum smash, “Too Close.”

https://www.sendspace.com/file/03xxbs

23.10.2024-BAD RABBITS Garden Of Eaden (Not On Label,2023)

 

FUNK ROCK

   The fifth record from the R&Beatdown trio and their first since the turn of the decade, Garden Of Eden is once again wonderful proof of Bad Rabbits’ unique concept. A suave and swaggering collection of contemporary R&B fulled by the volatile energy only found within punk, hardcore and other genres often perceived to be removed from rhythm and blues by lightyears, this record is a wonderful body of work that once again proves that the only naysayers of Bad Rabbit’s work are those who simply have not heard it.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/5pdy9a

22.10.2024-BRAIDS Shadow Offering (Secret City,2020)

 

POP / ART ROCK

   Braids' sound has changed between each of their full-length releases, with Raphaelle Standell-Preston's voice and lyrics steadily growing in prominence in the mix. Shadow Offering takes this further, offering a direct and personal album which will please fans of tracks like "Taste" and "Miniskirt" from 2015's Deep in the Iris.

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

20.10.2024-IO ECHO Ministry Of Love (Lamsound,2013)

 

INDIE ROCK

   There are albums so good, the task of describing them seems overwhelming. Yet the glorious challenge of explaining why the songs are amazing can be a real honor, especially if even one person reads my paltry words, buys the album, and is thus transported.

     So it is with Ministry of Love, the debut album from the duo of Ioanna Gika and Leopold Ross, who form IO Echo. They marry the proto-goth of early Cure and Siouxsie with the lushness of Cocteau Twins and School of Seven Bells in songs informed by the subtle yet strong undercurrents of Asian sonics. Despite what my descriptions might imply, Ministry of Love isn’t bleak. The euphoric pop of songs like the title track and “Ecstasy Ghost” ensure that the album never feels morose, although it skirts the edges of unsettling.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/jv60ht

19.10.2024-LAPECHE The Second Arrow (Bakery Outlet,2017)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Intense and lovely, Diem’s writing draws inspiration from both past and present, touching on themes light and dark. Collaboratively, with her husband and bassist, Dave Diem, LAPêCHE also includes the intricate and thoughtful guitar slaying of Drew DeMaio as well as the creative rhythm of Jefferson Gensterblum. The band combines perfectly to guide Krista’s provocative melodies over their uniquely driving hooks.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/jxl1t9

16.10.2024-MESSENGER Illusory Blues (Svart,2014)

 

PROGRESSIVE ROCK

   MESSENGER (UK) is a musical troupe from London formed in the spring of 2012 by Khaled Lowe and Barnaby Maddick. They booked a session with producer Jaime Gomez Arellano at Orgone Studios that gave birth to their debut album, Illusory Blues: a cosmic ode to the forces of nature and the inevitable cycle of life. To cite musical influences would be futile. The musicians had made their names with bands in scenes as far apart as hardcore punk, black metal, and ambient music. Tonally, one might recall finding oneself in the same "space" occupied by other architects of sound such as Ulver, The Beatles, Swans, or Pink Floyd. But the stream of sound that emanates from the source of Illusory Blues is a heaving mass of organic richness, brimmed with intricate sounds that acknowledge the original fathers of experimentation but look forward in creating something new and unique. They dwell equally in the earthly realm of folk music and in the celestial void of progressive psychedelia, but have chanced upon a sound and an experience that sounds like no other. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ao1i14

13.10.2024-DATURA4 Hairy Mountain (Alive,2016)

 

PSYCHEDELIC ROCK

    How far is it from the west coast of Australia to the west coast of the USA ? Turns out that, musically, it’s about a five minute trip in a space-buggy powered by stardust and riff-diesel. Fremantle’s boogie-psych rockers, Datura4, have followed up last year’s excellent debut album, Demon Blues, with a very worthy offering in “Hairy Mountain”.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/wq8hil

12.10.2024-LA SCALTRA Cabaret (Not On Label, 2016)

 

DARKWAVE

   Cabaret consists of 8 songs produced with good taste, clean and well executed. On the back of their business card they declare “Soon you will find beauty in darkness”, and this is a perfect introduction to their music. The simplicity they emanate when using the exact instruments at the right time helps them to achieve their goal: a melancholy and solemn atmosphere, so typical of Gothic Rock but not one everyone can invoke.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/akryn2

10.10.2024-MINKS Tides End (Captured Tracks,2013)

 

LO-FI / SHOEGAZE

   Brooklyn-based musician Sean Kilfoyle-- who records as Minks-- has expressed a desire to move away from debut LP By The Hedge's "wall of sound" toward something more direct. On Tides End, Minks' vision goes awry from the beginning.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/w0ib4l

08.10.2024-DEMI LOVATO Holy Fvck (Island,2022)

 

POP PUNK

   Drawing influence from noughties pop-punk and '80s and '90s hard rock and metal in equal measure, HOLY FVCK is Lovato’s darkest and dirtiest LP to date. “Get your tickets to the freak show, baby” she challenges on opener “Freak”, and across the following 47 minutes, she offers up a plethora of guttural screams, blasphemous declarations and electrifying guitar riffs - all while deconstructing her public image and her own sense of self.

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

06.10.2024-ADULT. Becoming Undone (Dais,2022)

 

ELECTROCLASH

   Becoming Undone comprises eight goth-friendly chuggers replete with squealing synths, metallic-timbred drums and Kuperus’ dramatic, scornful vocal delivery. Primarily uptempo, the transition between the techno-adjacent I Am Nothing and the slowed-down tripper She’s Nice Looking is nevertheless only jarring inasmuch as Adult. are a wilfully jarring experience at their best. A worthwhile reshuffle of their broad aesthetic, but newcomers to the duo can start with this album if they want – or another one. It’s all good!

https://www.sendspace.com/file/q4o6zu

05.10.2024-EMMA KUPA It Will Come Easily (Fika,2020)

 

INDIE ROCK / AMERICANA

   Although a solo album, It Will Come Easier is actually one of Emma’s most collaborative and instrumentally expansive records to date, seeing her work with bandmates from Suggested Friends and Mammoth Penguins, along with a vast array of other collaborators. The result is a record that seems to flit quickly between genres from Americana numbers, like recent single Nawlins, surely designed for campfire sing-alongs, to the almost trad-folk of the violin led masterpiece, Hey Love. There’s even room for a glorious piece of soft-rock, on the Kevin Morby-like, No Easy Way Out, with its bombastic guitar-line and propulsive slinky bass-line.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/2rpxty

03.10.2024-ANNA CALVI Hunter (Domino,2018)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Anna Calvi’s third album is everything she has ever promised, and more: a serious-minded collection of pop songs about desire, control and gender, which are still compelling even if you choose never to listen to a single lyric.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/4030ou