03.07.2025-IDIOT GLEE Idiot Glee (Hop Hop,2016)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Idiot Glee is the musical nom de plume of James Friley. After a first listen to Idiot Glee’s new, self-titled album, the glee doesn’t immediately jump out at you. But after repeat listens you start to find it in odd places. A melody here, poignant vocal there and then suddenly you realise that you’ve played Idiot Glee about 30 times, and each time you’ve gleaned something new from it.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ljrh9y

01.07.2025-ALEX WINSTON Bingo! (Rat Rizzo,2024)

 

INDIE POP

   Written over the course of three years during a mercurial period in her life—which she lovingly refers to as her “swamp era”—the album is packed with sonic elements of old school Americana, psychedelia and an untethered wiliness, all anchored by Winston’s assured pop sensibilities.  Bingo! is an unfiltered snapshot of Alex’s nosedive into the uncertainty and discomfort of growth. The 10-track project is both nostalgic and freshly compelling in its honesty and hard earned optimism.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/rxx9mo

28.06.2025-MISS TESS Darling, Oh Darling (Not On Label,2009)

 

JAZZ / SWING / COUNTRY

   Boston singer-songwriter Miss Tess has always had the pipes and the taste to carry off her various ventures into country, blues, and multi-hued swing, but Darling, Oh Darling underlines her overall sound. In the past, that sound has been defined by her voice and the sweet strum and sting of her vintage Weymann electric guitar, but on this set of 12 originals (plus one alternate), it’s the arrangements, with some carefully deployed special guests, that make the difference.

   That means various combinations of growling muted trombone and trumpet, swing clarinet, huffing Ben Webster–like tenor sax, boogie-woogie piano, pedal steel guitar, subtly mixed ooh-ooh-bop-bop-bop backing vocals, and brush-driven drums. There’s also a spare banjo ballad and, in “I Don’t Wanna See You Anymore,” her most overt rockabilly rave-up, a brash kiss-off that’s a departure from her usual wistful resignation and wised-up optimism.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/8arhcl

27.06.2025-CATS ON TREES Neon (Tot Ou Tard,2019)

 

POP

    From resolutely organic tips to synthetic notes, the duo combines different sounds with English words for a successful result.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/zbec2j

   

24.06.2025-ANNELIES MONSERE I Sigh, I Resign (Horn Of Plenty,2024)

 

EXPERIMENTAL

   I Sigh, I Resign is yet another raw and intimate album that retains the signature style of the Belgian musician Annelies Monseré. A follow-up to last year’s stunning, ‘Mares’ which featured in several end-of-year lists, I Sigh, I Resign is a melancholy LP that once again pulls out from the deep and emotional crevices of Annelies creativity and musicality to give birth to a collection of tracks which are nothing short of powerful.

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

22.06.2025-NATHAN FAKE Providence (Ninja Tune,2017)

 

ELECTRONIC

   Providence is a cerebral album with lots of heart: an emotional tonic for the mind that calls to mind some of Autrechre’s best work. It is also a welcome return for Fake, who now continues – hiatus notwithstanding – to build his reputation as one of the UK’s most interesting electronic voices.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/nfbhj5

21.06.2015-ALICIA WALTER I Am Alicia (Sooper,2021)

 

ART POP

   Simultaneously retro, avant-garde, and wide-ranging, I Am Alicia is captivating, not only for its exhilarating harmonics but because of Alicia Walter’s bravura voice.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/l0m2lj

   

19.06.2025-AGNES CIRCLE Some Vague Desire (Avant!,2016)

 

POST PUNK

   With plenty of smooth nuance to appeal to the more introspective side of gothdom, Some Vague Desire shows that The Agnes Circle can charm even when they’re holding themselves in check.

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

18.06.2025-BEAUTY OF GEMINA Minor Sun (TBoG,2016)

 

DARKWAVE / GOTHIC ROCK

   Darkness has never been so bright and beautiful as with the ‘Minor Sun’ - THE BEAUTY OF GEMINA's seventh opus since 2006. With thirteen new and diverse compositions, this one of kind dark alternative band from Switzerland around mastermind and vocalist Michael Sele celebrates its ten-year anniversary. There is no better birthday present than this new masterpiece of about 67 minutes of sonic pleasure. Listening to ‘Minor Sun’ for the very first time will leave you speechless with an urge to immediately dive back into it once again. And at the same time it will make you want to tell the whole wide world about it, and that you should absolutely do once you're able to articulate yourself again.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/9op506

16.06.2025-VIRGIN IN VEIL Permanent Funeral (Danse Macabre,2019)

 

DEATHROCK

   "Permanent Funeral" includes 10 songs, all reminding deathrock roots with the horror and some haunting mood and feelings to rise as the album moves on. Punk, horror guitar riffs along with haunting vocals from Jacques Saph. 

     From the punk-influenced "Shattered Glass" and "Darkness at Noon" ta the darkness of "Serpents" and the gothic, horror mood of "Self-Destruction" all the songs of "Permanent Funeral" are absolutely into the deathrock attitude of the band. One of my favourites is "78 Nightmares" with a haunting intro and death punk elements following. A really good deathrock album by Virgin in Veil.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/y0a3y4

15.06.2025-SLOW SHOW White Water (Haldern Pop,2015)

 

INDIE POP

   An excellent, if slightly left-field album, The Slow Show present a mix of the atmospheric and arty, as if David Bowie was the Big Black Goth and not the Thin White Duke.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/7uh9wr

14.06.2025-YSEULT Yseult (Polydor,2015)

 

ALTERNATIVE R&B / POP

   French singer, songwriter and model of Cameroonian descent, who calls her style "Y-trap", a melange of pop and trap with introspective, melancholic, often brutally honest lyrics.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/9r7eem

11.06.2025-GLASSER Ring (True Panther Sounds,2010)

 

ELECTROPOP

   Alongside Bat for Lashes, Fever Ray, and Zola Jesus, Glasser is in the upper tier of those making quasi-mystical, swirling electro-pop.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/4taj5m

09.06.2025-TAMARYN Dreaming The Dark (Dero Arcade,2019)

 

DREAM POP

   This album is easily the most emotionally charged collection Tamaryn has done up to this point. Each song seems to seethe and sway from one to the next, each carrying us along on little clouds of heartbreak and turmoil. One of the standout tracks is title track “Dreaming The Dark”. It flits along on a mix of synthwave, dark electro, and 80s alternative, closing the album on a cavernous peak of doomed romanticism.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/6a08ft

07.06.2025-JR JR Invocations /Conversation (Love Is EZ,2019)

 

INDIE POP

    Invocations is the original set of tracks that Warner Bros. tacitly rejected, while Conversations is essentially the next album, written in the long interim while JR JR were getting away from one record company and starting up a label of their own.

     Both records feature the same qualities that have always made JR JR appealing. The songs have catchy melodies, and the instrumentation leans toward bloopy electronics while still employing enough guitar, bass, and drums to be referred to as “indie pop” credibly. Auditorily there isn’t much difference, except that Invocations used the musicians from the JR JR tour, and Conversations was largely recorded by just Epstein and Zott.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/1egnws

06.06.2025-HEDVIG MOLLESTAD TRIO Shoot! (Rune Grammofon,2011)

 

JAZZ ROCK

   Debut album from very exciting trio led by guitarist Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen. With one foot in heavy rock and one in jazz they effortlessly manage to combine monster riffs and high energy rock´n´roll with progressive and lyrical modern jazz. Fully instrumental apart from the distant shouting in a Melvins cover, "Shoot!" is more song structured than other guitar led trios such as Bushman´s Revenge or Scorch Trio. Ellen Brekken plays electric and acoustic bass and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad is the drummer. The album has a lovely vintage, classic analog feel that surely has something to do with it being recorded live in the studio with the musicians actually playing together. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/xe6na1

05.06.2025-ANGELE Brol (Angele VL,2018)

 

POP

   With her unstoppable refrains, the young Belgian singer Angèle brings a breath of fresh air to French song.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/49ytd4

04.06.2025-JANELLE MONAE The Electric Lady (Wonderland Arts Society/Atlantic,2013)

 

PROGRESSIVE SOUL

   The sci-fi soul maverick’s second album can’t match her debut for ambition, but it’s still fiercely entertaining.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/yw0wy4

02.06.2025-FYFE + ISKRA STRINGS Interiority (Benvolio,2022)

 

MODERN CLASSICAL / DOWNTEMPO

   Consisting of two singular but equally accomplished talents, the collaboration between Fyfe & Iskra Strings shows how two disparate talents can create something with a strength well beyond the sum of their parts. Together they create pop music with a cinematic twist, using songcraft as the foundation for their experimental fusion of electronica and post-classical. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/q5778y

01.06.2025-DARKSTAR Civic Jams (Warp,2020)

 

DUBSTEP / EXPERIMENTAL

   Stuttered and broken beats return but, over a decade on, Darkstar sound obscured and withdrawn.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/f98ioi

31.05.2025-BABY MAMMOTH Octo Muck (Water Music,2003)

 

TRIP-HOP

   On previous Baby Mammoth albums, you could expect to listen to a whole album and perhaps doze off in a chilled-out stupor. Not so with Octo Muck-the duo of Mark Blissenden and Steve Coby are taking their sound in new directions. Here you find eight-minute house tracks interspersed between the dubby downtempo of their previous work. In general, there’s a much faster, dance-oriented feel to the album, though the duo haven’t lost their trademark acid jazz feel. Like former labelmates Fila Brazillia, the results vary-when it’s not filler, it’s very good.

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

28.05.2025-GANGER Hammock Style (Domino,1998)

 

POST-ROCK

   Instrumental rock fiends who thought Tortoise’s patented double-bass thump was played out by the late ‘90s found salvation in Glasgow quartet Ganger. Hammock Style turbocharged the increasingly imitated Chicago sound with expansive, major-key melodies and stream-of-consciousness narratives from bassist Natasha Noramly. “I feel lost in a city of sound,” she whispered on “Capo (South Of Caspian),” a nine-minute tour de force that subtly tweaked a simple riff made from mandolin and Sonic Youth-style electric-guitar eruptions until it tumbled toward a blissful climax. This style of music has aged poorly (where art thou, Paul Newman, Pele and Billie Mahonie?), but the jams on Hammock Style still have the power to mesmerize.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/8icwfv

27.05.2025-BLOOD RED SHOES Get Tragic (Jazz Life,2019)

 

ALTERNATIVE ROCK

   Get Tragic – released via their own Jazz Life records after a string of misfortunes with other label signings – marks the transition to a significantly heavier rock sound. It’s loaded with chugging bass riffs and fractured snatches of percussion, but also incorporates dark electronic elements, with producer Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lou Reed, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) adding some nuance to their typical full-throttle approach.

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

25.05.2025-FILA BRAZILLIA Old Codes New Chaos (Pork,1994)

 

BREAKBEAT / DOWNTEMPO

   There can be little doubt that this is one of the best dance music albums ever made. Released in 1994, the debut album from Fila Brazillia was launched into a world before big beat and trip hop took hold, but after the first flush of Orb and ELF-inspired ambient. Coming after the initial chunky Leftfield-style house of the first Pork releases, but before the spliff took hold and Pork got stuck into their current down 'n' easy groove we now all love so well, this album is truly unique.

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

24.05.2025-TELEMAN Family Of Aliens (Moshi Moshi,2018)

 

INDIE POP

   In the past Teleman have been pretty set in their ways, with Thomas Sanders reluctant to loosen his hold on the writing, but these days roles are less clearly defined. As a result ‘Family of Aliens’, their third LP, is more fluid and flightier in theme and tone.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/4oo2wz

23.05.2025-JAPANESE VOYEURS Yolk (Slimeball,2011)

 

GRUNGE / ALTERNATIVE METAL

   Undoubtedly, the scuzzy riffs and pounding rhythms often sound like an alternate version of early Nirvana (listening to the guitar lines on songs like ‘Blush’ can make you want to go back to Bleach and check it isn’t an outright homage,) and they make no attempt to cover their tracks or hide their obvious influences. It’s an admirable quality in itself, that a band can embrace the music they love without paying any regard to what’s zeitgiesty or cool in the hipster taste making universe. But what’s even more interesting is how Japanese Voyeurs never quite sound as if they’re actively channelling the past for the sake of it. This is grunge, sure, but I’d be reluctant to label it grunge revival. Unlike so many current acts who mine the past purely to package nostalgia, Japanese Voyeurs make music which sounds like exactly what it is: a dark, menacing and energetic explosion of the sort of music which they really love, now.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/5dip6u

20.05.2025-CAOILFHIONN ROSE Awaken (Gondwana,2018)

 

FOLK ROCK

   Through it all, Caoilfhionn and her band perform a compelling balancing act. Her own vocals are airy yet commanding, the rolling drums keep things propulsive yet are balanced with more occasionally more wistful guitar melodies, and its tender heart develops into an expansive declaration of sound. It draws on her diverse range of inspirations – from The Mummers to Melody’s Echo Chamber – but firmly places Caoilfhionn’s own stamp across the folkedelic vibes.

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

19.05.2025-JAWS Simplicity (Jaws,2016)

 

POST-PUNK / SHOEGAZING

   Two years after releasing their debut LP ‘Be Slowly’, JAWS are back. Bigger and better than ever with their new album ‘Simplicity’. The Brummie trio recently took time out from their musical endeavour in order to have a recharge and boy does it show, there is a real depth with ‘Simplicity’ that wasn’t particularly seen in their aforementioned debut. Even JAWS themselves say that this is “the band’s most developed material to date.”

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ub9oh3

18.05.2025-CYGNOSIC Siren (Not On Label,2017)

 

DARK ELECTRO

   Cygnosic progressively became a recognized and respected formation from the dark-electronic scene. “Siren” is maybe not the best work of the band although dark-electro heads are gonna like it for sure!

https://www.sendspace.com/file/d6n473

17.05.2025-KIP HANRAHAN Beautiful Scars (American Clave,2008)

 

JAZZ / LATIN

   Beautiful Scars is a very, very sexy record. To engage Kip-speak, what I mean is: it's not bedroom music or an aide de seduction... Actually one can't describe the specific tastes, pressure, use of tongues and the subsequent intrinsic angers, joys, regrets and delusions derived, which this record cannot help but embody. This is exactly what the record is about.

   That, and politics. The politics of global capital and exploitation. Not in your face, but because that's what the world itself is about and only a miniscule amount of musicians take it on. I mean, really take it on. Aficionados of Hanrahan's music will recognise this; even they will be surprised at how good this music is. You ask: how can this be so fresh? How can it make you see the world as if through the jangled, elated-but-weepy psyche of a world-class hangover, or PMT on the perfect summer's day? As the record says, a day when everything is in its perfect place but bosses still screw their subordinates and lovers go home unfulfilled? Tangled. Difficult. Exquisitely beautiful.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/xylzz6

16.05.2025-LYNCELIA Forsaken Innocence (Not On Label,2016)

 

GOTH ROCK / COLDWAVE

   Lyncelia does not bring anything new. But what does it matter when you can deliver an album like that! Because what it DOES bring is rock-solid gothrock with plenty of variation, animation and zeal.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/da2t52

13.05.2025-PIANO MAGIC Closure (Second Language,2016)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Glen Johnson and Piano Magic called it a day in early December, 2016 by way of a gig in London on exactly the 20th anniversary of their first performance. Now that’s what you call closure. 

     As a result, much of what will be their final album sounds more haunted than ever. As Johnson looks back on romances and friendships he’s been unable to truly let go of, it’s hard not to draw parallels with his band. The 10-plus minute opening title track hammers the point home, but there are plenty of other lyrics throughout that bolster this feeling of stagnation, of the oft-recurring dark thoughts and residual horrorshows. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/2ll2tb

11.05.2025-TAYLOR RAE Mad Twenties (Not On Label,2021)

 

AMERICANA

   What an introduction–Austin-based singer-songwriter Taylor Rae’s first album is a tantalizing blend of thoughtful, expressive lyrics riding over a wide range of Americana styles. This collection of 12 original tunes runs the gamut from introspective balladry to greasy R&B, all detailing Rae’s current turbulent decade—her “mad twenties.” 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ln5wn9