31.01.2025-EMILY LOIZEAU L'Autre Bout Du Monde (Fargo,2006)

 

INDIE ROCK

   With her cabaret touches, unabashedly romantic subject matter, and clever wordplay, L'Autre Bout du Monde ("The Other Side of the World") is French by birth. This doesn't make Loizeau calcified retro by any means. She's armed with a playful and lilting voice, inventive chamber strings arrangements, and a superior sense of melody in either pop or traditional idioms. As a result, L'Autre Bout du Monde sounds timeless.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/p4neh9

28.01.2025-NARCOLEPTIC DANCERS Never Sleep (Bleepmachine,2011)

 

INDIE POP

   Netherlands born singer Melody Van Kappers and French multi-instrumentalist Anton Louis Jr are half siblings whose father was a professional footballer in the 70s. He was nicknamed 'Narcoleptic Dancer' due to his unique dribble style and haircut, though it wasn't until his funeral that Melody and Anton met for the first time. With ten years between them, separate mothers and living in different countries, their one connection was a love for music, a passion which couldn't keep them apart.

     

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

26.01.2025-KNOCKS 55 (Big Beat/Neon Gold,2016)

 

ELECTRONIC / EDM

   The Knocks start with vintage disco sensibilities  (glittery, drawn-out synths and smoky beats) and improve on them with a modern crispness and a surprising bit of maturity. The Knocks succeed at channeling a waning, aching fondness for both the day a setting sun leaves behind and anticipation for what tomorrow will bring. On 55 (which is titled after the address of their Chinatown studio), the duo does more than just wallow in old memories — they’re making glorious new ones.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/pqam23

25.01.2025-SAIGON BLUE RAIN What I Don't See (Cold Insanity,2014)

 

ETHEREAL / COLDWAVE

   "What I don't see" is the debut full-length album by the French duo Saigon Blue Rain and, as its title already implies, it somehow serves well as a soundtrack to the feeling that every intangible thing around - and even within us - is meaningful, wether it's sublime or miserable. 

     Building on classical New Wave foundations and touching it with Coldwave and Ethereal rapture triggers, they manage to lead us into a ghostly - although comforting, almost womb-like - plain whose virtual horizons succeed each other like on-screen slides of longing, beauty, gloom, nature's mysteries and even joy.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/2wjd3s

20.01.2025-ASTROBAL Australasie (Karaoke Kalk,2016)

 

ELECTRO / DOWNTEMPO

   Though eclectic, Australasie never feels less than a cohesive vision, with the guiding principles of texture and fluidity uniting the disparate threads. From the lounge-y slink of "Rubycon" to the hymnal warmth of "Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis," Astrobal creates a universe one can swim around in; from start to finish, it is of a particular mood, all beholden to the vibe. It is an assured first full-length from an artist who has put in the time to find himself and build his own world.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/wzdq1g

19.01.2025-COURETTES We Are The Courettes (Sounds Of Subterrania,2018)

 

GARAGE ROCK

    After that eight-track debut leaves you salivating for more, there are a whole twelve morsels to devour on the following We Are The Courettes. Hoodoo Hop opens the album and it’s clearly a step even further to the wild side from their debut. Still stripped back retro garage, but this time the sweeter vocals that brushed Here Are… were seemingly pushed to one side in favour of a blender-fed 5,6,7,8’s, definitely the bastard younger sibling of an already wild child. That said, songs like Strawberry Boy still allow the space for the calmer delivery, which, while more soothing, leaves you waiting nervously for the next explosion. There’s not long to wait at all as Voodoo Doll flies in full of trash-garage horror, helped naturally by the appearance of Brazilain horror legend Coffin Joe adding some guest vocals. The album produced some top singles, such as the twanging Time Is Ticking and the primal energy of Boom! Dynamite! which, to go for the easy pun, is a blast. They close out the album with the caressing Fool Fool Fool, a gentle drift after the pace and energy of the rest of the record.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/24bb2q

18.01.2025-DOTTY BLUE Oh,The Glamour! (Dotty Blue,2021)

 

INDIE FOLK

   The album "Oh, the Glamour!" witnesses an attempt to go your own way and dealing with the past. Is it even possible to choose something else but a more handy and pre-destined path of life and if so, how do we do it? Unlike previous albums, "Oh, the Glamour!" mirrors a lot of anger and frustration, dominated by drum machines and electronic loops.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/hz3ab6

17.01.2024-MARKER STARLING Rosy Maze (Tin Angel,2015)

 

POP / SOFT ROCK

   Marker Starling is the moniker of Chris A. Cummings, an ambitious and gifted pop songwriter based in Toronto. Previously working under the name Mantler, Cummings has created a distinct body of work that treads the line between thoughtful melancholy and infectious joy.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/99h3as

16.01.2025-MORNING Parade Morning Parade (Parlophone,2012)

 

ALTERNATIVE ROCK

   Everything about Morning Parade's debut album screams "we want to be huge". The English five-piece, hailing from Harlow, Essex, craft anthemic, stadium ready alt-rock that is expertly polished, leaving little to differentiate themselves from the hundreds of other bands who do this exact same thing. It boils down to the strength of the songs and it is there that they won me over. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/7sust0

15.01.2025-PATRICIA ATZUR Quiet Room (AU!,2023)

 

DREAM POP

   Patricia Atzur is a singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Barcelona. With roots in British folk, her songs are a reflection of an inner world musically nonconformist and constantly evolving. Despite having often been compared to Nick Drake or Mazzy Star, her music combines a variety of styles and influences that has ended up giving way to its own universe of “dream folk” eclecticism.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/00tlhw

12.01.2025-L'AVENIR Requiem (Not On Label,2019)

 

COLDWAVE

     L’Avenir is the cold synth side project of veteran electronic musician and sound artist Jason Sloan. Known throughout the space and ambient music scenes for his contemplative electronic soundscape work for over a decade; Sloan founded L’Avenir as a side project in 2012 to explore his long time love of synthpop and minimal wave music created purely from analog and vintage equipment.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/cm7u68

11.01.2025-PYRROLINE Struggling (Electro Aggression,2021)

 

ELECTRONIC

   Four years have passed since the previous album, but nothing has really changed when it comes to influences. Pyrroline doesn’t innovate, remaining faithful to their old-school EBM reminding Skinny Puppy and Mentally & The Fixer. The work has a strong déjà-vu feeling, but globally speaking Pyrroline has seriously improved little details of the global production. The songs have been supported with haunting synth atmospheres while accomplished by Industrial sound treatments. I also noticed a few delicate passages. Arnte’s vocals are totally fitting to the ghost-like EBM while Schmoun is now and then injecting a female touch to the vocals.

     The bonus disc features a few extra songs, which sound in the same vein as the main disc. But we also get an impressive number of remixes by The Opposer Divine, G.O.L.E.M., Sleepwalk, Amorphous, Fix8:Sed8, Jihad, Terminal State and 2 remixes by Placebo Effect.

CD1 - https://www.sendspace.com/file/khm4e0

CD2 - https://www.sendspace.com/file/vi5m89

10.01.2025-PHAELEH Tides (Afterglo,2013)

 

DUBSTEP

   Recording as Phaeleh, producer Matt Preston combines dubstep, electronica, house, and soul with a slight subtlety. He’s able to mix varied aesthetics without sounding conflicted.

     On this second album proper, Preston keeps things energetic with rich instrumentals and standout features. On ‘Whistling In The Dark’, for instance, singer Augustus Ghost adds haunting vocals to Preston’s cinematic soundtrack. Vocalist Cian Finn appears on the reggae-tinged ‘Night Lights’ for a groove that’s equally nocturnal and hypnotic.

     When left on his own, Preston opts for casual compositions that feel a bit transitional, though they fit well within the oceanic theme of ‘Tides’. What results is an impressive set of dark dance music that plays equally well at closing time or through your headphones at night.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/8r3m9l

09.01.2025-JE T'AIME Je T'Aime (Icy Cold,2019)

 

POST-PUNK

   What is sure, after these eleven tracks, is that this band fobs doubts off and it’s surely ready to progress and evolve. For now, long story short: that’s a fabulous limber up.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/6pj5i2

08.01.2025-BERTRAND BELIN La Perdue (Sterne,2007)

 

CHANSON

   Modest guitar hero, surrounded by talented musicians, delicate songwriter: each record is a renewed pleasure.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/v1p1he

07.01.2025-LORI GOLDSTON-Creekside: Solo Cello (Mississippi/Change,2014)

 

NEO CLASSICAL

   Lori Goldston, best known to date as the touring cellist for Nirvana, famously appearing with the group during the recording of their MTV Unplugged: Live In New York session. In addition to being grunge royalty she was also a member of Dylan Carlson’s Earth, pioneers of what’s been pegged as ‘drone doom’, but more realistically just a great band plugging away at new sounds.

     Creekside: Cello Solo delivers, on it’s most basic level, what it says in the title. Goldston is recorded playing her cello with no other instrumental, effect or vocal influences recorded in to the tracks. This is exactly what we wanted, as Goldston shares the ability with Okkyung Lee to compose on cello without need for anything interfering it’s already full and diverse sound. Goldston, however, takes a more traditionally structured approach to this.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/ve0xr0

04.01.2025-KOMEDA What Makes It Go? (North Of No South,1998)

 

POP ROCK

   Here you've got the standard guitar, Moog, bass and drums, plus a string quartet on a handful of tracks like the spooky "Cul De Sac" to give a decidedly cinematic slant to the proceedings. The inventive and catchy melodies are sung by Lena Karlsson, who balances the genre's requisite machine- like intonation with a bouncy sense of fun.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/e2alj9

03.01.2025-BIRDS OF AVALON Uncanny Valley (Volcom,2009)

 

PSYCHEDELIC / PROG ROCK

   Recorded entirely on analog equipment, the Raleigh, North Carolina quintet’s sophomore Uncanny Valley is a record whose pleasures aren’t necessarily obvious on the first listen. Keep listening.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/gmey2a

02.01.2025-HIS CLANCYNESS Vicious (Fat Cat,2013)

 

INDIE ROCK

   Clancy himself describes his debut proper Vicious as "a sassy, dreamy, glam rock'n'roll album", which tells some of the story. We hear 70s New York art-punk and late-80s US indie in general but also, yes, glam in the catchiness of the tracks, and elements of krautrock in the driving force - the manic motorik - of the rhythms, although they are rhythms, not beats: this is mainly non-electronic stuff. It's a rock band, basically, whatever the behind-scenes politics and jockeying for positions.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/whc0du