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

   

10.05.2025 - PIERCES The Pierces (550 Music/Epic,2000)

 

POP ROCK

   The Pierces was a slick blend of folk harmonizing and adult alternative textures. Unfortunately, the record quickly disappeared due to a lack of label support. 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/6rr8vl

06.05.2025-LET'S BUY HAPPINESS Chants For Friends (Ghost Arc,2014)

 

INDIE POP

   Beautiful monument to one of Newcastle’s best ever bands, who, quite frankly, deserved far better than a low-key posthumous self-release.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/v6yfgq

04.05.2025-JAALA Gap Tooth (Heavy Machinery,2021)

 

INDIE / ART ROCK

   Melbourne three-piece Jaala make a trippy, jazzy left-turn on third album 'Gap Tooth', which is testament to their embrace of evolution.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/orie85

02.05.2025-STEVE COBBY Everliving (Declasse,2015)

 

DOWNTEMPO

   ‘The Sirens Help Me To Sleep’ is pure 21st century disco. Deep acid disco if you will, it rolls along lovely, all low slung bass and trebly guitar chang tripping off the grooves. And it gets better… and better… and better. We’re halfway into the eight-minute-plus ‘Teleseme’ and a cowbell chimes. Just four beats, but it signals the beginning of such sweeping orchestral lushness that you wonder what film it’s from. ‘Clams’ serves up a mere handful of bars of chiptune that leave you waiting for it to appear again. Which it does. Briefly. ‘The Sober Certainty Of Walking Bliss’ (not even the best track title on the record – try the mild dub of ‘Nip It Up Choppy’ for size) is mellow, mellow, mellow jazz acid. You could lose yourself several times over in ‘Fresh Blue Algave’, a satisfyingly locked-down chilled house rumble that spans 13 minutes. And so it goes on. And on.

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

01.05.2025-JIMI TENOR Multiverzum (Bureau B,2022)

 

FUTURE JAZZ

   His chosen instrumental palette suggests jazz, but the music draws from trip-hop, electronica, baroque pop and other disparate inspirations. One moment the music seems to bear the influence of Burt Bacharach; the next, DEVO.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/yfmz8a