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