Describing Arab Strap’s music now almost seems like a pointless exercise: everyone’s familiar with their brand of storytelling and the singular musical vision that backed it up, but that’s exactly the point: Arab Strap blazed a trail for the kind of honest, colloquial songwriting that has become so common nowadays.
Fin Greenall, also known as Fink, is a genre-hopping artist whose journey began in 1980s Bristol, immersed in the city’s vibrant music scene of raves, pirate radio, and DJ culture. After signing to Ninja Tune in 1996, he juggled DJing, clubbing, and label jobs in London while experimenting with music that spanned from jungle to… Read more »
Listen closely to the end of Keaton Henson’s 2013 album, Birthdays, and you’ll hear the sound of a door clicking shut. Listen even closer to the start of 2016’s Kindly Now, and you’ll hear that same door reopening. In a six-year career in which Henson’s work has been as diverse as it has been prolific, it is this small act… Read more »
Nonesuch Records released Junun – an album from composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, and The Rajasthan Express, a group of Indian musicians – in Nov 2015. Recorded in a makeshift studio inside the 15th century Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, India, the album was made with Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich. The album comprises Ben Tzur’s… Read more »
“Emotions and Math” is not simply the name of Margaret Glaspy’s new debut album. That expression drills right to the heart of the New York singer-songwriter’s proper introduction, a mission statement both artistic and personal. Glaspy, who’s 27 and grew up in Red Bluff, California, self-produced the album, which frames her revealing ruminations in shards of… Read more »
There are certain points in everyone’s life when they must take stock: weigh-up their impact on the world, consider their contribution to society and look back on those they left in their wake. Fortunately for Baxter Dury these moments of self-reflection not only tend to manifest themselves in tragicomic snapshots, but happily they coincide with making records. Returning with… Read more »
BEVERLY are Drew Citron (The Pains Of Being Pure at Heart, Frankie Rose) and Scott Rosenthal. They combine raw pop, post-punk, and dreamy harmonies, drawing inspiration from lo-fi greats such as The Amps and The Clean. Signed to NYC label Kanine Records the band have released 2 albums, ‘Careers’ in 2014 and ‘The Blue Swell’ in… Read more »
Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek could hear the staggering differences in the songs they were writing for their third album as Whitney, SPARK—the buoyant drum loops, the effortless falsetto hooks, the coruscant keyboard lines. They suddenly sounded like a band reimagined, their once-ramshackle folk-pop now brimming with unprecedented gusto and sheen. But could they see… Read more »
The Sheepdogs built their name on hard work and determination. Having funded their first three albums and early years of touring on their own, this rock and roll band’s momentum began to build exponentially with the release of the 2010 album, Learn & Burn (which is now certified platinum in Canada). The band would go… Read more »
Slow Dancer is the solo offering from Australian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Simon Okely. Stirred by the music of his childhood – memories of long country drives through Western Australia listening to his parents’ rhythm and blues albums, Okely has crafted Slow Dancer.