Bristol-based Kayla Painter has released a new EP called Cannibals At Sea. Taking influence from her mixed British and Fijian heritage, Painter creates a hypnotic and mystical piece of experimental music that takes in tonal explorations, drone, ethereal vocal layers and electronic and traditional instrumentation. The result is mesmerising, haunting and alluring. Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Kayla Painter – Sacrificial Magic
Hark Madley is the immersive exploration of genre-blending soundscapes realized by Los Angeles based producer and composer Mark Hadley. This track comes from his new album Stream, released last week. This single edit of ‘Empathy’ finds him using smeared, low pulsing sounds as the backdrop to some super minimalist piano playing. Those contrasts of beauty and sonic bruising make for a fascinating track that is … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Hark Madley – Empathy (single edit)
Here’s a new tune from Ben Serna-Grey (Mother Anxiety), someone I haven’t come across before. ‘Father Time’ has a really interesting mix of drone and otherworldly folk music yet it’s placed in a compositional, electronic realm where the different sonic mediums are mixed and twisted, layered and densely woven together, to the point of static decay and fractal implosion. The result is quite mesmerising. Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Mother Anxiety – Father Time
More new shoegaze sounds today! This time it’s courtesy of Frenchman Yann Le Razavet who, as Marble Arch, records music that draws heavily on the likes of New Order and Ride. He makes it sound effortless with cascading melodies, obscured vocals and synths and guitars that blur into one billowing vapour of 80s indie pop. Marble Arch have a full album on the way in … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Marble Arch – I’m On My Way
SHON is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist who released an EP called Made As It Drifted, earlier in 2018. ‘A Crack In It’ is one of those textured and layered tracks that recalls the inventiveness of Radiohead and the willingness to place real instruments in digital environments. SHON uses an art-rock and post-rock palette of sound and it works wonderfully on both sonic and songwriting levels. Continue reading NEW MUSIC: SHON – A Crack In It
Umfozi (Elias Araya) hails from Sweden and is the former drummer for indie band Junip. His solo project sees him channelling self-confessed influences such as Alice Coltrane, Neurosis and Sylvester and creating these hypnotic instrumental pieces that are built on percussive elements yet they possess floating, drifting avant-jazz and electronic qualities that take the pieces to quite interesting and subtle places. You can listen to … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Umifozi – Asterkross
It’s been six years since Nic McKenzie and Nick Weaver released their debut album Outlands. On the back of a run of singles they’d built a strong sense of anticipation about that first record and it certainly lived up to expectations. Fast forward to 2018 and how does a band evolve and change over that time? The DSA model is to essentially stick to the … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Deep Sea Arcade – Blacklight
Deep Sea Arcade have been hard at work on their new album Blacklight, their first since Outlands in 2012. We’ve heard the new album, we’ve got a review of it coming soon. The good news is that for the most part it’s been worth the wait. This single, ‘Close To Me’, is one of the album highlights and an example of the seamless integration of … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Deep Sea Arcade – Close To Me
New music in the sense that it’s new to us… Fox Grin (Atlanta, Georgia) actually released their LP King Of Spades back in January of this year but we’ve only just come across this great track, ‘Black Tree’, in the last couple of weeks. It’s a upbeat shimmer and dance through art-rock and avant-pop. Downbeat by nature but thoroughly on the up musically, it cuts … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Fox Grin – Black Tree
WHEN MUSIC & ELECTRICITY COLLIDE The last decade has seen a rise in the popularity of modern classical music and its influence on other genres, particularly electronic music. One of the leading lights in the scene is German composer Nils Frahm and in a revealing conversation with Chris Familton he discusses his musical beginnings, his future and the constant flux of his live shows. It’s … Continue reading INTERVIEW: Nils Frahm
Here’s a nice track from the duo Midwife (Madeline Johnston (of Sister Grotto) and guitarist Tucker Theodore.) It’s a lovely unfurling drone-pop track that has shades of Cocteau Twins and the ambient, dreamier moments of Mogwai. The song creeps along at a funereal pace, shrouded in gauzy haze of distortion before the fog clears to reveal fragments of effected and intertwined guitars, like fading sonic … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Midwife – Angel
This one is for fans of artists such as Aldous Harding, Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief, Jep and Dep and Molly Burch. Dark folk-based songs that fold in elements of electronic music, with a sense of drama and an appreciation of space, poetry and tension. With a run of individual tracks being released on Spotify, Evelyn Drach is working towards a full digital album release in 2018 … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Evelyn Drach – False Premise
Doubtful Sounds 