Zola Jesus returns with the first single from Okovi, her new album on Sacred Bones Records, due out Sept 8th. It finds Nicole Hummel in fine form, juxtaposing dramatic flurries of strings, industrial electronic rhythms and low frequency bass thrums as she backgrounds her lead vocal with the deathly howl of her self-voiced choir. There’s a turbulent, anxious and haunting feel to the song that … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Zola Jesus – Exhumed
Boris are now 25 years into a career that has stretched from the barren expanse of doom to hazy dream pop renderings and onto avant garde soundscapes and blistering, psychedelic punk rock. They hone in on a style and explore it to its logical extreme. On Dear they again hit the heavy button but this time they go deep into the detail, exploring both heaviosity … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Boris – Dear
This is Matthew Barnes’ first album on Ninja Tunes and if anyone thought that might mean a softening of his more caustic edges then they are mistaken. Primarily instrumental electronic music, the vocals that do appear are generally spliced and twisted into choirs, like machines speaking in tongues. These are digital compositions but he still retains a primitive, organic percussive base to his sound. Less … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Forest Swords – Engravings
Kirin J Callinan, Spike Fuck, Hviske @ Oxford Art Factory, June 10th 2017 Sydney has produced a number of forward thinking songwriter/musicians in recent years who blend differing levels of theatricality into their performances. From Jack Ladder to Alex Cameron and Mossy, they all cultivate a persona and carefully consider an image as part of their creativity. Kirin J Callinan though, is out on his limb of … Continue reading LIVE REVIEW: Kirin J Callinan @ Oxford Art Factory
BEHIND THE BRAVADO Down the line from LA, where he’s between tours with Pond and Mac DeMarco, Kirin J. Callinan gives Chris Familton an insight into the creative process behind his new album Bravado and why it took four years to complete. Kirin J. Callinan is something of a modern day renaissance man, a polymorphic pop provocateur who revels in stretching creative boundaries and treading … Continue reading INTERVIEW: Kirin J Callinan
Dylan Carlson (Earth) has once again teamed up with The Bug’s Kevin Martin (Techno Animal, Ice, God, Razor X, King Midas Sound), this time for a full-length LP called Concrete Desert. The album also features guest vocals from Justin Broadrick from Jesu/Godflesh etc on two tracks. Below you can hear the first taste of the album – ‘Snakes Vs Rats’. Martin says that the album is in some ways … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: The Bug Vs Earth – Snakes Vs Rats from their new LP Concrete Desert
My Disco, Marcus Whale, Hviske @ Newtown Social Club, 11 February 2017 Minimalism shaping grand emotion was the order of the night at NSC for My Disco’s last stop on their summer tour. From the headliners down through Marcus Whale and opening duo Hviske, there was a common thread of space, intensity and the blurring of technology and organic instrumentation to create dramatic musical pieces. Hviske are … Continue reading LIVE REVIEW: My Disco @ Newtown Social Club
Many may have expected the collaboration between Jim White (Dirty Three) and Cretan lute player George Xylouris to be a one-off collaboration but now they’re onto album number two which features Xylouris singing on more tracks and the pair digging deeper into their primitive jazz and post-rock sense of musical adventure. The mood of the album varies from languid to visceral. ’Forging’ is a galloping … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Xylouris White – Black Peak
Scotsman Kenny Anderson has long dwelled on the fringes of indie and experimental pop music, releasing over forty albums that traverse a large expanse of creative terrain. His latest finds him exploring graceful and emotive music, drawing on electronic and organic instrumentation and positioned between the terrestrial and ethereal. The results are often moving and transportive, the unifying element being Anderson’s rich Scottish burr of … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: King Creosote – Astronaut Meets Appleman
Music documentaries often follow one of a few common narratives, whether documenting the rise (and often) fall of a band or musician, or following the making of an album or tour. Once More With Feeling fills a couple of different roles in that it acts as a preview and scene-setter for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ new album Skeleton Tree, released the day after … Continue reading FILM REVIEW: Once More With Feeling
Kim Gordon has kept pretty busy in the last couple of post-Sonic Youth years. She’s continued to work on visual art, collaborated with in Body/Head, released her acclaimed Girl In A Band autobiography and now, with little buildup, she’s released her first single under her own name. Murdered Out was recorded with producer Justin Raisen and is built on a huge lurching drum beat courtesy … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Kim Gordon Releases Debut Solo Single ‘Murdered Out’
Lambchop have been fairly quiet of late with their last LP (Mr. M) coming out in 2012. In the intervening years the band, among other things, performed their landmark album Nixon in full and head honcho Kurt Wagner released an electronic album (The Diet) under the name HeCTA with Lambchop members Ryan Norris and Scott Martin in 2015. They’ve now announced that a brand new Lambchop LP … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Lambchop –The Hustle
Doubtful Sounds 