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Another massive year of listening to new albums in this 15th year of Doubtful Sounds. As always, it’s been a pretty amazing 12 months for new albums. A deluge of sorts, from a myriad of genres and a noticeable proclivity for many artists to expand their sound and explore other genres, often within a song. Read on to check out our favourite indie, alt-country, psych, … Continue reading FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF 2023
Like dust settling on the floor, disrupted by unruly primitive machines, the latest release from Jamie Hutchings takes shape and begins to gel and morph amid the clatter and klang of all manner of percussion. It’s never clear whether elements of a real drum kit have been sacrificed in the process of making this mostly instrumental album. A floor tom could be an empty container … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jamie Hutchings – Making Water
The impressively named Swiss trio Contessa di GongGong recently released this moody and agile instrumental track that hits a nimble and tight rhythmic groove while the rest of the group add post rock noir touches of shimmering and sparkling guitars and subtle vocal samples. They describe their sound as cineastic spacekraut. The tracks are based on improvisations and apparently involve “consciously random developments”. The track … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Contessa di GongGong – El Camino
Black Midi Cavalcade Rough Trade / Remote Control Records The new wave of prodigious, forward-thinking and bold UK musicians continues unabated as we near the middle of 2021. With the underground jazz scene taking its divergent strands overground to international acclaim and songwriters and players of the experimental indie rock persuasion, who were barely born when Radiohead released OK Computer, soaking up and reimagining all … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Black Midi – Cavalcade
Taken from his March EP Spack in the Box Allstars vol. 1, ‘Autumn Leaf’ is Cederick Knox‘s nod to the common jazz standard ‘Autumn Leaves’ – often used as an early track in learning jazz improvisation. Cederick Knox is a Brighton, UK based producer/composer and co-founder of the Ceremonial Laptop experimental music night and label. For this project he brought together members of Squid, Pelican … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Cederick Knox – Autumn Leaf
Cederick Knox hits cosmic mystery mode on this new track ‘Back In The Box’. There’s a shadowy creep to the sound he’s created. Part jazz, part avant-experimentalism, initial drum tracks were recorded with cerebral palsy drummer ’Spack in the Box’, on top of which a series of players (including members of Squid and Pelican Man) were invited to improvise. These recordings were then used … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Cederick Knox – Back In The Box
Pascal Schumacher is a Luxembourgan composer and vibraphone player who’s built up an impressive resume playing with quartets through to orchestras. This new release comes from an EP Tropismes (The Mudam Session) where he performed at Mudam, the contemporary art museum in Luxembourg, and you get a real sense of how he operates at the nexus of classical and minimal electronic composition. The lightness and … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Pascal Schumacher – Prelude To Robert M
Another slice of funk for DS readers today. This one is on the psychedelic side of the tracks – the new single from the always impressive afro-soul grooves of The Budos Band out of Staten Island NY. The spy themes, the noir aesthetic – slinky, shadowy and mysterious – is all over the track as it snakes its way across its out of the speakers. This … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: The Budos Band – In The Tooth
Khruangbin Mordechai Dead Oceans / Inertia After a busy few years touring and riding the wave of attention that their last album Con Todo El Mundo brought them, Khruangbin retreated to their Texas studio to begin work on their third album. Earlier this year we got a mixed bag EP with Leon Bridges but that was a stop gap. Mordechai is the band spreading their … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Khruangbin – Mordechai
Danny Barwick is a Perth-based producer and singer who wrote ‘Mine Too‘ and the other songs on his recently released EP Naddi on a two month backpacking trip around India. He began his career in 2012 as a drummer, recording and touring in several bands before taking up production. Inspired by the likes of James Blake, Nick Cave, and Thom Yorke, Danny’s music merges acoustic … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Danny Barwick – Mine Too
There’s some incredible sound design and programming going on in this track from South London-raised, producer Telemachus. His new album Boring & Weird Historical Music came out on 22nd May via High Focus Records and this is just one example of the splendid way he pulls different genres together while still allowing a glorious vacuum of space to exist around and within his music. As … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Telemachus – I Am Delicious And Cute. So I Will Go Buy Again
Million Square (UK) released their new EP Spirit Bloom last month and one of the highlights is this track, ‘First Block’. Glitchy, effervescent, sparkly notes dart between the speakers above frantic scattershot beats. It’s IDM music but when a haunting, romantic saxophone enters the fray it takes on a new, jazz-leaning vibe and it works wonderfully. London-based electronic duo, Million Square features double-bassist Max Luthert … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Million Square – First Block
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