Outside of music, the broad stroke headline to take away from 2018 is that it’s a general shitshow, with Brexit and White House calamities stinking up the place. Luckily there were plenty of angry records […]
Julia Holter’s constant reinvention
Julia Holter’s latest album Aviary opens with Turn the Lights On – a wall of sound that sounds like a passage in a Swans song when they’re in full transcendent mode. And it gets more […]
All the right noises: November 2018 in 21 tracks
Mumdance – Teachers A timely update of Daft Punk’s classic shout-out track of the same name — and if you’ve done your Homework you’ll get all the rave references. While the French duo listed heroes […]
Low Sea: Like the Drive soundtrack reimagined by Mazzy Star
Ireland-based duo Low Sea cast a dusky coldwave dream pop spell on their third album Portals, out this month after years on hiatus. The album is another dip into wispy synths, high-fret post-punk basslines and […]
Don’t expect a safe space at a Lauryn Hill show
The 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of the all-time classics — but it’s also an album that Hill ran from for nearly 20 years. It’s a classic crossover record that blurs […]
Ulrich Schnauss: Been there, drone that
German producer Ulrich Schnauss has been making outlier electronic music for around 20 years, with a droney ambience that recalls the more delicate passages of Tim Hecker or Brian Eno. Earlier albums channelled floaty Tangerine […]
Christine and the Queens: Getting to the art of pop
French artist Heloise Letissier takes the art of pop music seriously, saying her new album Chris is an attempt to “give justice to being someone complex in the pop world”. Her second record as Christine […]
Good Karma: Boy George still looking ahead
At a recent gig, Boy George introduced Culture Club as “a soul-funk-pop-reggae combo from the United Kingdom, where we have two queens”. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but Culture Club are so much more […]
Objekt’s hyperreal techno abstractions
Berlin-based producer and DJ Objekt has just released one of the best electronic albums of the year, and it’ll end up in many of the cross-genre lists over next few weeks. Cocoon Crush is a […]
SCIENTIST’S COSMIC DUB JOURNEYS
Overton Brown scored his Scientist nickname for being one of Jamaica’s most technically gifted producers, a second generation dub wizard who took King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry’s teachings into far-out cosmic territory. His presentation […]
Praise be to Shame…
Along with IDLES and the more erratic Fat White Family, Shame are another English lad guitar band who are thankfully miles outside the usual dead-end indie-rock channels that have all but smothered guitar music’s grip […]
Interpol’s endless string of difficult albums
The so-called ‘difficult second album’ is one of the biggest cliches in rock — but Interpol’s LPs have been getting ever more difficult since they released their debut in 2002. Turn On the Bright Lights […]
Courtney Barnett: How she Really Feels
“Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you,” sings Courtney Barnett in the song Pedestrian at Best, but so far her own prophecy hasn’t panned out like that. The sentiment might’ve worked when […]
Ansome puts techno through an industrial press
The heaviest gig of the week is happening in Index tonight – and that’s after grindcore reprobates Pig Destroyer played Voodoo Lounge a few days ago. UK producer Ansome bangs out machine-tooled nosebleed industrial techno […]
See behind the Skee Mask…
Munich producer Brian Muller released one of the most subtle and majestic electronic albums of the year with Compro. It’s an album you can approach from various angles — just as instrumental versions of rap […]
Moo Kid 