Since the arrival of the Beatles and the Kinks sixty years ago, the UK seems just stuffed to the shores with guitar-led pop bands with a batch of cool tunes. Add Stourbridge’s Amoeba Teen to the list.
The half-dozen songs on Any Information, the band’s fourth release, celebrate classic rock power and subvert it with a sensibility that avoids machismo.
Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is pretty much unassailable.
Part of the diverse and electrifying twenty-first century London jazz scene, drummer/composer Jas Kayser makes her leader debut with Jas 5ive.
It goes without saying that it is brave to be this honest and transparent about a subject that many still struggle to talk about openly, but this is also nothing short of a fantastic record.
Dublin alt-rock/postpunk artist Ava Vox presents her debut album ‘Immortalised’, a collection of eight powerful and lush tracks. The pseudonym of Elaine Hannon, formerly of 1980s gothic rock / post-punk band The Seventh Veil, this is the first long-player since launching this project in 2020.
Austin-based electronic outfit Panjoma present their new Sun and Moon EP marking the band’s return to the music scene, back after eight years with what they feel is their best work ever.
Singleton doesn’t walk the fine line between post bop and free jazz – he gleefully, gracefully dances atop it.
Pureocracy thrives and succeeds because of its production, and although modest, it’s a definite contender for one of the year’s strongest debuts.
Manchester*-based electronic artist *Richard Evans presents his debut album Sentinel via Cold Star Media, an eight-track collection that tells the story of humanity at a tipping point and a world trapped in a climate crisis.
It’s easy to wonder why 50 Foot Wave needs to exist, since two-thirds of the band (singer/guitarist Kristen Hersh and bassist Bernard Georges) also comprise two-thirds of alternative rock pioneers Throwing Muses.
Peerless dream pop from a Filipino-Argentinian magician.
London-based indietronica artist Rodney Cromwell has released his Memory Box album via Happy Robots Records. Rodney Cromwell (the nom de plume Adam Cresswell) was a founding member of indie-folktronica band Saloon (who had four entries in John Peel’s Festive 50 & recorded three Peel Sessions) and also one half of acclaimed electronic duo Arthur & Martha
LA-based label 33.3 Music Collective has announced the release of Behind The Veil, the highly-anticipated new album from Beauty In Chaos. Recorded, mixed, and produced by Grammy-nominated producer Michael Rozon, This all-female featured collection brings back three BIC alumni – Tish Ciravolo, Cinthya Hussey, and Betsy Martin – as well as new family members Whitney Tai, Elena Alice Fossi, and Pinky Turzo.
With Balance, Berlin saxophonist Fabian Willmann inaugurates not only his career as a leader, but also brand new Swiss label Clap Your Hands.
Texan electronic and ambient composer Paris Music Corp. a.k.a. John Andrew Paris presents “Almost Lost”, the second flowing single from his self-titled album, following up the lead track “Light Speed”. With 14 tracks on offer, this is his first record in half a decade, the previous release being the Rewind LP in 2017.
Familiar Places, the fourth album by Danish piano trio Little North, could be used as a model for a certain strain of jazz.
Born in Louisiana but based in in Brooklyn, singer/songwriter Zachary Cale blends rural and urban on his seventh album Skywriting.
Manchester*-based indie rockers *Weimar present their new single “The Girls of LA” for release via German Shepherd Records the first taste of their debut album “Dancing On A Volcano”.
The beginning of 2022 brings not one, but two new projects, each with two very different quartets.
High-vibing EDM / dance pop outfit The Keplerians *have released their new Spaceship Earth EP via *Portuguese label Blim Records. A futuristic ride into cosmic dance territory, this high-energy three-track offering is supercharged with punch, positivity and a sense of adventure.
For the Love of Fire and Water, the latest album from the rightly acclaimed pianist/composer Myra Melford, makes a statement on two fronts.
Othered present their hard-hitting debut single “Journey To The Edge”, a heavy rock / metal anthem replete with signs of our times. On April 15, the duo will be releasing their full eponymous album on limited edition vinyl and digitally. They are a collaborative recording project by Henry Austin Lannan and Emily Palen (a.k.a. KnightressM1). Based in the San Francisco Bay area, this powerhouse project also weaves doom, metal and psychedelic prog—rock throughout their music
Over the past two decades, Norwegian jazz pianist Tord Gustavsen and his trio have quietly become some of ECM’s biggest stars on the Scandinavian side.
Electronic mavericks and ex-pat Irish iconoclasts Telefís have released their debut album a hAon (Number One), a highly unique collection of 13 tracks, via Dimple Discs.
While his two studio albums to date haven’t broken any new ground in the turbocharged fusion sweepstakes, they have celebrated the pure joy of ripping it up on one’s instruments and keeping the good vibes going as aggressively as possible.
With a sensibility informed by horror flicks and Satanism, especially the variety of both found in the underground pop culture of the seventies, leader/drummer Tas Danazoglou leads his band of devilish brigands through a set of songs so scuzzy they irrevocably stain any rag that tries to clean them.
What truly sells the album is an emotionally charged desire to capture a snapshot of modern life at a singular moment in time.
We’ll admit it: it seems kind of ridiculous to review Roxy Music at this point.
Commissioned by the City of Gent and the Handelsbeurs Theater to pay tribute to Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, the song cycle draws deeply from an overtly spiritual library, including the Latin Mass, the poetry of Christine de Pisan and, yes, one of the Psalms.
Gerald Clayton’s last album for Blue Note was the joyous concert record Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard, which served as a clearing of the decks. That means it’s time for a Major Artistic Statement, which the pianist/composer delivers with Bells of Sand.
Paris*-based *American artist Julia Gaeta presents her debut single “Weight of You”, an adrenaline-packed song inspired by the juxtaposition of dark reverie and grit that is Paris, tastefully combining sweeping hooks and industrial textures with ethereal sensuality and sultry grit.
The first album from the Hellacopters in fourteen years kicks off with exactly the kind of bang you’d want from this reunited Swedish action rock institution.
Her twenty-fifth record Life is Beautiful continues down the path on which she’s most comfortable: melodic hard bop and third stream compositions performed masterfully with her stalwart rhythm section.
Sly folk-pop trickster from New Zealand plays intriguing head games.
Not just a compilation and collaboration featuring an international cast of musicians interpreting the black jazz tradition, Black Lives: From Generation to Generation is also a statement about racism, its continuing prevalence and impact on twenty-first century Earth, and what to do to combat it.
A great film is one thing. A cool soundtrack is another. Put the two together and you have a fantastic combination. Knights of Swing, watch it now and revel in its story and fall in love with its music.
Starting from a place of classical piano, the duo add electronics courtesy of Begin’s sound library for a set of songs that honor the traditional and the contemporary.
Following the overwhelmingly positive global reception to Keeley’s debut “Brave Warrior” EP, London-based Dimple Discs is releasing the 4-song set on 10” vinyl via Shellshock Distribution on February 25. Limited to 500 copies, the EP features artwork by award-winning designer Bruce Brand at Arthole (The Darkness, White Stripes).
Return From the Stars spotlights an exceptionally strong set of Turner originals played by a remarkable band.
Vonamor is made up of sisters Giulia Bottaro, Francesca Bottaro and Luca Guidobaldi, with Francesco Bassoli and Martino Cappelli joining in for live performances. This project started in 2016. Initially focused on communicating images and composing scores for short films, they morphed into the trio we know today with their style, literary echoes, imperious art-pop and enigmatic aesthetics.
Veteran pianist Jean-Michel Pilc regularly takes the stage with no setlist or plan and delivers a captivating set of jazz improvisation, and Alive: Live at Diése Onzé, Montréal is no exception.
London-based label Happy Robots Records has released the sophomore album ‘Music For Underwater Supermarkets’ by Brooklyn*-based electronic artist *Roman Angelos. This ten-track collection paints a sonic dreamscape where the mundane act of grocery shopping meets the future.
Bassist Michael Bisio prefers to ride the edge when he makes music, sometimes taking it like a bucking bronco and sometimes coaxing it into minding his vision.
The Panamanian native creates his own international jazz ensemble the Global Messengers, pulling players from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute for the cosmopolitan statement Crisálida.
Perhaps the vibraphonist of the moment, Joel Ross sublimates his oft-stunning technique on his instrument on his third album The Parable of the Poet in favor of emphasizing his skills as composer and bandleader.
As the release date of her debut album Immortalised creeps closer, Dublin alt-rock / postpunk artist Ava Vox presents the single ‘Alone Again’, featuring bassist James Blennerhassett, who has worked with Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithful and Van Morrison, as well as drummer Robbie Casserly (Elvis Costello, Mark Knopfler, The Commitments, Riverdance). This haunting hymn is the second taste of the long-player, out March 25.
Decades of varied adventures come together on Eubanks Evans Experience, the debut album by the duo of guitarist Kevin Eubanks and pianist Orrin Evans.
Scribing another chapter in the book Garage Rock Will Never Die, Velvet Starlings gets with it on debut LP Technicolour Shakedown.
Inspired in particular by native composers Milton Nascimento and Toninho Horta, Keberle and his new band Collectiv do Brasil lean into the country’s penchant for refined euphony.
