Michael Sumsion

In which the Brighton duo dig deep and mine the rich seam of lavish soundtrack and library music from the 1960s and 1970s to thrillingly louche and arresting effect.  The Globeflower Masters Vol.1’is both a labour of love and a homage to a specific, gilded age of pop. Brighton musicians Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel’s rapturous LP is an embodiment of a certain … [Read more...] about Glenn Fallows and Mark Treffel: The Globeflower Masters Vol.1

The electronic producer Floating Points and the octogenarian jazz master Pharoah Sanders harness the majesty of healing, atmosphere and expanse on their beautiful, sweeping and subtly realised hook-up with The London Symphony Orchestra, a recording that achieves spine-tingling and transfixing  effects with a thoughtful and sparse application of its core ingredients.  The … [Read more...] about Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and The London Symphony Orchestra: Promises – Review

Genre-hopping auteur William Doyle, formerly known as East India Youth, is as diffuse and dazzling as ever on his second recording under his own name. A new record from the prodigiously gifted William Doyle is always an event worth marking on the calendar. The singer-songwriter is noted for his full-bodied and steadfast immersion in the recording process, a love of … [Read more...] about William Doyle: Great Spans of Muddy Time – Review

Donovan Quinn and Ben Chasny reunite for their side project of unabashed troubadour folk stylings. Back in 2014, New Bums aka Donovan Quinn and Ben Chasny ushered a wave of critical acclaim for their gorgeous Voices In A Rented Room, a record that burrowed deep into contemplative, meandering psych-folk and exuded a scruffy, lived-in charm. A tour of the US and Europe … [Read more...] about New Bums: Last Time I Saw Grace – Review

In which the kings of neo-classical ambient soundscapes work up a sumptuous and beguiling score for a dance theatre interpretation of Italo Calvino’s postmodern novel. Composers Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie and Dustin O’Halloran have long been acclaimed practitioners of a woozily minimalist aesthetic, both as members of previous bands, artists in their own right and the feted duo … [Read more...] about A Winged Victory For The Sullen: Invisible Cities – Review

Shafts of light peer through darkness on Nick Cave and fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis’s Lockdown album, Carnage, a recording steeped in both the turmoil of the pandemic and the singer’s classic themes of loss, redemption and apocalypse.  Nick Cave has spoken of how Lockdown has felt oddly familiar; the veteran singer-songwriter is well acquainted with isolation, loss and grief … [Read more...] about Nick Cave & Warren Ellis: Carnage – Review