Tegan and Sara revisit the cassette tape demos of their teenage selves and bring a slick though poignant synth-pop sensibility to bear upon their raw high school journals of juvenilia. For their ninth album release, the Canadian queer-pop duo known as Tegan and Sara have raided their high school years for inspiration, drawing upon cassette tape recordings which have lain … [Read more...] about Tegan and Sara: Hey, I’m Just Like You – Review
Hiss Golden Messenger: Terms of Surrender – Review
In which the sturdy troubadour MC Taylor and cohorts craft another 60’s and 70’s-steeped vision of American roots music that delves into painful introspection and addresses spiritual and philosophical themes with a sinewy swagger. Hiss Golden Messenger, the craggy-voiced, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter MC Taylor peddles a subtly alchemical and homespun incarnation of … [Read more...] about Hiss Golden Messenger: Terms of Surrender – Review
Gruff Rhys: Pang! – Review
The erstwhile Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys continues his hot creative streak with his latest adventure, a gleefully global music box of warm, layered, South African-saturated pop sung in Welsh. The intrepid Welsh singer-songwriter Gruff Rhys is a restless soul, traversing musical styles and conceptual projects with the frenzied relish of an artist who ceaselessly … [Read more...] about Gruff Rhys: Pang! – Review
O’Flynn: Aletheia – Review
The London producer’s accomplished debut album, Aletheia, demonstrates a consummate command of moods and instrumentation as it saunters effortlessly between a plethora of electronic and downtempo styles. In 2015, the London musician aka O’Flynn caused ripples in clubland with his acclaimed 12” singles, Tyrion and Desmond’s Empire, a pair of supple productions that elicited … [Read more...] about O’Flynn: Aletheia – Review
Chelsea Wolfe: Birth Of Violence – Review
On her latest album, the musically promiscuous witch known as Chelsea Wolfe deftly balances chilly introspection and keen observation on a set of ominous, stripped-down goth-folk laced with dread, coaxing a mood pitched somewhere between incantation and confessional. Whether dabbling in doom metal, industrial, electronic or folk-rock, a sense of foreboding has always inhabited … [Read more...] about Chelsea Wolfe: Birth Of Violence – Review
Bedouine: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London – Live Review
Bedouine: Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London, Saturday 7th September 2019. The British singer-songwriter Allman Brown was in an impish mood as he opened for the mercurial Bedouine last night at a two-thirds full Queen Elizabeth Hall: tentatively chewing the fat over last week’s shenanigans in Westminster as well as regaling the audience with anecdotes about a … [Read more...] about Bedouine: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London – Live Review