Hifi Pig

It seems that nearly all the new music I’ve been listening to lately has had a distinctly retro feel.  None more so than Coming Home by Leon Bridges. Twenty six year old Bridges from Fort Worth, Texas had been working as a dishwasher but due to chance meeting with Austin Jenkins from psych-rock band White Denim – they struck up a conversation about clothes- he soon found himself in the band’s studio with Jenkins and his bandmate Joshua Block. More »

A nice release, this, from the ever-reliable 4AD label.  Pixx is a new signing – and it’s immediately obvious why she’s piqued 4AD’s interest.  The music will please both 4AD purists and listeners new to the label.  Pixx is a pseudonym for 19 year old Hannah Rodgers from London.  I’ve been intrigued by comments which I’ve read comparing Pixx to fellow 4AD band Cocteau Twins and the likes.  For me, they’re not the greatest comparison, though there’s a faint whisper of the Cocteaus’ sound here.  Moreover, there’s a Mick Karn-esque bass on lead track ‘Fall In’, but the vocals have more in common with Dido than Elizabeth Fraser.  Musically, the instrumentation is more similar to Dif Juz. More »

Aside from the music itself, one thing that popular music culture has always provided is a home for people – both artists and fans – who don’t fit elsewhere in the world. Ezra Furman is a cross dressing, bisexual, depressive, observant Jew. If you happen not to be a cross-dressing, bisexual, depressive, observant Jew but want to know what it is like to be one, you could do a lot worse than to listen to Perpetual Motion People. More »

What do you think of when you think of New Zealand? Sheep perhaps? – the country has 7 sheep for every human inhabitant. Hobbits maybe? – Peter Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations have made the islands practically synonymous with Middle Earth. The Haka? – The Maori war dance is famous for striking terror in the hearts of opposing rugby teams. Country and Western singers? – Nah, not so much now you come to mention it. Tami Neilson is going to change that. More »

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Judith Owen describes her latest album, her 10th studio release, as “a love letter to Laurel Canyon”. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles was home to several members of the Californian rock music community. Joni Mitchell lived there and David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash first met in her living room. The area played host to names such as J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Carole King. The Canyon, along with LA’s Troubadour club, became a crucible for the Seventies singer-songwriter scene. More »

Dave Pen and Mike Bird formed BirdPen while sharing a flat in their hometown of Southampton. Self-releasing a handful of well-received EPs, the duo went on to release their debut Album On/Off/Safety/Danger in 2009. Evolving and honing their sound, new album In The Company Of Imaginary Friends, their third, harnesses subtle melodies to evoke widescreen emotions. More »

Duo Inga Calstrom and Leck Fischer were discovered by producer Mike Mason in a club in the small Swedish town of Sveg. Unimpressed by the entertainment on offer, Mason was on his way out. “A monstrous bass line rabbit punched me in the back of the head and a voice made me weak at the knees” he said later. He was stopped in his tracks and witnessed “The best performance I’d seen in years”. Returning home to Oxfordshire, Mason lost no time in flying Calstrom and Fischer over to record their first album American Teeth. More »

Woozy Summer days. The French TV version of Robinson Crusoe. Sky Ray ice lollies. If these things could have a sound, it would be the sound of Sarah Cracknell’s new album. An album that the words “pastoral” and “sun-kissed” were made for.

Sarah Cracknell is, of course, the singer with Saint Etienne; a band that have always embraced the sounds of the sixties and seventies. These influences remain on this, her second solo album. More »

Back in November 2013 I reviewed Bird Radio’s first outing “The Boy and The Audience” and said ” Bird Radio is like a demented Pied Piper cum Cat Weasel character for the Ableton Live generation – fail to listen at your peril!” and he’s just released is his Oh, Happy England album.

Oh, Happy England is a collection of poems by Walter de la Mare, an English poet born 1873, set to music. I must confess to being completely unaware of de la Mare but you live and learn. Bird Radio (Mikey Kirkpatrick) says about de la Mare “When you enter into a poem by Walter de la Mare, you are never certain of the boundaries between reality and dreams. His poetry covers a broad spectrum of textures and emotions from moments of realisation and self recognition as in The Englishman to dark, isolated and nightmarish scenes such as Drugged and reveries such as Time Passes”.  More »

Known as the French Elvis, Johnny Hallyday is a bit of an iconic figure here in France and he still manages to draw huge audiences. Eighty or nine years ago he headlined the Vieilles Charrues festival a few minutes up the road from where we live and folk travelled from all over the country to catch a glimpse of this living legend. So beloved is Johnny that in 1997 Jacques Chirac awarded him the Legion Of Honour medal. Personally I’ve always seen him as a bit of a caricature, but then I’d never taken the time to listen to his music, though he’s had 33 number one singles and sold over 110 Million records in his time…perhaps this was a bit remiss of me.  More »

Since forming in 1983, Ozric Tentacles have released almost 30 albums of psychedelic, space rock goodness. Technicians of the Sacred, their first double album since 1990’s classic Erpland, delivers dubby bass, trippy electronic grooves and extended Steve Hillage-influenced guitar explorations over the course of 11 tracks.

Ethnic instruments are marinated with guitars, synths, bass and drums to produce a heady stew but there is no risk here of indigestion. My only criticism is that there is a lack of variation in the structure of the individual tracks, they all tend to build to a climax in much the same way. More »

Recent output from 4AD continues to amaze me.  One minute you think you’ve pretty much nailed the type of musical output which 4AD produces – and then comes along ‘Platform’ by Holly Herndon, like a kid who comes running into the room, kicking over everybody else’s creations and then leaves through a different exit, completely oblivious of the devastation he’s caused. More »

Panamanian (now resident in Minneapolis,, USA) José James attended The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. In 2008, he debuted with his first album, The Dreamer, on the Brownswood label with Blackmagic following in 2010. 2010’s For All We Know came out on the Impulse! label and became the winner of both the Edison Award[ and L’Académie du Jazz Grand Prix for best Vocal Jazz Album of 2010. More »

Thore Pfeiffer is a young German producer who first came up on my radar on Kompakt’s excellent Pop Ambient album we reviewed back in October of last year. This is the second artist album to come from the Pop Ambient compilation series that is so carefully curated by label head honcho Wolfgang Voigt. More »

Tejada is a 41 year old producer and Dj based in LA who joined the Kompakt imprint in 2011 with Signs Under Test following his previous album The Predicting Machine and a load of 12 inchers.

This is very much in the bleep and beats techno category with Tejada working the machines at his disposal with assurance and self confidence to produce an album of individual tunes that work well together.

This is clever stuff that is best at home in the murky and dirty underground clubs  – no main room, four to the floor bangers here – but for the dedicated follower of anti-fashion this album is equally relevant in the sitting room.
What you have is a collection of tunes that hark back to the days of producers using proper synths and manipulating them to create that gorgeous analogue sound that many will be familiar with. More »

Simon Lomax is predominantly known as a producer of music for film and television, but his self released A Glimmer Of Memory sits firmly in the ambient and atmospheric category.

The six tracks on this album are sparse, with pads ebbing and flowing to produce an album that is quite beautiful in its textural quality and ability to trigger an emotional response – All That Is Gone has a mournful and eerie quality to it that is somewhat sad whilst At First Sight manages to conjure a much more positive and forward looking vibe.

A Glimmer of Memory is best listened to with the lights dimmed whilst sat in your favourite armchair and allowing the music taking you along with its natural flow.

This is electronic music, of course, but it manages to remain organic and pure in the feeling it conveys. A tune may produce a contemplative response or a more uplifting reaction, and this is certainly music for the mind and not the body.

There is an instant calming of all senses whilst it is playing Glimmer and whilst it meanders, twists and flows you can’t help but be drawn in to its soundscapes. Linette on first hearing it said it was “like tripping but without the drugs”

Beautiful and highly recommended!  

Drummers have a hard time of it. You’ve all heard the jokes: How do you know when a drummer is at the door? The knocking speeds up. Or alternatively: How do you know when a drummer is at the door? He doesn’t know when to come in.

It’s fair to say that, generally speaking, solo albums by drummers are only of interest to other drummers. That certainly isn’t the case with Cheating The Polygraph. Gavin Harrison drums with The Porcupine Tree and is currently one of three drummers in the latest incarnation of King Crimson. For Cheating The Polygraph , Harrison has taken eight Porcupine Tree tracks and reimagined them in a jazz big band style. More »

You know, whatever your thoughts of Björk, what you really can’t knock is the quality of her recordings.  As the first track on ‘Vulnicura’, Björk’s ninth solo album draws to its close, I really can’t help feeling that it sounds – well – fantastic.  The string arrangements are just sublime.  In fact, there are several moments when I momentarily forget that I’m listening to a Björk album at all. More »

Out now on the Esoteric Recordings label, Now We Have Light is the third album from Oxford’s Sanquine Hum.
It’s a double concept  album in the finest “prog” tradition with its roots going back over a decade and the days of Antique Seeking Nuns, which was the first project guitarist Joff Winks and keyboardist Matt Barber collaborated on.

The core of Now We Have Light is based around tunes and concepts developed as far back as 2002 and, inspired by more recent Sanguine Hum material these have been revisited, developed, reworked and rewritten. More »