Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Being able to afford soap is the new bling. That’s not necessarily a satirical conceit most artists would consider hanging an entire album off, let alone their group identity, but BIG $OAP MON£Y CR£W are not ‘most artists’, and that’s exactly what they do. Not that this is overtly a concept album, despite its consistent… Read more

  • The Blackswords: Episode 3

    The Blackswords: Episode 3

    Umbaral rode scout to the port, handing his lance to another rider and stringing his bow; being an archer usually let him keep a safe distance from the enemy, which was why he’d specialised as one, but there were other times it when condemned him to the van. It was a fair trade-off, he supposed,… Read more

  • Asgeir & Mo – Danza de Andalucia (Flamenco fusion)

    Asgeir & Mo – Danza de Andalucia (Flamenco fusion)

    Flamenco is a music that lends itself to fusions, and that has been successfully fused in many different contexts, but it is also the site of a pronounced ideology of purism. The kind of cultural essentialism that has afflicted British folk music, or the blues, is still probably still the norm in Andalucia: this is… Read more

  • H.L.I. – Omniglyph (hip-hop)

    H.L.I. – Omniglyph (hip-hop)

    Rap is a form of spoken language; perhaps more than any other discursive art, it has no independent existence on the page; semantics are central to its meanings, but flow and orality are its material substance. It’s interesting then, that H.L.I. have chosen to title this release in a way that ascribes universal significance to… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    This is a record that gets straight down to business, a short, kinetic acoustic guitar intro prefacing a series of remarks, delivered with such visceral charisma that it almost doesn’t matter what they mean; the fact that they mean a lot imbues this music with a density that belies its simplicity and lack of frills.… Read more

  • Coalition – In Search Of Forever (progressive rock)

    Coalition – In Search Of Forever (progressive rock)

    I felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity when I first saw this album, but I couldn’t work out why. The first thing I thought of was Return To Forever, but that band’s album covers had very little in common with this one. It was several days before it came to me: the fantasy artist Rodney… Read more