Category: Recorded music
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Simon Little – Rejectamenta (ambient/ jazz)
This is a five track collection of material Simon Little elected not to include on his forthcoming second album. These decisions were not made because the tunes didn’t make the grade, but because he felt they weren’t a good fit: they are, however, a good fit with each other, and…
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Bing Ji Ling – Shadow To Shine (funk/ soul)
This is a record drenched in the seventies, literally dripping with honeyed, soulful, in-your-face, grinning disco lurve. I mean, look at the cover. Quinn Luke is a man who lives his creative convictions (or knows exactly how to give his audience the impression that he does). These songs are full…
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Caustic – The Golden Vagina Of Fame And Profit (electro-industrial)
The difference between the electro-industrial and powernoize genres can sometimes be no more than the degree of distortion involved. Much of this album’s beats and song structures could have sat quite happily on Matt Fanales previous Caustic release …And You Will Know Me By The Trail Of Vomit…
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Eleanor Williams – Orange Peel And Paper (acoustic/ singer-songwriter)
Naplew Productions, 2010, DD album, 29m 8s, £name your price (all proceeds donated to the charity Women’s Aid) http://m-s-b.bandcamp.com/album/orange-peel-and-paper I’ve been lucky enough a few times recently to find myself reviewing music that’s motivated by a creative generosity. This is not to say that it involves any expectation of gratitude,…
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Tim Oehlers – Guitarisms (acoustic/ improvisation)
This bold, confidently gestural and slightly glitchy visual design seems to represent in a very appropriate way the sounds it promotes: even the title perfectly evokes the assembly of phrases that the album contains, and with it’s echo of ‘truisms’, its creative intentions, if I read them right.
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Echo Rain – ‘Hold On’ and ‘Bad Guys’ (alternative pop-rock)
self released, 2010, DD tracks, free http://www.facebook.com/echorainofficial http://www.liveunsigned.com/Echo_Rain/ Echo Rain picked two tracks to send me, although there are several more on their Facebook page: one of the two reviewed here, ‘Hold On’, has a download button. The first thing I’ll say is that this is beautifully recorded and mixed,…
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Magari – A Crescent Dream (progressive rock/ post-rock)
Sometimes possessed of the dramatic bombast of its prog roots, and drawing its stylistic features from all over, this music mainly takes the textural approach characteristic of post-rock. It most resembles the traditional sounds of progressive rock on ‘Oceans Away’, the third movement of this three part composition, particularly in…
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Diane Marie Kloba – I Am An Unknown Artist (avant pop)
‘Avant pop’ is a term that has been bandied about at various times, in various contexts, and it is one that Diane Marie Kloba has applied to her own work… It may take some listeners a while to hear past the somewhat challenging surface of this music. Once they do…
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The Little Unsaid – Into The Faceless Night (folk/ alternative rock)
Original songs in the style of folksong aren’t ‘folk’ in the sense of ‘traditional music’, and nor in fact do they actually sound like any traditional music ever did… this is a collection of finely crafted songs in a style that draws heavily on that tradition, with some rock elements,…
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Raising Maisie – “Etc, Etc” (indie pop)
Studio Dog Records, 2010, CD album, 34m 38s, £7 http://www.myspace.com/raisingmaisie http://www.liveunsigned.com/Raising_Maisie/ Raising Maisie are not badass, intimidating or scary in any way. Neither are most hardcore, extreme metal or gangsta rap artists, but Raising Maisie aren’t pretending. Pretension is no part of their uncomplicated, well crafted, concise and extremely entertaining…
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VA – Dusty Curtain Face Sampler (various styles)
Dusty Curtain Face Records DCF-001, 2011, CD album, 73m 8s, £? http://www.hobopope.com/fr_otherbands.cfm Dusty Curtain Face Records are about as DIY and low key as a label can be, based on their founder/ producer/ engineer Paul Rhodes’ realisation that he could use some cheap, semi-functional equipment in bands’ rehearsal spaces to…
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The Scoobs – Is It Now? (world groove fusion)
self released SCOOBS001, 2009, CD album, 49m £5 http://www.thescoobs.co.uk/ It’s only a few weeks since I reviewed a Scoobs gig, and what they do live is very similar to what’s on this recording. I get the impression that all or most of these tunes have been honed and developed through…
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Artificial Sun Project – 62204 (ambient/ electronica/ IDM)
self released, 2011, DD album, 68m 8s £name your price http://artificialsunproject.bandcamp.com/album/62204-2 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Artificial-Sun-Project/224311699231 ‘Ambient’ is a term that has carried many meanings in music. As originally coined by Brian Eno it referred to an approach which placed intentional sound in the habitable environment without necessarily making it the focus of…
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BaianaSystem – BaianaSystem (Brazilian/ Guitarra Baiana)
Guitarra Baiana is both a Brazilian musical style and an instrument: the instrument is a small solidbody electric guitar, derived from the cavaquinho, whose origins predate the American inventions of Leo Fender and Les Paul (although not the solid bodied Hawaiian guitar). The musical style was a 1950s instrumental genre,…
Oliver Arditi 