Yumi Zouma are breaking up with dream pop. After a decade together, the New Zealand four-piece have honed an airy, lush, lightly melancholic sound – but now they want change. “More extreme everything, more boldness,” guitarist Charlie Ryder has said of fifth record No Love Lost to Kindness, written during the band’s “most friction-filled creative period” to date. While it’s true that their latest singles are faster, louder and more distorted, these bright, pretty tracks will rattle only their longest-serving fans.
‘Bashville on the Sugar’ locks eyes with an ex on the subway and rushes with Olivia Campion’s breathless drumming, while ‘Blister’ flips the band’s knack for whistleable melodies into pogoing, enjoyably predictable pop punk…
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4CD sequel to Heaven Sent: The Rise of New Pop 1979-1983, documenting the influence of jazz and ’50s/’60s black American music (including retro soul) on modern pop in the UK between 1982 and 1987. Featuring Everything But the Girl, Robert Wyatt, Working Week, Joe Jackson, Blue Rondo A La Turk, Matt Bianco, Carmel, Fine Young Cannibals, The Blow Monkeys, The Style Council and Swing Out Sister.
…In 1982 a new jazz era was dawning and Soho, a hotbed since the ’50s, was where the renaissance began. Blue Rondo A La Turk, who had the first ‘New Jazz’ hit, were led by Chris Sullivan who opened The Wag Club in Wardour Street in April 1982, a vital catalyst for the ‘New Jazz’ scene.
Vic Godard, singer with Subway Sect,…
Many bands play early jazz these days, but few make it sound as if the ink is still wet on the page. The Oliver-Smith Incomparables accomplish exactly that on Stomp Your Stuff, a recording that salutes the musical language of Jelly Roll Morton without ever treating it as a historical artifact. Pianist Andrew Oliver and drummer Hal Smith lead an exceptional ensemble featuring Colin Hancock on cornet, Andy Schumm on clarinet-cornet, T.J. Muller on trombone-cornet-vocal, Jacob Alspach on guitar-banjo, and Dan Anderson on string bass-tuba. These musicians know this repertoire inside and out, yet perform it with such vitality that each chorus feels newly created.
The title track “Stomp Your Stuff” bursts out of the gate with buoyant brass interplay, playful…
It’s been five years since Zooid, Henry Threadgill‘s longest-running ensemble, released the excellent Poof. Cut Where You Was marks his return to alto saxophone and flutes– he conducted his last two albums. This release coincides with the 25th anniversary of their debut, Up Popped the Two Lips. Cut You Where You Was differs from other Zooid albums in that Threadgill composed it with economy as the hub on which creativity turns. Given the band’s almost instinctual comfort with the leader’s compositional approach, they move out onto a ledge in these (mostly) brief pieces. Threadgill arranged them with built-in permissiveness and flexibility within the interval-based compositional system. Its distinctive musical syntax guarantees that harmonic…
The word invictus was with us long before Prince Harry founded his Invictus Games in 2014.
As noted by Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop (b. 1969), during his long prison stay Nelson Mandela regularly recited the same-titled poem, which William Ernest Henley wrote in the hospital after surgery saved his right leg, his left having been amputated years earlier due to tubercular bone disease.
While the Latin word stands for unconquered, it’s also associated with determination, perseverance, resolve, and resilience.
Why exactly Garrop chose Henley’s sixteen-line poem as the inspiration for her piano concerto Invictus isn’t entirely clear, though the choice does dovetail with other works…
In 1982, British composer and tabla player Kuljit Bhamra debuted with the album Punjabi Disco, featuring his mother Mohinder Kaur Bhamra as the singer. The album was initially a commercial failure, but later developed a cult following after its rediscovery in the early 21st century, leading to a re-release in 2025.
…On DESI: The Soul of Punjab Bhamra serves as the primary mastermind and producer, uniting iconic voices and renowned lyricists across the British-Punjabi and global diaspora.
This album is a testament to, celebration of and showcase for the current talent of the Punjabi music scene in the UK. As such, it not only reminds us of the huge impact bhangra had when it arrived in Britain during the 1980s but also…
…The album has been newly mastered for the reissue and the 2CD edition includes a selection of rarities appended to CD 1 including a newly discovered ‘Cricklewood Jam’ instrumental demo. CD 2 includes a newly mixed version of the band’s second set at the Fillmore East on 27 February 1970, which includes an 11-minute version of ‘Going Home’.
Cricklewood Green provides the best example of Ten Years After’s recorded sound. On this album, the band and engineer Andy Johns mix studio tricks and sound effects, blues-based song structures, a driving rhythm section, and Alvin Lee’s signature lightning-fast guitar licks into a unified album that flows nicely from start to finish. Cricklewood Green opens with a pair of bluesy…
…At the BBC: The Complete Recordings 1979-1981 covers The Selecter’s glory years, from the first of two John Peel sessions in October 1979 (coinciding with their first-on-the-bill slot on the legendary first 2Tone tour, supporting Madness and The Specials) to an April 1981 performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test, recorded months before singer Pauline Black effectively called time on the band by leaving to pursue a solo career and acting ambitions (they’d officially split the year after). The 30-track set marks the first time that all the beloved 2Tone act’s BBC recordings have been released in one place. The eight live tracks taken from a December 1979 show in Paris supporting The Specials were released on 1992’s BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert CD…
After 10 releases that have garnered Montreal’s Rishi Dhir and his band Elephant Stone a staunch cult following and collaborations with the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Beck, maybe after their latest album Asha, they will get more than they deserve.
After all, Dhir has been around for a while, covering almost a whole spectrum of psych rock known so far, not only with Elephant Stone but with The Datsons/The High Dials before, and has been one of the more forward purveyors of that branch of psych that looks to India and all things on the Eastern side of the globe.
And so far Dhir and Elephant Stone have not missed a beat in that respect, and obviously had no intention to miss it on their eleventh…
Two decades into their career, a lot has changed for Fruition, a band that initially started out busking on the streets of Portland. Across eight LPs, the group has slowly evolved from a solidly reliable Americana/roots outfit to a collective willing to expand its sound. Their latest, Something More, finds them expanding into indie territory, bringing a little more rock and pop into their familiar roots-based approach.
While the opening song, “Compass,” calls back to their folk background, “Oh Well” finds them starting to stretch a bit more with some alt-country influences. The song is affecting not only because of its message, with Jay Cobb Anderson looking back on his more reckless earlier years, but also because of his delivery, which…
Exactly 30 years after Soul Asylum’s legendary 1993 MTV Unplugged session – recorded at the height of the band’s fame – the Minneapolis alt-rockers returned to their hometown to once again strip things down and go acoustic.
The performance captured that night wasn’t a song-for-song recreation of their early-’90s set, but it was very much conceived in the same spirit: an intimate, unvarnished look at a band and a songbook now carrying three more decades of history.
Three years later, the band is giving the album, MPLS Unplugged, captured from that Minneapolis show, a proper release. Frontman and rhythm guitarist Dave Pirner is the sole remaining member from the Grave Dancers Union era of…
On the Boston stop of the 1995 tour promoting their second album Blonder and Blonder, the Muffs stopped off at Fort Apache studio to play a set that was broadcast on WFNX, the area’s alternative station. The band sounds energized and full of punk vim and vigor, even though the daytime session was like putting in an extra shift at work. Guitarist Kim Shattuck, in particular, is on fire, attacking her instrument like it was a six-stringed monster that needed immediate subduing. She crashes and slashes through a set of songs mostly derived from the album they were touring, and her singing is even more fiery. On record she mostly kept her howls and screams in check but on-stage she lets loose, favoring pure emotional release over melody. The band follows her…
Wabash is the name of a river in Indiana and Illinois, an avenue in Chicago and, what is most relevant to this recording, the name of the quartet that performs on the avenue, a respectable group led by bassist Clark Sommers.
Sommers’ WaBaSH ensemble varies from the quartet norm in that two of its members, John Wojciechowski and Geof Bradfield, are saxophonists (who double on flute and bass clarinet, respectively). The group’s fourth member is drummer Dana Hall. Sommers wrote half of the album’s 10 tunes, which serve for the most part as modest launching pads for extended solos by Wojciechowski and Bradfield. Wojciechowski composed two songs, Bradfield and Hall one apiece. The remaining theme is…
Powerhouse vocalist, Grammy-nominated, ten-time BMA winner, singer-songwriter, and bassist Danielle Nicole returns with Fireflies, following her highly acclaimed 2024 album The Love You Bleed. Once again, longstanding blues producer Tony Braunagel produces. Nicole’s effort leans as much into the soul and R&B spectrums as it does toward blues. Seven of the eleven tracks were penned by either Nicole or co-written with guitarist Brandon Miller. Her support is basically a tight quartet. Along with Miller and Nicole (bass and vocals), the backing unit includes the veteran Jim Pugh (keyboards); Braunagel (drums), and Melodye Perry and Maxayne Maraguchi on backing vocals. The album was recorded in Nicole’s hometown of Kansas City.
For singer-songwriter Alicia Blue, Waylon Jennings isn’t so much an influence as someone she calls “a creative angel summoning her from another realm”, so to have his son, Shooter Jennings, describe her as “As rare as they come” must feel like quite the accolade.
Perhaps even more special is the fact that upon hearing the demos of the songs for her debut album Country Desire, he jumped at the chance to work as her producer, not even the fact that she had no label or budget to back her up dampening his enthusiasm: “I’m not worried about that,” Jennings said, brushing it aside like a minor inconvenience. “You’re going to have a big career.”
The steady build of Run Me Ragged opens the album, and Blue’s tone is sharp, but…
…completely remastered and include a replica of Horse Feathers’ original six-song demo CD.
That echo chamber’s a dangerous thing: A number of critics have mistakingly labeled Horse Feathers — the Portland, Ore., duo of Justin Ringle and Peter Broderick — another folksy Americana troupe with an interesting vocalist. Broderick, a talented 19-year-old multi-instrumentalist, certainly adds folk instruments such as banjo, mandolin, and saw to emotive, gothic backdrops; he also accents Ringle’s quavery, near-falsetto with cello, piano, viola, violin, and various sorts of almost-funky percussion. Ignore the chatter– there’s something a bit more avant going on here.
The two approach music rustically, but the Iron & Wine name-checks are off the mark…
Most people will know Laurie Vincent as one half of punk duo Soft Play. In that (largely) boisterous band, he plays guitar while singer and drummer Isaac Holman vents his frustrations about life in a simultaneously aggressive and vulnerable way to devastating effect. With Big Truck – completed by drummer Sam Coppins (formerly of Lady Bird), guitarist Asa Thallon and keyboardist Justin Myles – Vincent steps up to the microphone to do the same, albeit in a very different way.
Big Truck is a more avant-garde and experimental project than Soft Play. It combines gentle spoken word observations with more aggressive emotional spitballing, all tied together by the band’s genre-defying melodies. There are flourishes of jazz here, as well as some punk, post-punk…
How do you celebrate your 10th anniversary as a rock ‘n’ roll band in 2026? For Toronto psychedelic garage rockers Wine Lips, they decided to do what they do best: try to make sense of the last decade in a lean 13-track collection with plenty of fuzz, double time, sardonic lyricism and a well-placed “Woo!” as needed.
TV Dinner is perhaps the most straightforward rock record from Wine Lips to date. It wastes little time — all but one song clock in at three-and-a-half minutes or less — and strips back many of the trippy effects and dressings that characterized their past offerings.
The record’s highlights contain all the high-octane thrills that have spilled over into countless mosh pits. Opener “Cut It” pairs the band’s…
Emerging from Baltimore’s incredibly energetic hardcore scene, TURNSTILE have always displayed a penchant for eclecticism. Last year’s album NEVER ENOUGH epitomised their magpie-like eye for glittering sonics, exploding their hardcore palette into something that could be blissfully melodic and crushingly intense all within the same song. Very much an international breakout moment, the band toast 12 months of NEVER ENOUGH with VERSIONS, a staggering broad selection of re-workings which serves to illustrate the ongoing impact of the parent record.
As a collection, VERSIONS is led by the highs: Porches re-crafts the title song into a spectral slice of after-hours introspection; Blood Orange transforms ‘LIGHT DESIGN’ into a zero…
…box set includes alternative versions as well as an unreleased live show from Rennes, rough mixes and radio sessions from the era. Plus ‘Twenty-Seven Points’ (that was also released in 1995), an album that consists of live recordings made in various locations between 1991 and 1995, but also contains interludes and two previously unheard studio tracks.
Mark E. Smith once again landed on his feet after departing a label, ditching Matador in favor of Permanent, but Cerebral Caustic is notable for many other reasons. First, of all people, Brix Smith (still going by the name) rejoined the lineup, while future events made this the last studio album featuring Craig Scanlon. Though not an original member, his guitar playing for many…