Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 11 June 2021. Rio is the fifth album from the sensational French jazz pianist Florian Pellissier. It was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studio (New Jersey, USA), fulfilling one of Pellissier’s long-held dreams. The album was mixed by Jordan…
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is the 17th album for singer/songwriter Damien Jurado and first for his own label Maraqopa Records. This is an intimate affair, ten songs that capture the characters in a decisive moment in time. The brief album notes suggest it’s the “middle ground between light and shadow,” and the stripped back…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 28 May 2021. Reprise sees Moby revisiting and re-imagining musical highlights from his past. Together with the Budapest Art Orchestra, he has re-envisioned some of his most recognizable rave classics and anthems with new arrangements for orchestra and acoustic…
Ten studio albums and two decades into their career, any fans of The Black Keys who’ve dug in past their string of rock hits, like “Lonely Boy,” “Fever,” and “Lo/Hi,” is well aware of the band’s interest in the Mississippi delta blues music of artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. They covered a song…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 21 May 2021. Fly Pan Am have composed some of their most direct, visceral and immediately satisfying for the acclaimed contemporary dance piece FRONTERA. Juxtaposing stern foreboding electronics and minimalist motorik avant-rock, the Frontera studio album superbly captures the…
One of the pleasures of advanced age is being around long enough to experience the development of a musician or artist over the course of their creative life. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s when I was writing about music out and about in St. Louis for one of the two major newsprint publications…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 14 May 2021. Over the past four years, Juliana Hatfield has kept fans engaged and intrigued as she oscillates between impassioned original releases (Pussycat, Weird) and inspired covers collections (Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John, Juliana Hatfield Sings The Police)….
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 7 May 2021. Ska-punk pioneers The Mighty Mighty BossToneS have released their 11th studio record When God Was Great on Hellcat Records. Co-produced by longtime collaborator Ted Hutt (The Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys) and Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong (Transplants,…
The sixth album from alt/rock quartet Manchester Orchestra feels like the culmination of their 15 years as recording artists, bringing together their early guitar rock inclinations with the orchestrated compositional depth that came later. 2017’s A Black Mile to the Surface embraced a cinematic, concept album/storytelling approach, inspired by the experience of founding members and…
Think back. You’re 14 and nothing in this world (and I do mean nothing) means more to you than your total infatuation with your teen idol. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. You daydream of him having eyes only for you. You have to find a way. Whatever it takes. That is the starting point for the wickedly…
