Back in stock: All genres

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


The new album by Quantic - aka. multi instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland - is in many ways an evolution. Now twenty years into his career, Dancing While Falling is the British-born, New York-based artist's most live sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown-up release to date. Capturing the beginnings of every good person's revelatory movement from an individual to a collective spirit, Holland originally began the album in his Brooklyn studio, before realising that he didn't just want to make a record that reflected his 'singular pandemic wormhole', but rather one that tapped into the essential togetherness of the human condition. So too does this record explore themes of connection felt through, and made more intense by, the antagonistic bouts of loneliness that characterised COVID-19. Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco -eaning album at first; "I'm really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco," he says. This PIAS extended edition comes one year on from its initial 2023 release, Quantic here expands on his work by adding a ream of extended versions.

Review: There's a hushed wind blowing through the debut album from London songwriter Will Westerman, but that shouldn't be taken to mean the tracks lack big ideas. Ideas that, thankfully, the young artist seems more than capable of realising with dazzling art rock and pop strokes, making those references to Peter Gabriel in the promo material perfectly understandable. Only time will tell, but on first impact this is exactly the kind of polished but politically charged stuff we need in the world today. Easy to hear but resolute in its determination to consider new possibilities, playing with tempos, times and traditional arrangements to ensure the slow jams, alt-ballads and synth-fuelled serenades are infinitely re-playable and remarkably memorable pre-requisites for any long-lasting success story. One for your list, for sure.