Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: Since they first broke through in 2018, Black Midi has delighted in confounding expectations, with each successive release showcasing a band in continual, high-speed evolution. Cavalcade, the London band's second full-length excursion, continues these trends, expanding on their avant-garde, experimental rock sound via a swathe of wildly imaginative tracks that variously mix, mangle and mutate elements of noise rock, jazz, sun-kissed samba-soul, lo-fi punk-funk, post-rock, neo-classical, Bert Jansch style instrumental folk and blissed-out downtempo waltzes. The results are frequently staggering, always entertaining and restlessly inventive. There's no doubt that it will end up winning more critical acclaim - and most likely a bagful of awards - at the end of 2021.

Review: These archival recordings of two extraordinary live performances takes you back to when New York City was a bohemian magnet, with low rent and spaces where artists could thrive. Recorded in Downtown in December 1985 and June 1984, the late, great Arthur Russell is captured performing at an intimate loft space known as Experimental Intermedia Foundation, which was run by Phil Niblock. Since the recordings are unedited, it does a really great job of simulating the experience and so if you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine Russell in the room right there in front of you. Of the numbers played, Russell's gifted avant-garde approach to cello is brilliantly done on 'Too Early To Tell'. And the spine-tingling, raw and deeply emotional 'That's The Very Reason' is arthouse folk at its finest. It epitomises the raw, spell-binding talent that Russell had to captivate a room. Hats off to those who have immortalized these very special shows.