Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: This is the second album by Balmorhea for the prestigious classical label Deutsche Grammophon, following their acclaimed 2020 release The Wind. The Austin, Texas duo - composed of Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller - create cinematic and atmospheric music in a world entirely of its own; a shifting blend of gothic classical, folk, ambient, and post-rock, which rarely feature vocals, and instead thrive on the haunted immersions of the compositions alone. Their new LP Pendant World is a collaborative effort that features contributions from several guest artists and contemporary stars: cellist Clarice Jensen, violinist Hilary Hahn, pianist Nils Frahm, singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez, and electronic producer Rival Consoles. A stunning mesh of sounds, we're not sure where electronic ends and acoustic begins, owing to the album's intended theme of connection, transformation, and evolution.

Review: Melt Away, the forthcoming double LP compilation, offers rare tracks and outtakes from Bardo Pond's peak creative period in the late 90s. A gem from this collection, 'The Trail', initially featured on the 1997 compilation What's Up Matador, encapsulates the essence of fleeting momentsiits six-minute journey is ethereal and immersive, urging listeners to linger. Bardo Pond, the American psychedelic rock ensemble formed in 1991, continues to captivate with their immersive soundscapes. Their music blends elements of space rock, acid rock, and shoegazing, often drawing comparisons to Pink Floyd, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Their work is characterised by droning guitars, heavy distortion and enveloping feedback and rooting in ecstatic jazz and avant-garde influences, creating a dreamlike experience that transcends conventional understanding. If that sounds like your thing, dive in.

Review: Something of a cult record amongst those that know, this Bardo Pond album now gets a fully deserving remaster job for 2023. It brings the recording into sharp focus which means you can delve deep into its hallucinogenic charms, as initially recorded in Philadelphia back in 1993. The rather unique band's influences were said to be Black Sabbath, free jazz and no wave but you can also hear shades of early Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3 too. The band was a quartet when this was recorded and cooked up some dense garage and psyche-rock sounds with plenty of wax noise and explosive energy.

Review: Matador has released the long awaited reissue of Bardo Pond's iconic 1999 album Set and Setting, remastered and pressed on striking purple vinyl. Known for their expansive and immersive sound, Bardo Pond's Set and Setting remains a standout in their discography, featuring the epic eleven-minute opener 'Walking Stick Man' and the intense single 'This Time (So Fucked)'. This album captures the band at a peak moment, blending heavy psychedelia with sprawling sonic landscapes. Set and Setting might not be Bardo Pond's heaviest record, but it's certainly among their fuzziest. With the fuzz dialed up to eleven, the album teeters on the edge of sonic overload, creating a swirling, sludgy atmosphere that's a dream for those who love their rock dense and gritty. Bardo Pond's music can be challenging to categorise, with their discography swinging from focused psych-rock to sprawling, loose jams. In the 90s, they didn't capture the mainstream attention of bands like Sonic Youth or Mudhoney, but they carved out a unique niche, blending shoegaze, desert rock and Krautrock influences into a potent, heady mix. Set and Setting, though perhaps not the easiest entry point into their catalog, encapsulates the band's distinct approach. While it might lack traditional hooks or radio-friendly tracks, it's rich in the droning, psychedelic explorations that define their work. For those who crave unfiltered, immersive jams, Set and Setting stands as a prime example of Bardo Pond's enduring appeal.

Review: Beings' debut album There Is a Garden, features the collaborative prowess of Steve Gunn, Shahzad Ismaily, Zoh Amba, and Jim White. With a fusion of spiritually resonant sounds, each track blooms with distinct environmental and evocative qualities. The quartet's fusion of talents, evident in their first two tracks 'Flowers That Talk' and 'Happy to Be,' shows a spiritually resonant and environmentally evocative sound. Formed after a transformative performance at Germany's Monheim Triennale, the band found a unique synergy, each member contributing distinct qualities to their collective sound. With its tracklist spanning from 'Small Vows' to 'Morning Sea,' the album hints at a diverse sonic landscape ripe for exploration. Beings mark their arrival as a dynamic force in the music scene.

Review: Ghost Box founder Jim Jupp returns with a new album from his flagship project, Belbury Poly, and this time around he's doing things a bit differently. Compared to the usual winsome minimal synth soliloquies, he's recruited a full band to round out his sound on The Path. As a result, this isn't like any other Belbury Poly record to date, even if past collaborator Christopher Budd returns on bass and guitar. Elsewhere, Midlake's Jesse Chandler lends some flute, clarinet and key tones, Max Saidi holds down the drums and Justin Hopper offers his narration to the record. Striking on a slinky, library-meets-lounge style without losing that hauntological charm, it's a bold new direction for Belbury Poly.

Review: Belong's latest offering, Realistic IX, presents a mesmerizing journey through acid-washed landscapes of sound. Michael Jones and Turk Dietrich craft an heavily processed sonic experience, where bleached guitars, hypnotic drums, and buried vocals coalesce to create shifting gradients of haze and hypnosis. Melodies ebb and flow, sometimes surfacing before submerging into feedback-laden currents. Despite a 13-year hiatus since their last Kranky release, Common Era, Belong's synergy remains undiminished. Their commitment to motorik drone and liminal emotion evolves on Realistic IX, offering a tactile and unreal exploration of sound. Tracks like 'Souvenir' showcase distant vocals shrouded in dissonance, while 'Image of Love' introduces drum machine work and reverberated melodic changes. Overall, Realistic IX is a shimmering comeback for Belong, capturing the band's enigmatic allure and pushing their sonic boundaries with finesse.

Review: BIG BRAVE's music epitomises what has been called 'massive minimalism,' with layers of textural distortion and feedback accentuating its weight and frayed edges. Their artistry blends traditional folk techniques with a modern deconstruction of guitar music, all of which is evident in the new album A Chaos Of Flowers, which is a follow-up to their fierce 2023 album Nature Morte. Lyrically, the songs delve into vulnerability, isolation, and co-existence in nature and guitarist and vocalist Robin Wattie drew inspiration from poetry by female-presenting artists, exploring alienation's impact on the psyche. This record is a testament to the band's ability to evoke intense emotions through minimalist yet powerful arrangements.

Review: Bill Orcutt's Music for Four Guitars album emerges as his most mature and exhilarating LP to date and exudes undeniable Apollonian beauty. Praised by underground aficionados and featured on NPR, the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet - comprising Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish - embodies technical prowess and improvisational brilliance. Recorded live at Le Guess Who? festival during their inaugural European tour, Four Guitars Live captures the quartet's seamless fusion of faithful renditions and expansive improvisations. From Mendoza's captivating lines to Parish's ethereal solos, the album transcends boundaries, showcasing soulful polytonal improv accessible to all. Orcutt's visionary compositions, enriched by collective virtuosity, redefine contemporary guitar music, captivating audiences with classic intervals and layered intricacies.

Review: James Ford is one of the most important unsung heroes of contemporary pop and rock. As a studio producer, he's helped craft and hone incredible work from Fontaines DC, Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Blur and more. As an artist in his own right, he's perhaps more incredible. So, his impact on the latest and long-awaited new addition to Black Country New Road's catalogue should not be underestimated. Nor should the result of splitting the songwriting and vocal duties between members Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw. "It's definitely very different" said one of the trio about how this compares to preceding long form outings. We'd say it's definitely very different to most music you'll hear this week. It's folk, soft rock, experimental garage something, and none of the above, with tracks that almost seem at odds with themselves, chopping and changing, evolving and progressing, until you hear them as a whole.

Review: Black Country, New Road marks a new chapter as a six piece with this new album of previously unreleased music. It was recorded by therm at the Bush Hall venue in London, a legendary place where they played six special shows at the end of last year. This follows a busy and sold out run of shows and the success of 'Ants From Up There' as Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Georgia Ellery, Luke Mark, Tyler Hyde and Charlie Wayne find some of their highest nights. Critical and fan praise followed them everywhere last year and that will only continue with this, we sense.

Review: BC, NR are now onto their third album. The Ninja Tune-signees gained attention for not posing as if they're in a band, but looking like an ordinary group of students, or twentysomethings house-sharing. Their bold look, where they're smiling in the press pics, as opposed to donning a moody pout, has thankfully been backed up with some terrific music. Their debut, For The First Time, earned them favourable comparisons to post-rock trailblazers Slint and their second album Ants From Up There is the Gen-z equivalent of Arcade Fire's Funeral, thanks to its grandiose anthemics. Famously, singer and lyricist Isaac Wood left the band on the even of the release of their second album, which sparked outcry and paranoia from their ever-growing army of fans about what that might mean for their future. But the band have kept at it and the remaining six members have chosen to share frontperson duties, thus relieving the added pressure that comes with being a designated frontperson. This third album - and first post Isaac Wood - is proving to be a striking new chapter, with the lead single, 'Besties', an immediately likeable way of introducing it to the world. Georgia Ellery, also of Jockstrap, takes lead vocals here and offers an unforgettable off-kilter indie pop cut reminiscent of Aldous Harding. Zutons-y sax stabs scattered in make for a beautiful touch and leave us feeling that this is the album that's going to send BC, NR onto a stratospheric level, where they're spoken about in the same breath as Radiohead as one of Britain's finest bands.

Review: Boris's Amplifier Worship, first released in 1998 and now reissued by Third Man Records, stands as a monumental testament to the band's uncompromising vision of heavy music. This album showcases their ability to push metal to its extreme boundaries, blending doom-drone, psych-sludge, and unrelenting noise. It's an intense, chaotic, and visceral experience, not for the faint of heart. The remastered version brings new life to this brutal classic, housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket and pressed at Third Man Pressing for a high-quality vinyl experience. Boris's signature sonic landscapes are rich with mythic weight, as tracks shift from slow, crushing doom to explosive bursts of sound. The group's bullish experimentation, combined with their powerful live performances, has earned them a devoted fanbase worldwide. This reissue is essentialia timeless blueprint for Boris's expansive future.

Review: The first of three albums from the Japanese post-everything auteurs titled Heavy Rocks, arrived in 2002 with the second and third installments coming in 2011 and 2022, respectively. These volumes served to allow the group to fully explore their heaviest tendencies with full abandon, and none are as adored or praised (or essential to own on vinyl) than the minimal orange adorned first entry. Plumbing the depths of psychedelic stoner rock, heaving sludge and cavernous doom metal, all whilst retaining accessible grooves and absurdly catchy riffage, this is Boris at their most abrasive, face-melting and imposing, while also serving as a solid entry point into their beastly 20+ album discography.

Review: Originally conceived in 2019 during a tour with industrial hardcore purveyors Uniform, Japanese psychedelic noise-rock juggernauts Boris would invite their co-conspirators on stage to reimagine the trio's classic "Akuma no Uta" as part of their encore, with the resulting chemistry inspiring both acts to begin crafting a fully collaborative album. Many years of exchanging ideas from one home studio base to another has finally bore fruit in the form of the hideous yet glorious Bright New Disease. Combining almost every nuance of each group's genre-less machinations, the project swells and extends in every sonic direction from harsh walls of screeching noise to retrofitted Japanese D-beat hardcore, with time in between for aquatic, shoegazing serenity and mechanized industrial venom.

Review: David Boulter returns to Clay Pipe with St Ann's, an evocative tribute to the Nottingham council estate that shaped his early years. Since his Yarmouth LP in 2020 and Lovers Walk in 2021, Boulter has focused on soundtrack work, scoring films like Volkan Uce's Displaced and Gregorio Graziosi's Tinnitus. St Ann's chronicles Boulter's childhood, contrasting the harsh conditions of the old estate with the improved, vibrant new development. The album's subtle use of guitar, double bass, vibraphone, tenor recorder, and field recordings vividly recreates the atmosphere of crumbling Victorian streets and the optimism of the post-1960s renewal. Boulter's narrative delves into personal memories, painting a poignant picture of community transformation. His reflection on moving to a new house with modern amenities, while still attending an old Victorian school being demolished, adds depth to the story. The project was deeply influenced by Boulter's emotional experience of clearing out his family home at the end of 2022. St Ann's is more than a personal memoir; it's a celebration of inner-city renewal and the enduring spirit of community. This album resonates with nostalgia, capturing the key moments of Boulter's formative years.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


David Boulter returns to Clay Pipe with St Ann's, an evocative tribute to the Nottingham council estate that shaped his early years. Since his Yarmouth LP in 2020 and Lovers Walk in 2021, Boulter has focused on soundtrack work, scoring films like Volkan Uce's Displaced and Gregorio Graziosi's Tinnitus. St Ann's chronicles Boulter's childhood, contrasting the harsh conditions of the old estate with the improved, vibrant new development. The album's subtle use of guitar, double bass, vibraphone, tenor recorder, and field recordings vividly recreates the atmosphere of crumbling Victorian streets and the optimism of the post-1960s renewal. Boulter's narrative delves into personal memories, painting a poignant picture of community transformation. His reflection on moving to a new house with modern amenities, while still attending an old Victorian school being demolished, adds depth to the story. The project was deeply influenced by Boulter's emotional experience of clearing out his family home at the end of 2022. St Ann's is more than a personal memoir; it's a celebration of inner-city renewal and the enduring spirit of community. This album resonates with nostalgia, capturing the key moments of Boulter's formative years.

Review: They say that where there is repetition, there is unfinished business; that where there is a broken record, there is a will for that breakage to be attended to. So too does the eponymous alias of Jake Alias, The Brkn Record, know this. The Architecture Of Oppression Part 2 is Ferguson's next album for the righteous future jazz project; an earnest admixture of spoken word and slam poetry set against ambient jazzscapes and cinematic post-noir shades. Showcasing the manifold talents of wordsmiths the likes of Toyin Agbetu and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu, both of whom ponder the nature of freedom as it exists in its best articulated form today - the continued articulation of freedom being the driving force of history - The Architecture Of Oppression Part 2 deploys a righteous infrasound to deconstruct the edifices that impinge on this freedom, brick by brick.

Review: As the title suggests, Broadcast have collected all their demo recordings made between 2000 and 2006 and compiled them onto a single 14-track record. But that's not the main piece of news: sadly, this one marks the end of releasing from the band, tying the bow on an game-changing career to say the least. Many of these tender tidbits were worked into finished productions appearing on Haha Sound, Tender Buttons and The Future Crayon; it's an impressive flex to be able to flaunt your one-offs and pack them onto a single recorded finale. What's more, the connotations aroused by form - demos - as well as the sonic content of these gems plays nicely up to Broadcast's now well-established aesthetic, which is one for the ages, to be sure. The album also includes two songs discovered by James after bandmate Trish's passing: 'Come Back To Me' and 'Please Call To Book' which was her response to Broadcast's 2006 'Let's Write A Song' project, where fans were asked to submit lyrics on a postcard which would then be worked into a finished song.

Review: One of several final demo collections by the band Broadcast, all recorded between 2006 and 2009, to be released before they say their final goodbyes to the world as a group. Comprising songs and sketches drawn from the four-track tape archives of the late Trish Keenan, who died in 2011, Spell Broadcast seems a befitting title for the audio-incantation that this large set of 36 originals seems to cast over us. The recordings lay the groundwork for what would have been Broadcast's fifth album, offering a window into Trish and James Cargill's creative process during the post-Tender Buttons period from 2006-2009.

Review: The Sensual World is the sixth studio album from British pop sensation Kate Bush, released in October 1989 to the ever-expected throng of acclaim. Condensing her literary inspirations into what is arguably her most romantic album, The Sensual World is notorious for its singles ‘This Woman’s Work’ and ‘Love And Anger’, which fuse James Joyce and William Blake intertexts with aspects of her own Irish heritage. But despite the Anglo-Irish pedigree, the album was also noted for its pentatonic melodies and “Oriental reverie”, amounting to a mid-career breakaway into a whole new world.

Review: South London rapper Confucius MC returns to Native Rebel Recordings for a new project alongside producer and multi-instrumentalist Bastien Keb. Dedicated to the "lost travellers" of the world, this is an album of pop-filterless texture and raw admission, filled to the brim with political messaging and wisdom in the face of oppressive social machinery. Toeing lines of fairytale realism and soul-feeder contrition, Keb and Confucius muse on dilemmas of eternal life, striving, perseverance and recompense, crafting a near drumless hip-hop album for veteran ears.

Review: Formed in 2018, Dream House Quartet has been reshaping the boundaries between classical and contemporary music. The group consists of pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque, both renowned for their versatility across genres, along with Grammy-winning guitarist Bryce Dessner of The National and composer-producer David Chalmin on guitar. Their repertoire spans radical commissions and essential works from the past 50 years. After releasing their self-titled digital EP in 2023, the quartet now unveils their latest project, Sonic Wires, coinciding with a November 2024 tour. The album features pieces by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

Review: A second joining of forces from two celebrated Chicago acts, blending deep, organic rhythms with a minimalistic electronic pulse. With the novel but logical addition of Jason Stein on bass clarinet, the collaboration stretches even further, pulling together the spiritual fluidity of Natural Information Society and the electronic minimalism of Bitchin Bajas. The first single, 'Clock no Clock,' is a deep dive into hypnotic rhythms, with guimbri grooves intertwining seamlessly with electronic bursts, flutes and organs. The other three tracks are equally compelling, the music unfolding like a living organism, constantly shifting but always grounded. Expansive, intricately woven sonic delights.