Review: Stockholm-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Art Longo impresses here with Echowah Island, a new album sure to wind its way into your affections. It was crafted over years in his home studio and is "psychotropical pop" drawing deep inspiration from late 80s music and dub. The album's lush soundscape evokes orange sunsets and ocean breezes and is layered with spring reverb, space echo and wah-wah effects that smooth out the edges as the steady pulse of vintage drum machines moves things on down low. A standout feature is Claudio Jonas, whose ethereal vocals recall classic French femme fatale singers of the 60s. Her poetic, kaleidoscopic lyrics add to a nostalgic dream world that gently bends reality and makes his both escapist and thought-provoking.
Review: Los Jaivas' Alturas de Macchu Picchu arrives newly remastered and reissued by state51 on heavyweight wax, and it remains a landmark of South American music. Its blurring of psychedelic rock, Andean folk and Pablo Neruda's poetic power makes the album, which was recorded in exile during Chile's Pinochet era, an evocation of both the spirit and struggle of Latin America. Tracks like 'La Poderosa Muerte' and 'Sube a Nacer Conmigo Hermano' swirl with emotion and complexity to deliver a cinematic spiritual experience. Inspired by Incan ruins and resistance, Alturas is more than music-it's a cultural beacon that invites you into a timeless soundscape.
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.
COB (Clive's Original Band) - "Eleven Willows" (4:06)
Comus - "The Herald" (4:17)
Review: Way back in 2004, Sanctuary Records commissioned pre-Britpop pop hipsters St Etienne member and serial compilation curator Bob Stanley to put together a collection celebrating the British 'acid folk' movement of the late 1980s and early 1970s. Long deleted, the previously CD only compilation is finally returning on vinyl - this time in expanded form, with the inclusion of additional tracks and a few picks from its (also unavailable) sequel. It's a superb set all told and one that showcases a take on folk heavy on effects, unusual rhythms, sweet vocals, horror-adjacent sounds and pastoral but otherworldly instrumentation. A few well-known names aside, it's a genuinely deep dive too - as you'd expect from someone of Stanley's knowledge and experience.
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