Review: Satellites' self-titled 2020 debut album won plenty of plaudits, with critics the world over hailing the Tel Aviv-based band's blend of vintage, Turkish style psychedelic folk-rock and dancefloor adjacent grooves indebted to funk, soul and disco. Aylar, the six-piece's belated sequel, continues in this vein, with the band arguably being bolder with their musical choices. For proof, check the cosmic strut of opener 'Tisaldi Mehmet Elmi', a psych-funk transformation of a traditional Turkish folk song, the low-slung grooves and sweet retro-organ melodies of 'Midnight Sweat', the gritty, thrusting and hallucinatory 'Yok Yok' and the future dancefloor anthem that is psychedelic Turkish disco gem 'Zuluf Dokolmus Yuze'.
Review: Tel Aviv funk six piece Satellites are back in orbit, boldly moving the psychedelic folk-meets-groove sound they established on their eponymous debut forward on Lp number two. Drawing from the Turkish psychedelic wave of the 60s and 70s, their first record earned international acclaim, with support from BBC Radio 6 Music and FIP, as well as live sets on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide FM and KEXP. After two years of touring, the band entered the studio with a renewed sense of purpose and a tighter musical bond. The album opener, 'Tisladi Mehmet Emmi,' transforms a traditional Turkuler into a modern psychedelic funk masterpiece, blending saz, synths, basslines, and dramatic drumming, with Rotem's husky vocals narrating timeless themes of lament. 'Midnight Sweat' reveals a sultry side, with a late-night lullaby over a slinky disco-rock groove, while 'Hot Jazz' dives into cinematic territory, showcasing their jazz and funk chops. 'Gizli Ajan' and 'Yok Yok' surprise with genre-bending jams, while 'Ikmiz Bir Fideniz' becomes a cosmic folk-funk rendition. The album closes with a dynamic duo, from the cosmic disco-fuzz of 'Zuluf Dokulmus Yuze' to the dramatic finale of 'Zuluf B (Reprised).' Where their debut set the tone, this release marks their full transformation, confidently stepping out of the shadows of their Anatolian psych heroes to create a modern yet timeless record.
Review: Outer-psychic dance orienteers Invisible Inc. return to the fore with a bright, effulgent, new wave and disco infused EP, Sordid Sound System's 'Gimme Fever'. A pungent, eight-track mini-record best played at a motorik tempo, this one wafts full Oort clouds of psychosomatic orga-noise in a refractive stylistic rain-ring, coming full circle on torrential synth cascades like 'Gimme Fever' and 'Inanna'. Opener 'Wired Wyrd' is circuitous and boxy enough, and keeps truer to a surfy song format, recalling early filter-glam James Ferraro. We reach a full, pavilioned exotic head within the plodding pergola that is 'The Ocean', up which rare vines climb a trellis made of tuned steel pans and reso-sploited marimba.
Review: William Tyler stands as one of the most influential solo American guitarists of this century. Having played with Silver Jews and Lambchop, he's carved out a singular space for himself, with albums weaving country roots and classical influences with postmodern experimentation; he melds field recordings and static drifts for a sense of imminent boundlessness, recoverable just over the hill. Drawing on inspirations from Chet Atkins to Gavin Bryars, from electroacoustic abstraction to hypnotic boogie, Time Indefinite - his first solo album in five years - hears Tyler reimmerse himself in said sound, reflecting on the hiss, distortion, and rawness of a turbulent era. With eerie loops and luminous melodies, Time Indefinite is an essential soundtrack for fostering resilience.
Review: New Zealand-turned-Portland neo psych sorts Unknown Mortal Orchestra have made a name for themselves with vocal-based records. But they occasionally turn their hand to purely instrumental music and come up trumps. IC-02 Bogota follows their only previous instrumental album, 2018's IC-01 Hanoi. The rhythm of the album brings you to the chaotic hustle and bustle of the Colombian capital, which is where the album was recorded. It's music that appears born out of collaboration; the single 'Earth 1' is an 11-minute jam that has a lot in common with jazz in terms of knowing the moment when to make way for an extended solo. This is a superb detour and a series that we can only hope UMO keep going.
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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