Search dance music

Review: There are seemingly no limits to the music Emotional Rescue will put out. This time they look back to the post punk scene of Bristol in the early 80s. Mouth was a short-lived outfit that put out just a couple of releases, but each one blazed a trail though leftfield percussive sounds, wave, weird jazz and electronics. Andy Guy and Rob Merrill were the main members with the likes of Nellie Hooper also in the band's orbit. This record is packed with tribal drumming and floating horns, broken dubs and avant-jazz but all with a proudly DIY attitude. It's packed with heady moments and wild steppers that havent aged a bit and still sound future.

Review: The always superb Sounds Of The City comes through here with some freshness and newness here via their newly minted 'Sounds Of The City, Dark' series. It finds the French outfit Catalogue debuting on the label with a sound that brings a different perspective to the new post-punk movement. Their sound is a mixing pot of an array of different influences and what you get is music that will get you nodding to the grooves while your mind gets lost exploring synthetic elements, angular guitar riffs, robotic rhythms and lovely deep bass.

Review: Independent radio institution NTS has a lot to answer for. Not least introducing its legions of loyal listeners across the world to the mighty (or, perhaps more appropriately, curious Staalfagel). The result of some serious crate digging, as per usual for the platform, the Swedish post punk and New Wave outfit - Erik Fritjofsson, Petter Brundell and Micke Kjell - reflect how broad the digital station's music policy can be, and how important it is for things to be rediscovered and saved from obscurity.
Forming in 1980, the three piece only released two full length records in their time, alongside a handful of singles and EPs. Utan Rymddrakt Pa Uranus is among the most enigmatic and delightful, here presented in two parts with an edit by Gary The Tall. As early adopters of synths and drum machines, the cosmic dance-pop sound here might be rudimentary today, but also has this real sense of adventure and breaking new ground about it.

Review: Mac Demarco has a certain cachet as a happy-go-lucky slacker, with campfire atmosphere to spare and chorus pedals set to stun, somewhat in the manner of a millennial Cat Stevens. The songs on 'This Old Dog' go way beyond - focusing on his relationships with family and friends, they're in equal parts mature, affecting and memorable in their melodic sleight-of-hand. Certainly the lazy charm and laid-back goofiness are present and correct here, but 'This Old Dog' displays a genuine reflective depth and emotional resonance.

Review: Justin Vernon's voice has always been the people's main attraction to Bon Iver, and the fact his pseudonym even exists is certainly no coincidence. As fragile and heartbroken as it is forthright and experienced, when you're wearing a shredded heart on sleeve and confessing to all your deepest insecurities using a pen name can help immensely. Album number four perhaps proves this more than any of its predecessors. While the three previous chapters have all made his thoughts, feelings, insecurities and fears clear, this one takes honesty to new heights. Combining the frail electronics that have gradually slipped their way into his back catalogue with the acoustics of his earliest, rocket-to-fame efforts, it's a culmination of all that's been in the truest sense. Perhaps even more intimate than the breathtakingly personal "For Emma, Forever Ago", "i,i" is a striking work to say the least.

Review: Mr Bongo serves up the new collaboration here from Mandaworld (bereft known as Amanda Hicks) and partner Matthew Tavares, who is Matty of the much loved jazz outfit BADBADNOTGOOD. The pair have a magical musical synergy that really shines through here as they interweave and uplift one another. 'Warm You' is a real classic that fits in the canon of timeless ballads. It is a dreamy pop song doused in oodles of reverberating guitars and mellow shoegaze vibes that evokes a world of nostalgic feelings. 'Spoonfeed' is just as warm and lush but a little more subdued.

Review: Philadelphia band Stereo League (which is comprised of childhood friends Alex Savoth and Dan King) always looks to discover new genres whether working alone or with like-minded collaborators. This latest 7" is another on the synth and soul label Eraserhood Sound and features two more timeless sounds. The opener 'Operator, Please' a delightfully seductive and reminiscent of 70s soul and funk, while on the back, 'Seasons of Trouble' layers in the Philly soul, with fancy funk sounds and classic yet compelling grooves.

Review:  If you read any interviews around Elbow's ninth studio album, Guy Garvey's open admissions that this is the Bury, Greater Manchester band's most patient and hushed work to date are unlikely to pass you by. The frontman is clearly pleased with what the outfit managed to pull together, offering a great example of why remote working during lockdown actually led to some pretty inspired projects if you look in the right places.

Whether Flying Dream 1 would have sounded like this had it been made through a standard studio process is a big question mark we're not in a position to answer. The group themselves are probably still pondering that one. What is clear is that it feels like a coherent, complete work, which is somewhat at odds with the reality of members contributing individual elements from different locations. Technicalities aside, this is a step away from the grandeur Elbow are often associated with, and distinctly void of gnarl, and it sounds excellent.

Review: Since first emerging in 2011 via the globally renowned Bella Union stable, Swedish indie rock duo I Break Horses have certainly set out their stall. The pair, better known as Maria Linden and Fredrik Balck, have - among other things - hit the road to support both M83 and Sigur Ros in the years between then and now. Indicative of their incredibly textured and subtly all-consuming approach to soundscapes, while this release comprises two remixes it still feels every bit a Horses outing.

There's just so much timbre to get to grips with. 'Death Engine' belongs in a twisted math rock dream, as grungy and rough as it is epic and emotional, if you look beneath the immediate discordance and distortion. Mythologen's take on 'Turn' is a cleaner second act, taking the pace down a notch and removing chaos, leaving only calm and serene harmonies of real beauty behind.

Review: Happenstance can be a fortuitous element. A union-funded single discovered in a dusty store, a long disbanded band found, leads to unreleased post punk dubs in a box of unreleased demos.

Formed during the mid-80s in the downbeat town of Walsall, their music is a blend of disparate influences from 50's crooners, blues and reggae to Killing Joke and The Bunnymen; Ron's Neighbours were out of step with the perfect pop of the C86 indie generation.

Their only single - "To The Fight" - a split 7" was supported by the Trade Union Resource Centre, while many gigs were benefits for striking miners, leading to a loyal local following.

Engineered by Ozzy Osbourne's brother Tony, tracks were recorded at an 8 track bedroom / home studio, while a terraced house served as rehearsal space. Here Ron Next Door was born. When a tape recorder was left running it captured the long-suffering neighbour for posterity. His outburst gave the band and song, its name.

Experimenting with drum machines, the resultant jam track, here in its "Alternative Mix", languished unheard until now. Ron's 'Black Country' tones lead to driving bass / percussion against crashing Stratocasters and repeating, refrained vox - a post punk dub turned symphony.

The B side, Sitting On Top of the World, is an indie anthem, becoming their theme, a blend of grandiose and banal that characterised their songs.

Review: Emotional Rescue returns to early 1980s Manchester with the previously unreleased music of Michael James Pollard and his beautiful distillation of indie pop in Too Confusing and bedsit cover version of Ashford and Simpson's Surrender.

While studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic, (MJ) Pollard lived and played in a band in a ramshackle house in Walley Range. In the cellar studio he would write and record his own songs using their guitars, fretless bass and keys, as well as his own Casio VL-Tone VL-1 and Simmons Clap Trap to augment his drums onto a 4 track TEAC.

By 1983, and now solo, he was recording out of Dislocation Dance's studio (ERC111), had secured a Peel Session and via Factory Records' Lindsay Reade, was discussing with Fundacao Atlantica about releasing an album.

Working with singer Sioux Goddard as a duo, they put down 8 songs in 2 weeks in summer '84. However, Fundacao Atlantica's financial difficulties and soon closure meant the songs were lost until now.

Recovered off the original tapes and lovingly restored, Too Confusing captures the optimism of the sessions, a summer love melody of forlorn youth. Surrender accompanies, recorded back in that cellar in '81, with friend Stephanie Danziger on vocals, its lo-fi simplicity is a perfect take on an all-time classic, making this a newly prized gem of British indie pop history.

Review: For the first time since their Four Against Fate album, Nightingales have recorded new music. 'Ten Bob Each Way' / 'Use Your Loaf' is a limited 7" single. The A-side is a beguiling bit of lo-fi post-punk energy, and the b-side features Stewart Lee and Nick Pynn serving up a cover that was originally intended for a Nightingales tribute album. This release kick starts what is said to be a lengthy campaign of reissues by Robert Lloyd's band The Nightingales after they've been returned to the spotlight thanks to the Stewart Lee-written film King Rocker. It told the fascinating tale of the unique band over a four decade career and was recently shown on Sky Arts.

Review: Beautify Junkyards and Ghost Box label co-head Jim Jupp is Belbury Poly here as he serves up a cover of The Incredible String Band song 'Painting Box.' It was original by written by Mike Heron and is a beautiful piece of acoustic guitar work with tender vocals and sweeping string sounds that come over like an adult lullaby, all soothing sounds and enchanting moods. The flipside is an original by Beautify Junkyards, 'Ritual in Transfigured Time,' which was produced by Joao Branco Kyron and is another perfectly lilting groove for lazy days.

Review: When Marie Davidson announced last year that she would be, "retiring from club music", many wondered what she'd do next. Renegade Breakdown, her first album recorded with a full band (L'Oeuil Nu), answers that question. It sees the Canadian artist and her new collaborators deliver suitably arresting, personal and ear-catching songs built on mixing and matching a surprisingly wide variety of musical inspirations, from Blondie, classic disco and mutilated heavy metal guitars, to Kraftwerk, Billie Holliday, Fleetwood Mac and Daft Punk. It's a big shift for the previously highly experimental artist, but thanks to her skill as both a a producer and performer, one that works magnificently well.

Review: Morrissey is arguably the most divisive British pop artist working today. Some loathe him, others stand by amid countless controversial statements. Few would deny his place in the pantheons of music, though, even if you feel it's really about The Smiths, creating an unusual quandary for the listener - dividing their own opinion, not just separating that from others who don't think the same way. In many ways 'I Am Not A Dog On A Chain' is the album he needed to make, revealing an artist known for egotism as finally accepting some limitations and realities. 'My Hurling Days Are Done' and 'The Secret Of Music' both lament the passing of time, for example. But then in many ways, musically speaking, what's here is his most bold and striking album in decades. A real testament to the broad understanding of what makes a powerful track powerful, to say the least.

Review: Based in London, UK, but originally hailing from Argentina, Malena Zavala is nothing if not disinterested in picking a style and sticking with it. Following on from her 2018 debut album, 'Aliso', 'La Yarara' again sees her combining some bold and often disparate genres, and playing with language - Spanish and English - to dazzling effect. The result being a record that's devastatingly effective and equally original. 'What If I' is a positive, upbeat and hypnotic pop lullaby. 'Compay' is saturated in a bluesy atmosphere, melding this with downtempo electronica. 'I'm Leaving Home' is a lackadaisical, whispered slice of reflective chill out. The title track is South American exoticism, canned and then opened on record. A huge talent diving deeper into sonic possibilities, and following what sounds good rather than familiar.

Review: Album number six from the Ruffians certainly means business. Honest and painfully on-point in terms of overarching themes, its sonically highly polished and - while not a concept record - incredibly well conceived as a coherent whole. A rock 'n' roll offering that grabs your body to make it move while boring into your mind and soul to make you think and feel. Word on the street is this was some three years in the making, and it certainly feels like an un-rushed process will have led to this package. Tracks kick and punch in all the right places, but they never forget the need for balance, peaks and troughs. It's more than likely that you'll walk away from this with the scale of the anthems cemented to the mind, though, rather than the more tender moments. After all, it's a masterclass in major key melodies, and a striking example of the powerful effect those have on listeners.

Review: Prepare to be confounded and confused, but more importantly hugely entertained. If this is your first encounter with The Homesick let's put it like this - the Dutch guitar-driven eccentrics baffled plenty with their debut long form, 2017's "Youth Hunt", and are back on similarly leftfield form here.

In many ways "The Big Exercise" is a more logical record, and it's just as musically accomplished. Calling on elements of post punk and epic wall-of-sound fare, while still managing to include folksy nuances (or even full tracks, such as opener "What's In Store"), it's the fact the band set these instrumentations to such bizarre themes that makes the whole thing so unexpected. But on this second album subject matters are more coherent and contextualised, from struggling with sleep paralysis to that eternal sense of longing. It's an enormously inventive work by an outfit that don't seem to care about boundaries or genre rules.

Review: Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and Oh Wonder have clearly attempted to distill that idea into their latest long form. So hard to pin down, the work here straddles many genres, all of which are accessible in their own way. Yet it never fully commits; universal adoration is clearly the goal.

For dedicated fans "No One Else Can Wear Your Crown" may be jarring. The record sees Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West, et al, explore avenues that aren't always the obvious matches for their sweet pop lullabies. There's more than a smattering of EDM throughout, see those power drops and all that synth discordance. "Nothing But You", arguably the finest here, sees contemporary R&B and shiny hip hop flows come to the fore. Of course there's plenty of Oh Wonder-ness too, "Happy" being one example, but this will be remembered as their most daring and different to date.

Review: Change lies at the very heart of "Carousel", the third and perhaps most-eagerly anticipated Clock Opera album to date. After all, it has been a long time coming. Spurred on by the personal experiences of Guy Connelly, if you're looking for something to buy loved ones as they enter parenthood for the first time, this may be it.

That's not a reference to dad rock or housewife pop. In the grand scheme of electronic music this is certainly at the safer end, informed by Brian Eno's ambience or "Homogenic"-era Bjork as much as sprawling, classically-informed science fiction. But it's anything but throwaway. Instead, it's the overarching themes that mark this one out as the ideal gift for those in periods of great transition. It looks at the challenges of newfound fatherhood, considers sacrifices necessary to alter behavioural patterns and asks what identity really means. Profound stuff.

Review: Emotional Rescue return to the music of cult British group Furniture, shining a light on this unique band's extended 12" mixes and alternate takes. In the 80s tradition, these versions shrug off commercial concerns for something more exciting - long run times and space to tease FX and processes that a radio-friendly single wouldn't allow. "I Can't Crack (Broken Mix)" is an epic crescendo, while the instrumental mix of "Throw Away The Script" locks into a scratchy percussive workout anchored by a moody bassline. The sprightly piano lines and cascading sax on "Dancing The Hard Bargain" are a delight to lose yourself in, while "Bullet" strikes a somber but stirring tone to close the EP out.

Review: London's krautrock, prog, electronica, free jazz and funk rock fusion specialist returns with his fourth full length for the mighty City Slang! "Depayse" remains fully laced with Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab's subtle Sudanese flair, singing praises and the word of love in "Everyone". The title track sees ambient jazz percussion give a giant runway for a massive guitar solo to take flight while album closer "Mango" delivers something of a West London-Caribbean vibe. In between is an album full of dips and climbs through the hill tops of a sunny afternoon somewhere in the feel-good malaise of Sinkane's multi-instrumental talents.

Review: This Record Store Day 2019 exclusive finds Mumford and Sons at work in the famous Electric Lady Studios in New York. It was there that they decided to serve up four carefully reimagined versions of tracks from their acclaimed Delta album. Each one shows a different, incredibly tender side. 'Woman' is first with its gentle piano keys and closely mic-ed vocals soothing the soul, while 'Guiding Light' has more upbeat but still lo-fi guitar riffs and 'Wild Heart' is another showcase of the beautifully raw and emotive vocals of lead singer Marcus Oliver Johnston Mumford. 'If I Say' is a rousing, heart swelling closer.

Review: Olden Yolk are fresh psychedelic pop-rock-folk and downbeat-pop duo Shane Butler and Caity Shaffer outta New York. Bringing together stomp boxing guitar rhythms with synthesized sounds, space echoes and other trippy textures, the band's work finds itself in a middle ground that's somewhere in the midst of The Go-Betweens or Yo La Tengo. "Living Theatre" presents the pair with their second album and it follows last year's self-titled LP, this time delivering hypnagogic folk and kosmische rhythms, expanding and refining Butler's work with former band Quilt. Our picks being the dreamy episode in "Meadowlands" and the shoegazing surf folk of "Grand Palais".

Review: The 21st Century has been quiet thus far for New Order, with only two full albums to date, and only an out-takes compilation in the last decade. Moreover, 'Music Complete' marks their first album to date without founding bassist Peter Hook, and the return of Gillian Gilbert to the ranks. Yet from this turbulence and inertia they've somehow managed to create a collection of songs that rank as their strongest set since 'Technique' in 1989. VIbrant, upbeat and colourful, yet driven by the same mix of electronic experimentation and effortless pop suss that characterised their '80s heyday, 'Music Complete' is the sound of a timeless and unique force newly revitalised.

Review: Released back in 20916, Thanya Iyer's debut album Do You Dream was a gleefully hard-to-pigeonhole affair, with the artist's sweet and evocative vocals rising above a surprisingly eclectic, and at points experimental, musical palette. Kind, her belated follow-up, distils this formula further, with the Montreal singer-songwriter variously combining her evocative vocals with elements of lo-fi jazz, experimental pop, sample-based electronica, pastoral folk, stirring harps and strings, intense jazz-rock noise, ghostly ambient and dusty, slack-tuned trip-hop. That it hangs together wonderfully and entertains throughout, despite its disparate musical directions, is testament to Iyer's growing skill as a performer and producer.

Review: The Goa Express are bright young hopefuls in the arena of bombastic British indie pop. Following in the footsteps of Coldplay, Keane et al, these lads from Manchester have a sound which is made for radio play and massive stages - they're destined to be huge. Following up their Second Time single for Ra-Ra-Rok Records, they're back with this new song which plays out like a rallying call for unity in a distinctly un-united world. 'Everybody In The UK' has soaring choruses and a bright, hopeful sound which will surely send the band further down the road to stardom.

Review: We first cottoned on to Chew My Cheeks when Prima Queen unveiled their simple but wonderfully well shot, London-showcasing video. Produced by The Big Moon, we watched as the two faces behind this musical project guided us round a UK capital via dance, delivery of lines to camera, and cutaway shots of high rise buildings and the Emirates Sky Line - arguably the world's greatest transport network folly.

But what's the music itself like? Well, there's a real sense of effortless cool pervading the whole affair (how very Big Smoke), sparse, twanging guitar and shuffling rhythm conjuring images of warm afternoons in warm months, days when soft indie rock like this make sense. Flip it to find the larger, far more expansive sounding 'Invisible Hand', a song that takes emotional resonance to about 11 with its pared back verses and larger choruses.

Review: As the title suggests, this excellent collection gathers together tracks from three live sessions the Sisters of Mercy recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale studios between 1982 and '84, during the formative years of their lengthy career. The first session, recorded for John Peel in August 1982, contains a quartet of early live favourites, including their popular cover of the Stooges' '1969', while the second - a session for David 'Kid' Jenson' - boasts versions of tracks from the classic goth-rock EP The Reptile House (as well as a surprise Dolly Parton cover). Best of all though are the tracks from their 1984b Peel Session, which were laid to tape around the same time as the Leeds outfit was recording its debut album.