Monday 30 July 2018

Friday 27 July 2018

Review - New Optimism - Amazon To LeFrak






New Optimism - Amazon To LeFrak (Phantom Limb)

DL

Out Now


Review by Mikey.

Summer is in full flow and sailing in with that flow comes the neon dream that is the multi-talented instrumentalist Miho Hatori. Her newest project, New Optimism and the new release, Amazon To LeFrak, has put the EP firmly and colourfully back into the word epic.

From her days working at Flash Disc Ranch to founding Cibo Matto with Yuka Honda, she has set gloriously constructed paths through the musical Universe. She has not only collaborated with the likes of Smokey Hormel, Beastie Boys, Gorillaz and Handsome Boy Modelling School, she has taken the ingredients she collected with them and created a dish of pure sonic genius.

The EP kicks off with the deep percussive jungle beats of Dr My-Ho, the bass tones and rich vocals start to draw us into a cartoon World. It is no accident that she has been the voice of Gorillaz' guitarist Noodle. She IS Noodle. 
Dropping out of the city sky on its own private helicopter, Jet Setters has all the makings of club classic. The driving rolling drum beats and looping lyrics will keep you hooked for the whole summer and beyond.

Skip to King Of Monsters and you could easily be skating through downtown Tokyo or New York. This is where urban trip-hop pumps, street vendors call, neon signs fizz and Shibuya-kei filters through the haze. Miho has taken us on many interesting journeys throughout her musical career and this EP feels like we have arrived on a completely different planet.

I often imagine that my life has somehow turned into a cartoon, where we have the freedom to build a beautiful and crazy World where anything is possible and all of the usual creative boundaries that hold us back just seem to drop away. Miho Hatori has managed this with Amazon To LeFrak. If my life was a cartoon, I would want this to be its soundtrack.







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Listen! - Yazoo - Don’t Go (1982 BBC Session Official Audio)









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Sunday 22 July 2018

Listen! - Diane Marie Kloba - Joanna








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Watch! - Watoo Watoo - Au Fond Des Allées









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Listen! - Ian Chang - Inhaler (Grip Tight Remix)









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Listen! - The Paint - Change












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Listen! - J.G. Hackett - Now Experience Each Other's Deaths Through Social Media









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Listen! - Richey Hackett - The Ambulance









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Listen! - Osiris Saline - Tend to It









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Listen! - Branch Line Idols - Decision For You









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Review - TQ Zine - Covering The Covers






Covering The Covers (TQ Zine)

3 x CD (Sold Out) / DL

Out Now

Music Zine releases mammoth three disc experimental/improv compilation. 

People of a certain age will remember that before blogs on the internet, we had fanzines.  They were lovingly assembled by amateur publishers, fans and hopefuls and, given away or sold simply as a hobby and to cover costs.  They were rife in city centres and football grounds.  They were a means of unofficial communication and of personal views that often aligned with your own, they were fun.

There seems to be a resurgence of zines of late, particularly on the music scene and more specifically with the alternative and experimental genres.  Once such zine is TQ, started by one Andy Wood, it focusses specifically on left field tastes and has grown in one year from four sides of stapled A5 to a professional looking publication with almost 200 subscribers from the UK, Japan, America, Australia and Finland to name but a few.  TQ has hit a nerve.

To mark the first anniversary of existence, TQ has assembled a thirty-two track compilation of wide-ranging tastes all encompassed under the ‘ no audience underground’ – a term coined by Rob Hayler of Radio Free Midwich – whereby the scene of these such artists ‘is’ the audience.  The concept was simple – three artworks by Ash Cooke were distributed and artists were asked to submit racks based on their interpretation of them.  It’s an enthralling concept and one which seems to be thriving. 

With Covering The Covers, every alternative genre seems to be included and you may recognise some of the names from our own pages – Nat Lyon, Radio Europa, Chow Mwng resting shoulder to shoulder with unknowns who you will grow to love.  The majority of the collection is termed as ‘noise’ with nods to drone and ambient, with Lyon contributing his own style of pastoral punk, and the tracklistin is skilfully done with tracks flowing into each other as with the reverb heavy Xqui and Joined By Wire.

Tracks like Sleep Sleep Sleep Go To Sleep (Knives) are like nothing you will have heard before and hilarious at the same time as being slightly disturbing.  Number Poem For TQ (Posset) maybe reminds of I Before E Except After C from Yazoo’s 1982 debut album and, the expletive rambling of Halo Dragonfly on Quartin Shite x3 is an absolute joy. As with any album of this sort, it’s difficult to start to pick favourites but anyone with a name like The Daughters Of Conceptual Sex Death deserve a mention.

This is an album for the challenged and the challenging, the disturbed and the disturbing.  A mammoth collection for a mammoth mind.  The triple cd of the limited 100 edition is already sold out but the final copy, together with a host of goodies, is currently being auctioned for charity via the TQ Twitter account here:

The advice is to subscribe to this zine, if nothing else to enjoy the seemingly endless stream of giveaways and enjoy an experimental scene that just simply refuses to die.








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Published on Louder Than War 19/07/18 - here









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Listen! - Deilcasession - Illusions Part 1









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Saturday 21 July 2018

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Listen! - Sarah Davachi - Evensong









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Listen! - Greetings Music Lover (On The Wire documentary)









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Review - When ‘Airy Met Fairy - Glow







When ‘Airy Met Fairy - Glow

CD / DL

Out Now


Contemporary Nordic duo release debut album. 

Describing vocalist Thorunn Egilsdottir as a Bjork sound-alike is lazy journalism, being Icelandic does not automatically grant that comparison and any review doing so should be instantly dismissed and, any mention of Kate Bush is insulting to any singer who happens to be female, it shows lack of imagination.  Instead think more of Norwegian Ane Brun, delicate tones, sometimes sounding twee but always enthralling, like a childs nursery rhyme or bedtime song.  Accompanied by Mike Koster from Luxembourg the partnership of the delightfully named When ‘Airy Met Fairy is complete.

Glow won’t burst your eardrums, its subtlety at its finest – tinkling keys and tantalising synth swirls provide an album that will demand multiple listens.  It’s stunning in its simplicity and beautiful at the same time.  It is sleepy and calming and lazy and, it glows.  Thorunn has a voice that will warm the cockles of any heart, it would soften the hardest of souls.  Glow is the kind of album that will be heard on your rise to Heaven (should you venture in that direction) and will be accompanied by harp playing angels and banks of choral cherubs as you gracefully float around the emptiness and tranquillity.

Formed in 2015 and ‘discovered’ the following year by Icelandic musician Bardi Johannsson their debut single, Intoxicated appears on Glow early doors.  It has a rare thing on the album, a drumbeat, which entices a toe-tap from the first beat and soon has a catchy vocal and chorus which is decidedly difficult to shake.  Don’t be surprised to find yourself humming it around the office to your bewildered work colleagues or attempting to raise your voice to match the scales provided.

The intention of When ‘Airy Met Fairy with Glow was to create an album of near nothingness and step away  from the overproduced, epic sounding music of today and it is mission accomplished.  Shimmering and glistening like an overflowing bowl of glitter, it is a quite delightful piece of work.  Picking highlights is difficult as each of the twelve tracks nestling in at a short thirty-three minutes is worthy of mention.  The bass accompanying Until Your Season Dries is heart wrenching and the album opener 123 Magic is pure joy.

Glow is music for relaxing, and maybe meditation.  It will help you drift away to a soothing and palliative placec that you maybe didn’t think still exists.  It is, quite simply, a work of art and a feather pillowed blow to the face should there ever be one.  Adorable.







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Published on Louder Than War 11/07/18 - here









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