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Features 2019: Albums of the Year 2019: 40 Songs 15 Songs Album of the week Five Right Now Interviews My pet Track by track

2019: Albums of the Year

2019: 40 Songs

15 Songs

Album of the week

Five Right Now

Interviews

My pet

Track by track

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Our ‘Album of the Week’ review of Anna Burch’s ‘If You’re Dreaming’

Our album of the week review of Dana Gavanski’s ‘Yesterday is Gone’

‘New Dreams’ is the eighth album Jófríður Ákadóttir (JFDR) has released in eight years. It is only her second full-length under the JFDR moniker, the other six emerging from projects like Pascal Pinon, a folk duo she formed with her twin sister at the age of 14, Samaris, an electronic trio she started at the […]

Our album of the week review of Snarls’ ‘Burst’

Our album of the week review of ‘Sour Widows’

Our album of the week review of Lanterns on the Lake’s ‘Spook The Herd’

Our album of the week review of Fair Mother’s full-length ‘Separate Lives’

A review of Babehoven’s new EP ‘Demonstrating Visible Differences of Height’

An album review of Squirrel Flower’s ‘I Was Born Swimming’.

A review of Good Good Blood’s new album ‘At Your Mercy’, out on Fox Food Records & Team Love Records

A review of The Innocence Mission’s new album ‘See You Tomorrow’.

Review of The Just Joans album The Private Memories and Confessions of The Just Joans

“What if I have got more love than I know what to do with?” Inge Chiles aka ings asks on ‘Kiss Your Heroes’. And the Seattle-based artist does appear to possess a deeper reservoir of love than most; for herself, for her friends, for her community, for humans at large. Indeed, ings even taps this […]

Last October I ordered LISA/LIZA’s ‘Momentary Glance’ on vinyl. An Orindal Records sampler CD felt like a bonus, when I found it at the bottom of the package. The only CD player I own is in my car – a red convertible smart car, I know. I still remember audibly saying, “What’s this?”, when the […]

It’s ironic that Brigitte Nagar (Common Holly) sings “You’re like a snake in the middle of a regular day / There was that time / I just tried to catch it / But it slithered away” on “Joshua Snakes”. As ‘When I Say to You Black Lightning’ sounds as if it were born in the […]

By Sage Shemroske Great Grandpa draw from the tarot deck when handing us their second full length LP, ‘Four of Arrows’. In a tarot deck the Four of Arrows are a sign that you’re in need of introspection, quiet, recovery. The card indicates faith in counsel or help. And so it goes. Though the wetness […]

By Anjali DasSarma Big Thief only released the subtly immersive ‘UFOF’ back in May, and today (October 11) they return with the equally enrapturing ‘Two Hands’. UFOF possessed an eerie and beautifully unsettling quality, while ‘Two Hands’ is a comforting and dialectic example of how truly beautiful music can be. Adrienne Lenker herself dubbed ‘Two […]

On ‘Turtle Taxi’, Suggested Friends bracingly glare elites in the eye whilst making music that’s outrageously fun. Self-defined as “a queer choir of mostly lesbians”, Suggested Friends interweave tongue-in-cheek masculinity with their generous blend of country, jangle pop and folk-rock. It’s a collection of ten bombastic, hook-filled bangers; as if nobody in the studio ever said, […]

Time-lapse cameras are often situated in forests to capture a plant’s growth from seed to full bloom. The final product, often seen in David Attenborough documentaries, is electrifying to the senses, the lapsing of the frames making it appear like the plant flourished in minutes rather than months. A Field Guides song is kind of […]

Griots hold an esteemed position in West African society. They are reservoirs of truth, maintaining the histories of families and land. They tell and re-tell these stories to music, keeping the people within them alive, and enlisting pride in their relatives. If Molly Sarlé happened to be born in Senegal, Mali or the like, she would’ve […]

By Sage Shemroske ‘Carnage Bargain’ opens on a fire siren with the full onslaught that is ‘Face First’, a raucous track that’s hyper-aware of what’s around the corner. From the off the Paranoyds establish their ability to take up room, there simply isn’t space for any other sound to exist once they’ve signaled go. ‘Carnage […]

No idea is a bad idea in the mind of Bonnie Stewart (Bonniesongs). The Irish art-folk virtuoso hits record on voice notes whenever one makes itself known and believes from there, it’s just about coming back to it and giving it time. It’s a mindset that permeates her debut ‘Energetic Mind’; with repetition and expansion […]

When Kurt Vile sang “Walkin’ in a pretty daze”, little did he know he’d just perfectly described the feeling of listening to Boy Scouts’ third full-length, ‘Free Company.’ Taylor Vick’s (Boy Scouts) illusory soundscapes bathe the listener in a near-permanent splendour. Album-wise its closest sibling is Sun June’s nigh-on perfect ‘Years’, in that both records […]

Ghost Orchard’s ‘bunny’ is an absurd, fragmented account of falling in love that pays little attention to chronology. A rainbow-like assortment of electronic-come-rnb gems, ‘bunny’ percolates quietly before assaulting your senses entirely, just as much as dopamine overtook its creator, Sam Hall, at the tender age of 18. So amazed was he at the intensity […]

Made by three best friends who met at a band camp, Lilith’s debut album ‘Safer Off’ is the sound of a lasting friendship built on patience, knowledge and intimacy. So comfortable are the trio in one another’s company that each band member is able to express their musicianship without fear. An artistic freedom that has […]

It’d be fair to say that Merival’s ‘Lesson‘ comprises of eight arrangements rather than songs. Her baroque waltzes indicative of an artist at play, resisting the modern-day pop song structures to fit in a classical mould occupied by Kate Bush and Joanna Newsom. It’s telling of Toronto’s Anna Horvath, the inherently curious artist behind Merival. […]