Album of the week: ings – Lullaby Rock

“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 […]

Album of the Week: Friendship – Dreamin’

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 […]

Album of the Week: Great Grandpa – Four of Arrows

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 […]

Album of the Week: Big Thief – Two Hands

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 […]

Album of the Week: Suggested Friends – Turtle Taxi

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, […]

Album of the Week: Field Guides – This is just a place

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 […]

Album of the week: Molly Sarlé – Karaoke Angel

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 […]

Album of the week: The Paranoyds – Carnage Bargain

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 […]

Album of the week: Bonniesongs – Energetic Mind

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 […]

Album of the week: Boy Scouts – Free Company

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 […]

Album of the Week: Ghost Orchard – bunny

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 […]

Album of the week: Lilith – Safer Off

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 […]

Album of the week: Merival – Lesson

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. […]

Album of the week: Florist – Emily Alone

Florist’s nature obsessed counterpart Adrianne Lenker, questioned whether we are part of the earth or simply observers of it on her solo album ‘abysskiss.’ Emily A Sprague, the songwriter behind Florist, is firmly in the former camp, “I am the ground” she declares on ‘Celebration.’ While Sprague is sure she’s part of the world, less […]

Album of the week: Ada Lea – what we say in private

By Anjali DasSarma Ada Lea’s music is like textures on a quilt, with different fabrics all meshing into one. On her debut indie rock album, “what we say in private,” released on Saddle Creek, Ada Lea is musician-come-property-developer treating each song like a house bought on the cheap, stripping it out entirely and rebuilding it […]

Album of the week: Joanna Sternberg – Then I Try Some More

Joanna Sternberg is a life saver. It was a quality they discerned in Elliot Smith when hearing him for the first time, a moment that inspired the then freelance musician to make the step centre-stage, writing and performing their own songs. A self-drawn portrait of their bedroom adorns the front cover and that’s indicative of […]

Album of the week: Erin Durant – Islands

On album opener ‘Rising Sun,’ Brooklyn-based singer Erin Durant casually sings “I’m going far / I’m going wide” in her balm-like voice. Those words are the mantra of ‘Islands,’ a wide-ranging exploration of lands and life. The music itself may be small-town and rooted in the traditions of the south, but its scale is immeasurable. […]

Album of the week: Flying Fish Cove – En Garde

After hearing ‘At Moonset’, Flying Fish Cove’s debut album, earlier this year, we couldn’t help but fall hopelessly in love with the Seattle quartet. With its jangling guitars and breezy soundscapes, ‘At Moonset’ laid out a sprawling island of joys in front of our love-struck eyes. We lost ourselves in it entirely. News of an […]

Album of the week: Julia Shapiro – Perfect Version

Julia Shapiro’s first solo album “Perfect Version,” is the picture of self-expression, tucked right in with filmic hooks and laid back vocals. With her band Chastity Belt, Shapiro makes music that’s angsty and wild in the best possible way, Perfect Version is much more introspective. The songs are homemade and warm, recorded in Shapiro’s flat. […]

Album of the week: Palehound – Black Friday

Ellen Kempner’s music has been a source of comfort to me for nearly half a decade now. Having first seen her back in 2016, with some band called Amber Arcades supporting, Kempner’s music has barely left my side, helping me navigate times both light and dark. From the moment Kempner sung ‘You made beauty a […]

Album of the Week: Christelle Bofale – Swim Team

In ‘Swim Team’, Congo-American songwriter Christelle Bofale has generated an all-consuming swirl. Rather than journeying from one destination to another, ‘Swim Team’ quite simply circles, its circuitous structures representing steam rising in the distance or the flow of a river changing directions as its water clashes against rocks. Bofale puts this formless, malleable flow down […]

Album of the Week: Slingshot Dakota – Heavy Banding

As Lorde reaches the halfway point of her show, just before she plays ‘Liability’, she takes a pew and launches into a huge speech: “It was such a simple thing, a million people had been in that situation before me, had been sitting in the back of a taxi, listening to a sad song, crying […]