The Stockholm-based composer edges into metallic wave-like dissonance, using organ and guitar to explore points at which sonic clarity starts to mess with our spatial awareness. [Sep 2019, p.91]

KoKoKo! wield improvised technology with the deftness of touch to create the kind of pop music you'd expect to hear in the best post-punk disco in heaven. [Sep 2019, p.94]

This is long-form drone perfection. [Sep 2019, p.91]

Pure Bloom is a cleaner, more austere work, yet just as emotionally overpowering. [Sep 2019, p.95]

The group's fusion of emo-core anguish, riot grrrl rancour and bruised indie-rock is the perfect vehicle for songs channelling heartache, rage and betrayal, but the ban's true gift lies in fashioning this catharsis into well-crafted songs. [Sep 2019, p.90]

Even though her dreamscapes are surreal, there are moments that jolt. [Sep 2019, p.90]

Anima is his third solo album, outside of soundtracks, and it's his richest. [Sep 2019, p.87]

The likes of Strange Quiet, wit its pretty, pointillist synths and wobbly drones, the stately crystal guitar-flecked Capsule, or the tremulous, opalescent Under The Moon, serve to deepen the original album's strange, wonderstruct mood. [Aug 2019, p.108]

[Mykal] Rose's takes on Screaming Jay-via-Nina Simone's I Put A Spell on You, Roosevelt Sykes' 44 Guns and Johnny Otis's Bad Luck Shadow are superb roots with Rose's voice imbued with passion and sincerity. The remainder falls miserably short though, due to mismatched material, misdirection and worst, liberal use of incongruous heavy blues-rock guitar. [Aug 2019, p.97]

Audience delight is palpable. [Aug 2019, p.98]

The case is made for this wilful outfit's prog-jazz with a hardcore punk heart. [Aug 2019, p.90]

Hard Rain's warm, overriding lo-fi aesthetic is a neat contrast to the no-nonsense virtuosity of his group outings. [Jul 2019, p.89]

There's an artful intricacy to her lo-fi pop. [Aug 2019, p.92]

Highlights include an Afrobeat makeover of Curtis Mayfield's Billy Jack and a soul-jazz revamp of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. [Aug 2019, p.90]

The whole album suggests the assured songwriting will in time be matched by the sloughing-off of any nods to the familiar. One to keep a beady eye on. [Aug 2019, p.96]

It's something of a lucky dip, lurching between lean electro jams with a half-finished feel, robust MC skills, Young Fathers-like melds of chants and bleeding synths, and the breathy exhortations of Maskandi guitar legend Phuzekhemisi. [Aug 2019, p.97]

With several songs appearing twice covered by different acts, the malleability and strength of The Midnight Organ Fight material is clear. [Aug 2019, p.88]

It's a globe-trotting celebration of jerky, angular tempos. [Jul 2019, p.86]

Sauser-Monnig spins a gorgeously spare, frail web, as if she and instrumental allies Nick Sanborn and Phil Cook only pressed record as dawn was breaking. [Jul 2019, p.95]

Expertly sequenced as a narrative of lethargy, collapse and recovery, Purple Mountains is ultimately an album about return. It is the sound of David Berman coming back from the cold and converting it to a welcoming, lyrical warmth. ... Prepare to be taken in. [Aug 2019, p.86]

The result is the right step forwards at the right momement. [Aug 2019, p.96]

There is quiet drama here--especially on the gothic crawl of Spiders or Home's extended inner-space walk--but sometimes The Soft Cavalry struggle to project it beyond their own moody boundaries, or to find that extra charge. [Aug 2019, p.92]

It's an unlikely explosion of X-Ray Spex, The Raincoats, Oliver Mtukudzi and Stella Chiweshe, but it's a winning one. [Aug 2019, p.97]

Although the assured songs are beautifully framed by sparkling arrangements, To Each His Own suggests--as BNQT had too--Pulido is sidelining what might be more rewarding for listeners: getting on with Midlake to help realise his musical vision in a less obvious manner. [Apr 2019, p.91]

The Brilliance of I Was Real is visceral rather than intellectual. It lies in how 75 Dollar Bill locate the possibilities of transformation and release, of physical and spiritual abandon, in border-destroying party music. [Aug 2019, p.94]

Mulcahy is a heavy-duty Randy Newman for our times. [Jul 2019, p.95]

If these tracks often sound like bejewelled, undiscovered relics then much of that is down to the tough musical palimpsest on which Bratten worked. [Aug 2019, p.93]

Visionary, exhausting, Dusk To Dawn is an extraordinary experience. [Jun 2019, p.95]