Wire’s music is characterised by unusual structures and perspectives, an approach largely absent from Mind Hive, the post-punk group’s 17th studio album. The most prominent themes here are political, with mixed results. [Mar 2020, p.57

How literally Allen wants us to take his nod towards Herman Melville’s whale is left tantalisingly openended, although this tapestry of ghoulishly misremembered tales has an obvious parallel with Melville’s patchwork of story and allusion. [Apr 2020, p.49]

Song Of Co-Aklan is a more than welcome return from a puckish master of social observation and surreal manifesto: “Let’s Flood The Fairground” indeed. It isn’t a consoling album and its humour is biting at best, but as a way of getting through a bruised and confused new spring, it’s the perfect companion. [Apr 2021, p.52]

The album encompasses a wide range of moods. [Sep 2021, p.55]

This release is less spooky than its predecessors, and more earthy. ... Phantom Orchid” pulses with the austerity of the botany lab, but in places, Entangled Routes is possibly the first Ghost Box release that sounds almost…sexual? [Dec 2021, p.61]

Continuance is one of the better examples of their prodigiousness, its delights ranging from the piano glissando of “Reese’s Cup” to the fuzzy jazz fusion keyboards of “Kool & The Gang”. [Apr 2022, p.59]

The album is warm and lush, mixed and engineered by David Darlington, who has worked with Eddie Pamieri and Wayne Shorter. It’s a different side of The Arkestra in a convincing, throwback fashion – to a time when new jazz albums came fast and each was an event. [Nov 2022, p.68]

Deeply scored with pitch-black humour, concrete riffs and the mucus rattling squalling of vocalist Zack Weil, Oozing Wound shift effortlessly from the piledriver bludgeoning that motivates “Hypnic Jerk” to the more sustained instrumental fury of “Crypto Fash”, without surrendering any of their creative firepower or ability to surprise. [May 2023, p.60]

Their stew of disparate aesthetics may be lumpy, but it’s never mushy, and the quartet’s stylistic mix-ups are consistently engaging. [Jun 2024, p.57]

Jain finds an inviting languidity via the shimmering vocals and fluttering flute of “Infinite Delight” and “You Are Irresistible”, which rise together in warm and expectant plateaus. [Jul 2024, p.56]

“The Seal” is busy in a different mode – it sounds like it would fit in with the jazzy shugs of Cobra And Phases era Stereolab, until Barrow’s wobbly vocal comes in, like the perpetually lachrymose Peter Jefferies given a bit of a speedy kick. [Sep 2024, p.58]

The accompanying booklet is richly illustrated with pulpy paperbacks and other artefacts of the shadow side of hippie spirituality. In his quirky accompanying essay, curator Martin Callomon assures the listener that there’s much more where this came from, in the form of a playlist on the accursed music streaming platform Spotify – undoubtedly the most unholy thing about this entire affair. [Sep 2024, p.65]

At times, as on “For Stars Of The Air”, they sound like an electronic post-punk project a la The Soft Moon. At others, they become the band in a spaghetti western saloon, soundtracking impending demise on “Last Resort Of The Gambling Man” with sun-drenched rock moves. [Oct 2024, p.52]

Most of the 18 cuts clock under two minutes, long enough to showcase just how fresh and creative Raczynski still is, yet short enough to feel as concentrated jolts of energy. [Jan/Feb 2025, p.88]

As the work progresses, the architectural aspects of English’s music become apparent and alive, with the aural suggestion of fluid movement within rigid structures, frames that can hold and refract spatial mysteries. By “V” and “VI” the movement of amorphous sonic forms becomes magisterial, the air, increasingly heavenly. [Mar 2025, p.48]

The way these four strong musical personalities making up the current quartet are moving forward while acknowledging their history gives Thirteen an extra dimension. [Apr 2026, p.56]

Triplicate’s greatest triumph is to strip cheap sentiment from the poetry by dimming the lacquer of the brass and muting the swagger of the singer, leaving the songs to crackle like revenant vignettes in the wireless of the mind. [May 2017, p.63]

A splendid piece of work; compelling even when shorn of its conceptual and procedural backdrop, and infinitely more invigorating when considered as one with its making. [#205, p.58]

The most interesting thing about this music isn't so much that it exists in 2013, more that there still seems to be a fundamental need for it. [Feb 2013, p.58]

Opener “Reverance” gives us a great deal--tremolo string flourishes and swirling synthesizers, filter gates as grand as castle keeps that slowly open up to reveal lush vegetation within--but of percussion it gives us none. From there on, the album offers up interplanetary R&B. [Jul 2017, p.62]

It’s no radical departure, but Gamble nonetheless conjures a new and unsettling sense of richness from differently focused materials. [Oct 2017, p.52]

Flamagra is still more accessible than either Quiet or Dead! and this is most likely due to Ellison’s choice of vocal collaborators. [Jul 2019, p.49]

The record’s surfaces are highly polished and glisten with a near futurist glow that’s only occasionally interrupted by percussion, most affecting when those pristine surfaces recede to emphasise the melodic lines that dance over them. “Vanity” lets ominous synths rumble while ornate electronics flourish above while the reverberating motif of “Tasakuba” is potent with longing and desire. [Jul 2021, p.69]

The whole album sounds less written, performed and recorded, more like it’s streaming directly from Thundercat’s brain to the listener’s. [Apr 2017, p.57]

This ambitious album deserves to be a crossover hit. [Jul 2017, p.46]

Rainford is a classic set of Scratch vocals: science fiction nursery rhymes, apocalyptic lullabies, their melodies light as air yet rocksteady. Scratch’s delivery at the age of 83 is like Dylan’s present-day rasp, no longer about hitting notes or even tone necessarily, but heavy with the weight of his personal and musical history. [May 2019, p.61]

1988 is full of these striking juxtapositions, placing tales of hustling and gunplay in smoothed out, soulful musical beds. [Jun 2020, p.50]

An expansive record that thoughtfully integrates electronic elements. It almost feels transmitted from a parallel past – a form of retrofuturism where science fiction meets folk. [Feb 2022, p.48]