The acoustic guitar led instrumental “Underwater City” being an exemplary diversion into acid folk. Elsewhere “Re-generate” and “The Black Sea” are a couple of highly enjoyable (albeit slight) space jams, and exit track “Stargazers” regrettably bails out just when it starts to take off. [May 2024, p.60]

Something In The Room She Moves feels impossible to completely pin down. [May 2024, p.52]

Lines like “History repeating itself” and “She never lost hope/When life was so hard” feel a bit generalised – the sentiment might have benefitted from a more nuanced or poetic approach. Overall however the decision to give the heroic and celebratory a wide berth is a sound one, making way for something much darker and more unsettling – a reminder that doing the right thing in times of widespread fear and conflict is seldom easy. [May 2024, p.49]

Akoma is unpredictable without any recourse to smartarsedness, Jlin keeping everything sounding fresh and spontaneous, as though both she and the listener are on a journey of innovation and discovery. [Mar 2024, p.48]

Its ten tracks are heady, contemplative, spacious with a sense of impending loss. [Mar 2024, p.56]

Walls Have Ears is a postcard from Sonic Youth in their salad days, with newly recruited drummer Steve Shelley cementing a core line-up that would endure until disbandment 26 years later. [Apr 2024, p.75]

Despite the sonic shifts – from grinding electronic roars to manipulated vocal samples and field recordings to shimmering harp to desolate piano – it remains unified, because of Ayewa. [Mar 2024, p.50]

Hard edged synths and massive, crunchy beats lend righteous swagger to Gordon’s bleary guitar squalls and jetlagged sprechstimme. [Mar 2024, p.46]

The sounds can seem a bit insubstantial when compared to his earlier work, like 2018’s Soil, where serpent angled to suffocate the listener in raw emotion. But he eventually finds a nice groove that yields rewards. [Mar 2024, p.59]

It’s gorgeous stuff, but whether the future she imagines is entropic or hopeful, it’s hard to say. [Mar 2024, p.57]

I dig a conceptual framework but to be honest my enjoyment of Rooting For Love has little to do with earthbound concerns and everything to do with sheer escapist pleasure in form and grain. [Mar 2024, p.52]

All the ingredients required are present: sonic invention, surprise, risk taking, fun and adventure. [Mar 2024, p.56]

Although this record is Rhys’s most polished to date, he does squeeze in moments of strangeness – subtle and paired down, bubbling beneath lush production and melodic arrangements. [Mar 2024, p.52]

An air of devotion does indeed hover over this music, filtering through the stately intonation of Anima Brass and the a cappella singing of The Macadam Ensemble, as well as the quiet concentration of Malone’s own playing. Yet it emanates not from the rarefied air of religious sentiment, but from the composer’s passionate dedication to sound itself, and her respect for its potential capacity to realise, as the title of the concluding piece puts it, “The Unification Of Inner & Outer Life”. [Mar 2024, p.50]

[“Vapours”] is brilliantly executed and, in places, genuinely frightening. Yawning drones and hissing percussive swells open the gates to chaos in “Of Shadow And Substance”, an epic 21 minute churn of layered tape loops, cello and bass strings, harp and percussion. .... The piece is more haunted and atmospherically dense than its predecessor, however both pieces share a remarkable sense of immediacy.

It’s one of the most vibrant, purposeful rock records of the year, as Ambro balances the sickly weariness of this day and age with a triumphant jubilation of simply being alive. [Dec 2023, p.54]

With unobtrusive, yet telling contributions from friends including Meg Baird, The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell, she conjures up a bittersweet sense of location and changing times through six pieces that are subtly complementary, in their character and impact, meriting comparison to the finely nuanced ambient soundtracks of Angelo Badalamenti. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.96]

It’s a startling new sound she has here, featuring voices of an unplaceable vintage, piano, bells and chains that carry centuries’ worth of dust and shadow, the songs a distorted and twisted take on gospel that’s sometimes slurred like a warped record, sometimes scarifyingly stark and always tightroping between redemptive faith and avant garde oddity. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.92]

Gabriel’s not trying to be clever here, he’s being sincere. And because I favour savoury over sweet, I can strongly recommend the Dark-Side Mix which has more room to breathe, a fatter bottom end and weirder edges all round. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.84]

This worthy sequel to XXX is the first release since 2011 to offer a convincing portrait of Brown as a wholly realistic character. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.81]

Where Vernon’s album [For Emma, Forever Ago] registers like a melancholic exorcism of listless youth and failed relationships, Bachman does not engage in that kind of soul searching, though he elicits a similarly potent emotional response. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.77]

It’s all well played and lusciously presented, and if you’re meditating to the album, little here will disrupt your vibe. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.77]

Aesop’s penchant for storytelling – particularly on “100 Feet Tall” and “Aggressive Steven” – is still incredibly engaging, delivering a fraught narrative that touches on mental health, exploitation of the vulnerable and human responses to corporate stimuli. [Jan/Feb 2024, p.77]

Most tracks feature piano and vocals in a mix of essentialised South African stylings. A highlight is the simple, lilting hymn “Nomayoyo”, with Ntuli’s gentle, breathy vocals. “Lihlanzekile” is a quietly rolling piece of melancholia. [Dec 2023, p.58]

Each piece might be filled with personal meaning to the artist, but they all leave enough space for listeners to reflect on their own worries. The transition between the noisy, illusory interlude “[ A Backlit Door]” and the understated beauty of “Haruspex” is an especially poignant moment on an album rich with them. [Dec 2023, p.54]

The About Group, which included Hayward and Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip, tried with some degree of success to square the circle of song and free improvisation, but Abstract Concrete’s embellished structures feel more natural and no less imaginative. [Dec 2023, p.43]

A combination of versatility (Lucas is both singer and multiinstrumentalist) and judicious use of the recording studio makes Vanishing Twin’s fourth artist album devoid of voids. It’s perhaps their best release to date. [Dec 2023, p.52]

Listened in sequence, the nine cuts are like chapters of a hike through a black pine forest, where the air is sharp and time stands still. A sense of foreboding makes way for desolation, ultimately unearthing liminal pockets of awe. [Dec 2023, p.52]