Best of 2020 and farewell.

Here it is, the last post on this blog my fourth and final best of list. The criteria is fairly simple relying on twenty (+ three honourable mentions) releases I liked. No splitting into genre styles or ranking them numerically. Just simply the art and where to buy it. It's safe to say 2020 has …

Shida Shahabi / Near The Parenthesis / anthéne.

"The score to Jennifer Rainsford’s short film of the same name, ‘Lake On Fire’ sees Stockholm-based pianist/ composer Shida Shahabi follow up last year’s "Shifts" EP and her 2018 debut LP "Homes" with a new release that expands her repertoire via a move away from the piano, with three of its four tracks being played on organ and …

bvdub – Wrath & Apathy.

"A decades-long disciple of Haruki Murakami, Brock Van Wey, better known as bvdub, has more than once melded the ideas of Murakami's magical realism and its underlying teachings on loneliness, isolation, and the human condition into the fabric of his own work. In a time, place, and set of circumstances that saw the hallucinatory set …

Gimmik – Entre les chambres.

With the craziness that is happening all over the world one of the things you need is consistency. Thankfully labels are still putting out physical music, albeit under adverse conditions (especially postal bans). One such label is the ever reliable n5MD with their latest release, a re-release of Gimmik's "Entre les chambers".     "Some …

worriedaboutsatan – Time Lapse.

The worriedaboutsatan project is currently in it's sixteenth year of existence. With a back catalogue of works on labels such as Gizeh, Burning Witches, Wolves and Vibrancy, Sound In Silence and Gavin Miller's own This Is It Forever, the existence of the project nearly came to an end when Miller's partner Thomas Ragdale opted to …

A Bunch of Labels Pt1.

  At this point in time supporting small labels is important. With what is going on in the world including lock down, isolating and in some places institutions like the post office closing their doors, music is one of the things can provide an escape from 'the real world'. So, I have done this post, …

Daniel McCagh – Altered States.

The latest release from Oakland, California's n5MD label is by sound designer, composer and engineer Daniel McCagh. McCagh is the latest Australian artist to be released by the label following compatriots Boy Is Fiction, Stray Theories (Australia via New Zealand) and Tim Koch to be released by the label. McCagh has a couple of digital …

port-royal – flares (15th Anniversary Remaster).

  "Flares was the debut album from Genoa post-rock quintet port-royal. The album was initially released in 2005 by the quality-minded UK indie label Resonant Recordings. "Flares" has become a watermark of the more contemporary amalgam of ambient, electronica and post-rock. And, is considered a classic of the genre. Spintink Music stylistically name-dropped Eno and …

Ocoeur – Everything.

"Everything is the 6th album by Bordeaux-based experimental electronic music composer Franck Zaragoza's Ocoeur epithet. For this new full-length, Zaragoza quantumly pushes the Ocoeur sound into the depths of synth-based ambient enclaves. Zaragoza blends such "ambience," at the opportune times, with his now trademark careening sound-design focused beat work. The album's closing tracks, the 20-minute …

The 2019 Hit List.

2019 was another busy year with more releases coming through. For a minimally based music scene, the output of some labels was truly maximal, which has it's positives and negatives. The positives include the amount of music being made and the negatives include the amount of music being made. It kind of changes it from …