Albums

Faun Fables’ Counterclockwise is a strange, beguiling musical world. Overall, the record is an exploration of time, not simply thematically, for it also shifts perspectives, delighting in the head-spinning effect these shifting sands can have on your senses. It is a deep and eccentric work, but ultimately a deeply satisfying experience, with so many recognisable elements that you cannot help but sense a welcome familiarity too.

This Material Moment is Me Lost Me’s most personal album yet. On this new release, Newcastle-based Jayne Dent’s songwriting has become both more immediate and more accomplished, with each song existing in its own undeniable present. It’s an alarmingly good album, stormy and intense at one moment, wise and contemplative the next.

In a powerful intersection of art and environmental science, sound artist Yoichi Kamimura’s new album, “ryūhyō,” offers a poignant auditory document of Japan’s dwindling sea ice. The record is a sonic elegy for a changing ecosystem. Locals recall a time when the ice was thick enough to walk on, emitting a whistling sound known as Ryūhyō-Nari. Today, that sound is gone.

Tension, contrast and juxtaposition are words that inevitably come to mind at multiple points throughout All Smiles Tonight. Poor Creature are masters at harnessing that tension and creating soundworlds that are utterly compelling from start to finish. This is music that straddles darkness and light, and traverses the blasted terrain of loss in wholly unexpected ways, picking apart and reassembling the whole idea of folk music as it goes.

While “Morning Dew” may be recognised as Bonnie Dobson’s most iconic track, on her new album, Dreams, she showcases a collection of impressive new compositions. Partnering with the UK’s The Hanging Stars, her sound is infused with renewed vitality, resulting in a brilliantly fruitful collaboration. We can only hope that there will be more to come.

Sally Anne Morgan’s Second Circle the Horizon continues in a similar vein to 2021’s ‘Cups’ while leaning gently on some of the slightly broader-sounding arrangements on her other albums. The result is spot on: a quiet, sometimes enigmatic celebration of the purity of nature and life through the lens of versatile music inspired by the Appalachian tradition. It’s her most cohesive and accomplished album so far.

While Brìghde Chaimbeul has already established a distinctive musical voice, on Sunwise, she utilises it in new and unfettered ways; she treats experimentation and tradition with equal respect, always with an overriding sense that music is meant to be enjoyed.

Jazzman Records take us on a deep dive into the resilient, often defiant, spiritual jazz of the Soviet Bloc. From the early 1960s to the precipice of the 1980s, the tracks curated here reveal a fascinating dialogue between global modernism and deeply rooted local traditions. A radical, intoxicating brew that “no amount of guns, tanks or polonium tea could overcome.”

Like Eric Satie in his day, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer realise that intelligent, modern music doesn’t have to be brow-furrowingly serious, even when serious themes are being explored. Different Rooms is the perfect example of how quick and luminous this kind of music can be.  

Matmos evidently revel in the spark that comes from intense collaboration. It’s a spark that has remained alight for nearly thirty years and shows no sign of dimming. Metallic Life Review is, above all else, a masterly repositioning of music into the realm of physical substance, where the inanimate becomes animate, and metal’s perceived harshness and coldness is alchemised into warmth and humanity. There’s something magical about that.

For Old Time Fantasias, Joseph Allred enlisted the help of pianist Hans Chew. Before long, the project had burgeoned into what Allred calls ‘probably the most involved and densely orchestrated album I’ve made to date.’ Featuring banjo, strings, pump organ and trombones, Allred’s visionary music will carry you into an ever-changing world of dreamy American pastoralia.

David Ivar, aka Herman Dune, offers his fifteenth album, Odysseús, a testament to his open and humanistic musical philosophy. Born from a period of isolation during the pandemic, the songs blend classic Herman Dune with a profound sense of yearning. A consummate artist and a songwriter adept at hiding emotional depths in plain sight, Odysseús is another outstanding example of his work.