Albums

Adventures in your own Backyard is an attempt to ‘make the music we would want to listen to at home’.

The rather graceful and tranquil looking image of Moya Brennan & Cormac De Barra used for this article is very fitting in many respects. They both come from what many consider to be large musical families that have been very influential on the Irish Music scene. Grammy award winning Moya Brennan is probably best known as the lead singer of Clannad but she has also produced a wealth of solo …

The Carolina Chocolate Drops have continued to push their game further and further with each new release, their latest of which ‘Leaving Eden‘ sees a new extended line-up allowing some first-time offerings and a more expansive sound. Those original ingredients that made them so popular are still present and amongst some well-chosen covers and traditional songs are also some new original compositions. As has become their trademark, they still maintain …

[rating=5] During an interview about Doug Tielli‘s solo debut album ‘Swan Sky Sea Squirrel‘ Doug explained that there was no reason for him to make a record as there was no one waiting for it anywhere. Rather than worry about self-imposed timescales Doug took up retreat on Toronto Island in an old school portable. The buildings that exist on the island were scheduled for demolition many years ago until someone …

[rating=3] The Duplets are Gillian Fleetwood and Fraya Thomsen, both of whom hail from the Highlands of Scotland. They both sing and play harp and on their latest offering titled ‘Leverage‘ they were given the opportunity of playing two Briggs harps (Henry Briggs was a famous English harp maker based in Glasgow). The album features instrumental and vocal tracks which alternate throughout to offer contrast as well as displaying Gillian …

[rating=5] Quickbeam are a six piece acoustic/atmospheric band based in Glasgow Scotland. They were formed in 2009 by Monika Gromek, she was later joined by Andrew Thomson after discovering a mutual kinship and love for sparse arranagements. The band has since grown to six members. My first introduction to their music was their debut music video for Seven Hundred Birds which was made by BAFTA short film nominated director Mat …

Jazz-rock quartet Get The Blessing is a heterogenous beast at the best of times. Bassist and leader Jim Barr hails from Portishead while trumpeter Pete Judge and saxophonist Jake McMurchie are both National Youth Orchestra alumni. Tonight, with Goldfrapp’s Daisy Palmer replacing Clive Deamer on drums, they were more chimerical than ever. But the band take an almost schizophrenic joy in opposites and, slinking onto stage in identical evening wear, …

[rating=3] American singer songwriter Will Stratton says that his albums are ‘most comprehensible in fall or early winter’. Perhaps it’s because we’re across the pond, but Post Empire feels entirely suited for Summer. It has the sound of the mid-west, with adept and agile fingerstyle guitar that places itself in the middle of a dusty desert sunset, bouncing off rocks and into the ether. ‘You Divers’ begins with swooning filmic …

[rating=3] Two narratives will dominate discussion of Hannah Cohen’s Child Bride. The first situates her within a lineage of female singer-songwriters. The second recounts Cohen’s past life as a model before explaining the album’s emergence from a dizzyingly fashionable New York scene comprising artists like Ryan McGinley and Terry Richardson as well as a stable of the city’s finest musicians. But both approaches, straying too far from her music, fail …

[rating=4] Thirteen Lost & Found is the second album by ex El Hombre Trajeado guitarist RM Hubbert (also known as ‘Hubby’). It’s produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and features collaborations with a baker’s dozen of friends and assorted Scottish musical royalty, including Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat and The Delgados’ Emma Pollock; Kapranos himself guests on a couple of tracks. It certainly gives the impression that Hubby and his Chemikal …

‘IS’ opens with an epic eighteen-minute six string slide piece entitled ‘When The Plains are Singing’. You can imagine flying over a wide open landscape with cold blue mountains, sweeping down over wild fields of long grass dancing around in the wind, until finally coming back to the imposing natural towers of the mountains. Steffen Basho-Junghans’s work has the uncanny ability to take the listener into almost lucid visual realms …

[rating=4] Laish have released their Obituaries EP which also signals a new development in the band’s direction. Whilst the title track ‘Obituaries‘ is a contemplative song dealing with a coomon theme throughout of obsession with death and legacy it showcases a much bigger and dynamic sound. Songwriter for Laish, Daniel Green: “I have begun to loosen my grip on my songs. What started life as a song-writing and bedroom recording …