When I try to describe Gridfailure to people I normally use phrases such as “dystopian post-apocalyptic nightmare in black and white” or “Art Zoyd taken to the extreme, Can on steroids”, but I know that none of this really makes sense to people. David Brenner creates...

Brenner’s most recent release finds him combining a discordant web of vocals, guitars, keyboards, and field recordings while also bringing in a host of guests which include Benjamin Levitt (Megalophobe, Gridfailure-live), Jeff Wilson (Chrome Waves, Deeper Graves,...

Originally released in Norway in 2020 before being picked up by Talking Elephant for release on CD last year, here we find Matthews joining forces with Norwegian band The Salmon Smokers which features multi-instrumentalist Freddy Holm at the core. Matthews surely...

There is something about a big band in the hands of a really good arranger which makes jazz swing with its own vitality and life. This is what my dad used to play in the car when I was young, on his trusty 8=track, and is the only popular music I ever heard him play....

Back in 1991 I attended the Fairport Convention Winter Tour when they played Guildford, and that night the support act was Jay Turner. I had never heard of him prior to that, but his material deeply resonated with me, especially the song “My Grandfather’s Eyes” and at...

USA -78 mins Private Press? https://losttribesofthemoon1.bandcamp.com/  https://www.facebook.com/losttribesofthemoon/ Rating 85/100 I often wonder whether self-imposed genres, adopted by a band or in fact retained by a band, can sometimes be misleading. I say this...

Private Press, Portugal 80min Self-appointed Genera, Transgressive Rock https://www.facebook.com/daymoon.music [email protected] https://daymoon.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR1Q45RkzVdF_uy08K2rcThVZRlBwUbG6SxIZNNBiQ492YJqAnm2oDIevTY Rating 95/100 Whilst spending...

Rewind Fields is the experimental pop recording project of Auckland singer-songwriter Callum Lee, who discovered some previously unfinished and abandoned songs on an old laptop and revisited them to make an album. When one understands where the songs originated from,...

{Iveta & Simone} are back with their latest single, following on from Obsessed which I reviewed back in October. This starts with some gentle piano chords, with a delicate 80’s synth over the top, and then we get some riffing distorted guitars and bass, one of the...

According to their Bandcamp page, Human Susan is an alien trying to assimilate herself into the world, navigating the absurdity and mundanity of human embodiment. A crunchy and sparkly cosmic soup. More accurately, one could instead say that this Dunedin-based quintet...

I think I need to start this review with a series of statements. I first came across South African born Lee when she signed to AAA Records for her debut NZ EP Lost Girl back in 2019, and my good friend TeMatera Smith asked me to write the press release. I loved the...

Outnumbered is the debut single from Pōneke alt-folk artist {Greta O’Leary}, and from the first delicate picked notes on guitar, violin and double bass, the listener is being brought into an incredibly atmospheric world. Her voice belies her age, as one can never...

Wellington band The Barry Holt Cohort comprise of Barry on guitars and vocals, Chris Coad on fretless bass and Louie Levin, drum machine. Hailing from Liverpool, he grew up when that city was going through a period of austerity, and it is no surprise to hear punk and...

There are some albums where the listener feels they are intruding way too much on something which is incredibly private. Back in 1979 Dennis DeYoung had a major argument with the rest of Styx as he felt that even though he had played them Babe it was way too private...

There are surely few authors who have captured the imagination of musicians as much as 19th century author Edgar Allan Poe. From Iron Maiden to the series of amazing releases on Cadabra Records, artists have used his words as inspiration for wonderful music, and here...

With the southern cross in the sky, and a turtle swimming in the pacific, I was intrigued by this album even before I put it on the player. For me, growing up and living in the UK for the first 40 years of my life, the Pacific seemed very much like a far away place,...

This album was created by Victoria Bourne (vocals, Korg Kross Workstation) and Walt Shaw (kit, hand percussion, gongs, home-made instruments), and is one of the most unusual and interesting albums I have come across for some time. Imagine folk vocals sung by someone...

The Blood & Wires label was formed in 2020 by Scott Brown in Tauranga out of a desire to raise the profile of New Zealand based electronic and experimental artists. I love the way they describe their ethic, “We focus on music with a difference, genres that get...