...over ten carefully chosen pieces they run through all manner of vocal styles and manners, with a brief introduction allowing the listener an opportunity to hear their differing approaches, from spoken to shrieked and from a bubbling murmur to an intense hammering. You start to feel the energy and the "creeping fog of war" as the subjects elicit the necessary responses from the vocalists.
Monthly Archives: January 2026
19 posts
...right at the very start of another busy year of activity – with several bouts of live Heavenly bookings to fulfil upfront -- Ian openhandedly gave over time to tell all on his early career routes; the life and times of Papernut Cambridge being celebrated across the freshly dispensed and indispensable Everybody Is In Papernut Cambridge compilation; the philosophies and operations of Gare Du Nord ; his broad range of other cultural commitments; and plenty more in between.
I was disappointed to discover that Theta Seven will be the last outing for the Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, but it might be due to the group’s remit of “proposing an alternative reality in which all notions of common sense have been eradicated” is no longer relevant.
...the artwork’s suggestive shapes feel texturally tethered to the audio’s pitted surface – artwork and sound a collaborative whole, each feeding the other. As much as I love the lyrical bite of those early years, Cindytalk’s introspective canvas has grown infinitely richer in the succeeding years, emboldened by a desire to delve deeper, ridding itself of conventional restraints.
Although Jimi Tenor is renowned as a solo artist, he is also a serial collaborator; but for the first time, during the pandemic, he drew a band around him of local musicians to bring to life some of his delightful paeans to positivity that must have bubbled up over the lockdown period.
Park Chan-wook cooks up another idiosyncratic blend of thrills and satirical dark comedy with this sublimely ridiculous tale of a newly redundant paper manufacturer so intent on getting his next job that he’s prepared to terminate the other applicants… with extreme prejudice.
...there is a surprising variety in the styles and delivery. He pays particular attention to the vocals, which are nearly all effected in some way and they range from the sweet tone of his unmolested voice right through to gurgling robotic entreaties.
...as the album progresses, so more facets are revealed, the incessant rhythms coated with twangy guitar, subterranean bass and synth embellishments adding fuel before the inevitable explosion into the stratosphere.
Her first release for OLI, A Requiem, came out back in the spring of 2025, but there was more material left over from the sessions that demanded release; so Æternum gathers together those leftover pieces that were too good to overlook.
Long trailing notes are peeled over the sway of the rhythm section. The other three carefully assemble sounds around the sax, delivering a statement of intent that is gradually dissected over the remaining run-time.
Supergroups as a mainstream proposition appear seem to have largely become a thing of the past, in part due to the music industry’s latter-day solo performer-centric focus and brute economics. Therefore, it has fallen to veterans operating in more independent imprint spheres to keep such convergences alive.
It has been seven years since the last Concept album and although the line-up remains the same, with Trygve Fiske on bass, Hans Hulbækmo on drums and Oscar Grönberg on piano and Hanna Paulsberg herself on sax, they have decided after fifteen years of playing together to see how it sounds with a vocalist.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy, recently released in a handsome blu-ray slipcase set by Second Sight films, not only offer a hectic thug’s eye view of Copenhagen low-life, they also ask two very important questions. One, who is the titular pusher, and two, what does any of this have to do with a Japanese video game auteur (OK, maybe that one’s just me).
Here, with a quintet that includes regular friends Omri Mor on piano, Tal Yahalom on guitar and Yoed Nir on cello, it takes a further heartfelt look at some more of the nigunim that have arisen during Yosef's spiritual wanderings along with a few pieces of a more personal bent.
All four members are part of the fertile Copenhagen jazz scene and regular collaborators with other artists but here, Erik Kimestad, Mads Hyhne, Richard Andersson and Jakob Høyer have convened to bring their years of experience to bear on some of trumpeter Erik's compositions along with some group improvisation.
The film articulates the emotion of grief in all its slings and arrows, with a dedicated and sometimes painful sense of reality. It reminds us that, while Shakespeare’s work may be immortal, in his life mortality lay all around him.
...heavyweight collaboration between bassist Guy Segers, percussionist Charles Hayward and guitarist Kawabata Makoto. Recorded live in Brighton back in 2013, the album consists of three extended improvisations...
