100 words music reviews
One of Guadeloupe’s greatest musical exports is Erick Cosaque—an artist without a label who seizes rebellion and joy in equal measure. Gwo Ka, meaning ‘big drum’, was the broad movement to which he belonged: it brought a family of drums together and allowed each component to flourish atop or below the next. The percussive strength […]
Identity is formally recognised through lengthy paperwork and bureaucratic, disengaged processes. Applications, visas, green cards: each composes what is allowed to be considered a form of ‘identity’. For Cornish-speaking, Welsh psychonaut Gwenno Saunders, the ‘self’ is a jagged, highland landscape. It is captivating throughout ‘Tresor’ to consider the artist’s own journey of self-rediscovery, breathed through […]
This album is pastoral as fuck. It was not necessarily intended for release and oozes with personal, artistic cosiness. I will, however, confess to a bias, for I too have trodden ‘through boring fields of Kent’ more than once in my time. In acting like a wonderous, woodland canopy, the production package inadvertently shrouds us […]
The sounds at play on this EP are exceptional in their variation. Taken from the now-famous London jazz scene, ‘Shruti Dances’ is buoyed by the work of DJ and producer Auntie Flo, who props up the trance with narrow melodic changes. On Korwar’s side, the deeply personal influences form a straight line from the US […]
With the colossal status of Afrobeat and African rhythm more generally, it is hard to conceive of this compilation as groundbreaking. As it was at the time, this is the global record of 1985 and for some, the most important record of the 80’s. In its twelve songs, ‘TIBOS’ soaks up South Africa like a […]
Because of the expected, exquisite vocal performance and tight instrumental accompaniment, ‘Big Time’ is deceptively weighty. Olsen’s precise country twang infects her players and glazes the record in nostalgia. Looking back with fidelity appears to be the artist’s aim: it’s a deeply-fought epistemic and emotional position. As such, the tracks take on a tone of […]
This latest Van Morrison record sounds superficially like inoffensive fairground music, written with the wisdom of a fuzzy, stuffed bear and with only marginally less smugness. Since 2020, The Belfast Cowboy has become a musical figurehead in anti-lockdown sentiment. Much of this LP is philosophically scant because Van’s suspicions tend to draw on misguided superiority […]
Vocally, Kevin Morby is third in a list alongside Bob Dylan and Kurt Vile. It’s a funny list that I just invented called ‘Singer/songwriters that you want to sound like but aren’t sure why because they’re not vastly impressive’. This is a warm, astute record that demands mutual engagement. It is too light to be […]
This is the sound of a beloved band, but it feels neither like a victory lap nor a flaccid filler. It is Belle & Sebastian’s first LP in seven years and the first since 1999 to be fully-recorded in their native Glasgow. There are enough memorable lyrical and instrumental moments for the record to be […]
100 words music reviews 