John Ghost – Airships Are Organisms (Sdban Ultra)

Upon first listening, Airships Are Organisms immediately made me reminisce Canadian prog act Glaswegians and the timeless Tubular Bells. This was perhaps only a temporary passage, but it was nonetheless present strongly in the opening piece, “Deconstructing Hymns”. In fact, the entirety of John Ghost‘s opus is highly diversified and masterfully crafted. As they put it, the album is “an exploratory symbiosis drawing on electronics, post-classical, cinematic atmospherics + jazz”, and I’ll have to agree with them. Airships Are Organisms draws as much from contemporary classical and jazz as it … Read more

Sevish – Horixens

After a series of impressive albums, the bar is high for UK microtonal electronic music artist Sevish. Horixens is set for release in July, independently. From the rhythmic experiments of Rhythm & Xen to the harmonic complexity of Harmony Hacker, what’s the next step? Well, Horixens seems to take a step down in terms of intensity, complexity, and experimentation in order to craft a more atmospheric experience. The beats and motifs therein are generally more gentle and make for a relaxed listening experience. The goal, I think, is to cater to a different crowd, one … Read more

Joliette – Luz devora (Penelope)

Mexican mathcore act Joliette have always been cool. Today, it’s because they’ve recently released Luz devora, a massive hourlong overdriven math rock adventure. This awkward description is also why I reluctantly call them “mathcore”. They do not sound like your Car Bomb or your Dillinger Escape Plan. They’re more like a heavy math rock band with some hardcore influences. Never mind the taxonomic squabbles, try out Joliette and figure out for yourselves!

Le String’Blö – March for Nature (Veto)

The Swiss avant-garde jazz quintet just released March for Nature, an incredible, challenging, … Read more

Some Became Hollow Tubes – Keep It in the Ground (Gizeh)

Nothing seems better fitting than Gizeh’s own slogan flying above this album on Bandcamp: “The Noise of Harmony & the Harmony of Noise”. Indeed, Some Became Hollow Tubes‘s music feels at time like background noise—droning sounds for extended periods of time with few if any change with each successive repetition—yet it does so harmoniously (that term is used in its literal definition: there is harmony, but few would consider it qualitatively harmonious). The guitar-effects-synths and drums duo builds up immense atmospheres eerier than post-rock’s more massive examples … Read more