Tag Archives: avant-pop

Bubblemath, Dalila Kayròs, Extra Life, and Contemplator

by Dæv Tremblay

Bubblemath – Turf Ascension (Cuneiform)


Accolades like “the best prog band in the last decades” should not be overlooked as mere exaggerations. Indeed, they are statements worthy of examination. Bubblemath has been on my radar since their 2017 release Edit Peptide, and reading back at this five-year-old critique, I find nothing more to add for Turf Ascension, so I’ll just paraphrase: it’s complex yet groovy prog. Definitely one of the best prog rock album of the year so far!

Dalila Kayròs – Animàmi (Subsound)


Italian singer Dalila Kayròs has at this point played in so many of my… Read more

Best of Pop 2021

by Dæv Tremblay


Let’s hear it for the best pop albums of 2021!

Number Five: Honne – Let’s Just Say the World Ended a Week from Now, What Would You Do?



I know next to nothing on Honne, but I was really hooked by 2018’s Love Me / Love Me Not, and here I am, in 2021, starting my top 5 of the year with this album! It’s the most straightforwardly pop album of the bunch, but it’s great, dynamic, and has a lot of interesting ideas! So, you should definitely check it out!

Number Four: Half Waif – Mythopoetics


I’ve always … Read more

Dalila Kayros – Transmutations, Part I: Yin Side

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Electronic music is underrepresented on this website. I acknowledge it and I try to change it, but when something worth posting about comes out, I find out only months later. I need better birds to chirp to me… But here we are, today, with Dalila Kayros‘ album Transmutations, Part I. I was unaware that the brilliant singer of avant-prog project Combat Astronomy had an even more amazing electronic music solo project going on.

Yin Side is an amazing avant-pop album in every regard. If you don’t mind the uncommon mode and breakbeat rhythms of … Read more

Feeding Fingers – Do Owe Harm

by Dæv Tremblay

Hello, it’s me again, writing about another microtonal album. And yet it seems there might never be enough of those so that any release that fits under this label and that is of decent production value deserves to be talked about. Which brings us to Feeding Fingers‘ sixth studio album, Do Owe Harm. While the band’s earlier releases incorporated microtones in some form or another, it takes centre stage here. Through post-punk aesthetics intermingled with synthwave and experimental pop, Feeding Fingers shine a new light on xenharmony, and convincingly make use of different tuning systems, such as 15- … Read more

Review: Marena Whitcher’s Shady Midnight Orchestra – Ghostology

by Dæv Tremblay
Lost between the realms of opera, jazz, and avant-garde music, Marena Whitcher’s Shady Midnight Orchestra‘s what seems to be debut album Ghostology is a real gem of experimentation in popular music, although what’s left of pop music is so altered in the process that it can barely be called that. However, the avant-pop label seems quite fitting, even more so when followed by the ghost jazz speciality. What is ghost jazz? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to it.

With an orchestra comprising of many instruments, from glass harp to bass clarinet, and from glockenspiel to “toys”, the … Read more