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Track Reviews // Shura – Religion (you can put your hands on me)

2 nd Single from upcoming album Forevher ( Secretly Canadian, 16 th August 2019) Londoner Shura has announced her 1 st album with Secretly Canadian with the Prince -kissed disco and sacrilegious shuffle of Religion (you can put your hands on me) which curves and corners in all the right places. The interplay of scorching guitar licks and icy synths, two stepping in and out of the limelight in turn, recalls the shimmery naughties; when the 1000 mile stare of latent Britpop in the indie eyes of Foals, Friendly Fires et al was pulled by glances of Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack . Like that serendipitous cross-pollination, which still rattles the floors of indie nights up and down the UK, Shura blends her cultivated awkwardness with the kind of joyful abandonment only hairbrush microphones routinely experience up close. Her voice goes from mellow yearning to falsetto breathiness – simultaneously at one with the noise and entirely devoted to the listener’s ears, like ...
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Track Reviews // Alex Cameron - Divorce

2 nd Single from Miami Memory (Secretly Canadian, 13 th September, 2019) Australian pop prince Alex Cameron has announced his upcoming 3 rd album Miami Memory with new single Divorce; a return to the rough and disarming sincerity that led his seedy night club realism into the triumphant light of heartland rock on 2017s Forced Witness . With the maximal pianos, jiving bass and 80s gated reverb on the driving snares blended with typically cynical and shameless genius in the lyrics, it’s a far cry from previous single Miami Memory which left a few fans scratching virtual heads. Unlike the jarring, turbo-charged balladry of the first single, this track has the distinct aroma of Elton John fronting the Electric Light Orchestra on a misanthropic karaoke rampage in the bar from Billy Joel’s Piano Man ; John at the bar shouting through bitter tears that the next round’s on the house. Like fellow antipodeans Kirin J. Callinan and Connan Mockasin it’s a genuinely riveting ...
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Track Reviews // Sheer Mag - Distant Call

1 st Single from Distant Call (Wilsuns RC, 19 th June 2019) Rock revivalists Sheer Mag have roared back into view like a Vincent Black Lightning over the Philadelphia horizon; announcing their sophomore album Distant Call with lead single Blood From A Stone. 2017’s debut Need to Feel Your Love delivered in chrome, leather and denim on the momentum of their 3 EP build up, bassist Hart Seely’s production fleshing out their garage grit into a dynamic mix of hard rock, power pop and proto metal – a blend they’re still intoxicating us with on this new cut. Tina Halladay remains unmatched – wrenching her bleeding heart out through her peerless vocal cords. But there’s an ineffable personal and social awareness in her lyrics of defiant loneliness, hard struggle and modern dispossession that recalls ‘Say Goodbye to Sophie Scholl’ and ‘ Expect the Bayonet’, highlights from the first record. The guitars have the devastating crunch of Ritchie Blackmore, Thin Lizzy and thei...
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Album Reviews // Jinx - Crumb

14 th July 2019 Jinx is a concentric infinity loop; a chasm with a soporific and psychedelic synth pop siren down it. The lines between falling and diving are blurred, either way you’re in headfirst. After releasing a couple of EPs of tuning up Crumb serve up this chemical soup; tight molecules of jazz, psych, pop and theatre catalysed by adolescent theatrics, exchanging atoms of energy amidst a glow of colour. The languid melodies resolve over and over in muted bursts of arpeggiated synth and guitar, each one as predictable and beguiling as an old friend. Cracking breaks out like a new day, faltering and measured in its movements. Lila Ramani and her guitar pace up and down as the band’s broad brushstrokes begin to fill in the album’s canvas. The horns recall Albert Ayler in bright morning, brassy tones with the bombast of a 1920s New Orleans cabaret band manipulated into free jazz shapes. This is handled by Jesse Brotter (bass) and Jonathan Gilad (drums), addin...
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Track Reviews // Joviale - Ride Away

2 nd Single (Blue Flowers, 14 th June 2019) Blue Flowers chanteuse Joviale has dropped her second vividly human and sensual singles in Ride Away . Like her debut track it’s an exercise in exquisite patience that starts in questions and ends in answers, a million miles away from maybes. But the torchlit, snake-hipped flickers of Dreamboat are replaced by an immense depth of pop and folk and Latin whispers drowning all but the kitchen sink. This latest single from the avant-pop Londoner is a tapestry of colours and textures; amber dawns, warm black caverns, smooth brass and sighed blues. Joviale’s heart-on-her-sleeve vocal is caressed by swooning instrumentation. The purr of each element in the groove evokes smoky Billie Holiday and self-possessed Nina Simone , and the textured fathoms of the production are similar to contemporaries like You Tell Me or labelmates Nilufer Yanya and Westerman. As with the previous single Joviale wields a deadly knack for finding the deep...
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Track Reviews // Tinariwen - Taqkal Tarha

11 th June 2019 1st Single from upcoming Amadjar (Wedge, 6 th Sept 2019) The wavy desert rock of Malian band Tinariwen hums over the dunes again, heralding in an album to come on September 6 th – Amadjar , This will be their fifth studio offering from the very forefront of the West’s belated interest in Saharan, Tuareg and Makossa music which has also delivered Imarhan, Bombino and Songhoy Blues top billings at mainstream venues. Where sub-Saharan Makossa or Malian blues styles often feature colourful vocalisations and licks borrowed from their North American cousin, the shuffling Bedouin sands of Taqkal Tarha bears Tinariwen’s droning string sound and hop-skip rhythms. Previous albums have been over-baked in that high noon sun, drying out towards the end in a kind of weary resignation. This single however is a light-footed breeze through it akin to British Folk Revivalists Davy Graham, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn . This could be something to do with Micah Nel...
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Track Reviews // Sampa The Great - Final Form

Single – Ninja Tune, June 5 th 2019 Sampa the Great bursts into 2019 casually late but primed and moving at speed. Having dropped killer records already its vividly apparent that the Zambian rapper intends to live up to the epithet and conquer; as her expression of hip hop, its derivatives and its antecedents, deserves. Throughout soulquarian chanteuse-ing, trunk-knocking Southern jams, ambitious jazz discursions and studied thoughtful narratives on golden age sampling – never before has Sampa Tembo seemed so present and laser-focused. LA Beat Scene samplemaster Jonwayne in the mix delivers characteristically choppy sweetness with layered vibes that are bright as a Theo Parrish cut and as chilling as RZA mixing Wendy Rene or Thelonious Monk . The bars preach of stripping away walls and insecurities, resisting the crush of fitting in, black power; the self-produced visuals are all about home, Zambia and the concept of returning and realigning that’s all over scenes fr...
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