The more time goes by, the more it seems like Dev Hynes might be the antidote to what Guy Debord called “the society of the spectacle”. As is documented in the fantastic recent book Songs in the Key of MP3, Hynes is representative of a type of modern musician whose relationships to mainstream and underground, art and pop, just don’t make sense in the traditional “star” framework of the post rock’n’roll era. He’s defined not by having the biggest shows or iconic moments, but by his connections, his ability to cover ground, his success best defined not as a “rise” to fame but an expansion Read more ...

“I will fly around the world just to forget you” are the opening words of “It Hits Harder,” the first track on New Radiations. The song is about a farewell. The album ends with “Sad Satellite,” where the titular heavenly object is used as a metaphor for distance, when the gap is increasing between the narrator and the subject: the latter a character who is “sucking me dry” and “took me for ride”.It’s not hard, then, to construe the tenth album from the Nashville-based Marissa Nadler as one permeated with partings – cleavages which create distance. If analysed, detachment can bring perspective Read more ...

This is a weird one: I do try and stay on top of pop culture, but for several years, Ethel Cain completely passed me by. You’d think I would have noticed a gothic bisexual Baptist trans woman achieving great enough success to be championed by Barack Obama, but no – until streaming algorithms put me on to her record Perverts, released earlier this year. It’s an incredible work of fathomlessly deep ambient and drone music, and I was baffled to see something so out-there clocking up millions upon millions of views, until I finally clocked her previous success. Though Read more ...

The default setting for Brighton indie quartet Black Honey is pop-grunge. There are plenty of moments during their fourth album when Nineties femme-rockers L7 spring to mind. But Black Honey also spread their wings and fly in other directions. The latter songs tend to be Soak’s most noticeable, although whatever style the band chose, they know enough about hooks to keep listeners onside.Singer Izzy B Phillips, newly sober and with a recent autism diagnosis, veers lyrically between cinematic impressionism and a more specific observational approach. The album’s closing song, “Medication”, Read more ...

It’s not foregrounded, but as Strangest Feeling beds in after repeated listens it becomes clear that one of its core traits is The Pixies-originated quiet-loud, soft-hard dynamic which oozed into grunge. The second LP from the Irish-born, Sydney dwelling Bonnie Stewart isn’t a grunge album, but it has a kindred sensibility.Take third track “Bittersweet”. It has a My Bloody Valentine / Pale Saints haziness but as a verse gives way to the chorus – boom, an explosion. The voice is folky, lilting, the melodies honeyed. Yet Stewart likes offsetting this with flare-ups indicating that – presumably Read more ...

Indigo de Souza, a singer from North Carolina, has established some reputation, mostly in the States, for combining indie, pop and emotionally open lyrical heft. This is her fourth album, but her first on a larger label, Loma Vista (she was previously on Bright Eyes-associated Saddle Creek). On Precipice she lays down a fusion of chart-style femme-pop and heartfelt guitar anthems.It’s usually engaging and sometimes outstanding. Precipice was put together with musician-producer Elliott Kozel, who’s worked with SZA, Billie Eilish’s brother FINNEAS, and others. It has a polish to it – Read more ...

Stylistically, Utopia wears multiple faces. Opening cut “London 1757” drifts by like a twig floating upon an unhurried stream. Next, “Dancing on Volcanoes” swings, employs a staccato guitar and suggests a late-Sunday afternoon dance floor. The kind of scene embraced by a post-comedown crowd. Further in, “Ghost of You” has a soul ballad edge; Randy Crawford were her background in Broadcast-inclined, indie-experimenta.Utopia is Wales’ Gwenno Saunders' fourth solo album and, unlike its predecessors, it lacks a specificity defining how it is delivered: it is not fully in Welsh, it is not fully in Read more ...

Around eight years ago, London singer-songwriter Lail Arad started releasing one-off tracks with Canadian singer JF Robitaille, once of Montreal indie outfit The Social Register (Arad’s own 2016 album The Onion is an undiscovered diamond that should be sought out).The pair now finally release a debut album which contains a few of these singles (although not “The Photograph” and “We Got It Coming”– Spotify those two). Their literate indie guitar-pop, touched with alt-folk sensibilities, is a sprightly listen spotted with a few true jewels.It's music built for these times. The chirpily doomed, Read more ...

Lorde’s trajectory is continually fascinating. From the minimalist, sparse electropop of Pure Heroine to the similar but more grandiose production of Melodrama was a linear progression, but then came the acoustic guitars and organic percussion of Solar Power.Though, like Melodrama it was produced by pop powerhouse Jack Antonoff, it had the laid back vibe of an artist who’d ditched her mobile phone and got back to nature – and divided fans. Now, the DIY aesthetics and pop-up warehouse events to promote Virgin suggested it might be a Read more ...

A Sober Conversation is the work of a master songwriter, one who knows how to achieve their goals. As the album’s nine tracks pour from the speakers, comparisons come to mind: 20/20 and Smiley Smile-era Beach Boys, Lindsey Buckingham, the early solo years of Todd Rundgren.But nothing sounds quite like any of these – spikiness is never far. The initially dreamy opening track “The Tent” is punctuated by squalls of noise. Next, on the sumptuous “Two Legged Dog,” dense, overstated keyboards contrast with the jaunty melody. Part of the point seems to be undermining anything which might lean into Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHFrank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258 Interloper (The Workshop Sessions, Volume One) (Property of the Lost)Hastings label Property of the Lost has grown into a potent force, its stable of artists impressive, usually attached to a US-indebted garage aesthetic. Local band Frank From Blue Velvet’s eponymous 2022 debut was a tasty amalgam of southern gothic country filtered through punk sensibilities, its stand-out song, “Church of Prosperity” a deathless hit at Theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. I Am Frank steps forward and sideways, offering a Read more ...

After the evening’s second song “The Last of England,” Patrick Wolf cautions “I’ve got nothing left to say.” During the shows leading up to this outing promoting his new album Crying the Neck, he says he felt “like I’ve been drag-queen story hour” and, in Kingston, “a preacher.” He’s talked out. All that there is to say has been said.Of course, this does not prove to be the case. There is tons to relate. He says the album’s “On Your Side” was written on bus journeys between central London’s Gray’s Inn Road and the Royal Marsden Hospital. How, now he lives in Kent rather than London, that Read more ...