Lou’ana – Disco Witch (So Below) 13th Floor Album Review
There is magic in the air and on the floor. With her second album, Disco Witch, Lou’ana takes listeners on a soulful, sparkly journey through inner worlds and outer rhythms. Divided into two parts, SO BELOW and AS ABOVE, the album is a cosmic invitation to move, reflect, and revel.
Haim – I Quit (Polydor) 13th Floor Album Review
I Quit, the fourth album from Los Angeles-based band Haim, is about to land – and while it’s not an album you’ll want to stop listening to, it’s not a particular revolution from a thematic standpoint.
James McMurtry – The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (New West)
For over 35 years, 63 year old James McMurtry has been one of America’s most literate and quietly powerful songwriters. The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy, his eleventh studio album, and his first in four years, is further proof of his enduring craft.
Mary Chapin Carpenter – Personal History (Lambent Light Records)
Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Personal History is sad, lonely, nostalgic, reflective and, most of all, painfully honest.
Van Morrison – Remembering Now (Exile Productions/Virgin Records)
Van Morrison fans tend to be loyal. My friend Tim named his dog after the musician. And back when I was 21, I was besotted enough with Van to go to Ireland and take a train south of Dublin just to walk The Streets of Arklow (a favourite song off 1974’s Veedon Fleece).
Kate Vargas – Golden Hour in the House of Lugosi (Mother West)
There’s always been a streak of theatrical grit in Kate Vargas’s music, emphasised by a taste for the surreal, the Southern Gothic, the seen-it-all-before drawl. Across the eleven restless tracks on Golden Hour in the House of Lugosi, she blends jazz touched textures, rock and roll swagger, and off kilter ballads. Where her last album […]
Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts – Talkin To The Trees (Reprise)
I’ve only listened to this “debut” album by Neil Young and his “new” band, The Chrome Hearts once, and I probably won’t be returning to it anytime soon.
Cosey Fanni Tutti – 2t2 (Conspiracy International) (13th Floor Album Review)
Cosey Fanni Tutti is one half of industrial synthpop act Chris & Cosey, the two remaining living members of 70/80s groundbreaking Industrial act Throbbing Gristle. On her latest solo album, 2t2, the last being Tutti in 2019, Cosey has given us nine new compositions, composed, recorded and produced exclusively by her.
Gasoline Lollipops – Kill the Architect (ALP Recordings)
Gasoline Lollipops took their name from a moment of surreal inspiration during a teenage psychedelic experience that shaped and defined their creative spirit. Sweet and volatile, strange yet grounded, the phrase captures the musical and emotional dualities that have defined this Colorado-based group for over a decade.
Jazmine Mary – I Want To Rock And Roll (Flying Nun)
The first time I saw Jazmine Mary live was at Auckland’s Ministry of Folk, in February 2021. They shared the stage with BEING., and together they performed a set that included a haunting version of Jolene. Later that evening, phones buzzed with the news that New Zealand was heading back into Alert Level 3. Another lockdown. […]
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap – Elemental (Mack Avenue Records) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap have consummated their on again, off again live affair with a first recording together in Elemental.
Phoebe Rings – Aseurai (Carpark Records)
There’s something otherworldly about Phoebe Rings’ debut album: a somewhat mysterious title and a sound as transporting as the band’s name suggests. And maybe it’s just what we need in these times.
Lake South – We lived our lives on top of this (Home Alone)
Brendan McKenna, aka Lake South, occupies a socially conscious corner of the Aotearoa music landscape, crafting heartfelt, homespun songs that blend synth-folk melancholy with working-class idealism and a deep sense of place.
Love Party – WOW! (13th Floor Album Review)
Love Party, are Poneke tāngata Kate Yesberg, Dayle Jellyman and Cory Champion, together, compositely, they have plethora of musical experience, including playing in teenage punk bands, whilst concurrently other acts including; Battle Ska Galactica, Clear Path Ensemble, Fvkvshima, and Floating Head jazz ensemble.
North Mississippi Allstars – Still Shakin’ (New West) (13th Floor Album Review)
Still Shakin’ is the 12 album released under the North Mississippi Allstars moniker, the band founded by Luther and Cody Dickinson in Hernando, Mississippi, just a stone’s throw across the state line from Memphis, the centre of all things musical.
Jimmy Barnes – Defiant (Mushroom Music) (13th Floor Album Review)
There are no two words more emblematic of Australian music than Jimmy Barnes.
Sparks – MAD! (Transgressive) (13th Floor Album Review)
A case can, and should, be made for Sparks, as one of the most underrated, original and consistently entertaining bands…ever. And MAD!, their 27th studio album, makes that case as strongly as anything in their massive catalogue.
Pulp – More (Rough Trade) (13th Floor Album Review)
Almost a quarter of a decade after their last long player, Pulp returns with an album that sounds like they never left.
Lucy Gooch – Desert Window (Fire) (13th Floor Album Review)
Lucy Gooch has steadily carved out a space for herself as a distinct and affecting voice in contemporary British ambient music. Emerging first with the EP Rushing (2020) and then expanding her cinematic textures in the EP Rain’s Break, (2021) she received critical praise for her ability to merge choral elements with synth-driven soundscapes that feel both ecclesiastical and intimate.
Swans – Birthing (Mute) (13th Floor Album Review)
Swans are a saga, Micheal Gira the driving element behind the entity has continued to challenge the very paradigm of what post-punk, industrial dance and to a lesser extent gothic metal as the decades have traversed.