
There’s a new phrase in the music industry – notably involving the touring circuit – called ‘Blue Dot Fever’. It references the amount of blue dots that appear on maps of arenas on the Ticketmaster website. Post COVID lockdowns, big artists were keen to get out and play massive shows, and fans were keen to…

Ibibo Sound Machine do not mess around. Their take on Hi Life and Afrobeats, launching headlong into party electro is one of the most infectious sounds around right now, and you can imagine they’re a light under the ass of any festival that’s lucky enough to have them on the bill. Well, they have a…

The Rolling Stones have a new album coming out called ‘Foreign Tongues’, which sure does sound like an album title from The Rolling Stones. The album cover is kinda gross too – an amalgamation of their various faces, all smooshed together, and honestly, you think to yourself “yep, that looks like a Stones LP alright!”…

When times are hard, it’s difficult to stop yourself from daydreaming of some blissful, endless summer where shirts are linen, your toes wriggling in the sand, and everyone, everywhere, is a glorious mix of people from all over the globe living in some harmonious Utopia, chilled glass of wine in one hand, pack of Camel…

In ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy’, Kacey Musgraves sings “I bet most of these boots are probably never seeing any dirt and the ground ain’t any softer if you’re wearing a rhinestone shirt,” which is basically a call-to-arms against the disingenuous cod-cowboys that litter Country Music these days, and signal a return to her…

Sometimes you hear music and you’re put in mind of some imaginary party that you’re probably not cool enough to be invited to, filled with impossibly thin people in early Noughties tracksuits that you can’t believe are fashionable these days, all cheekbones and bouncing around. Well, electro pop group Brutalismus 3000 made us think of…

Hello! May is here, which means it is time for those who listen to the FREE RANGE radio show we make, to briefly visit the site to see what the tracklist for the show was for the latest programme. There’s music from Mali, Italy, Ghana, France, Brazil, Turkey, Cameroon, France, Suriname, India, the US and…

We miss the days of frivolous, immersive websites with easter eggs and games and interactive things on them. With that, we remembered the interactive game that featured on the old Boards of Canada site, and thankfully, there’s a document of it! Uploaded to YouTube and featuring the music of BoC – therefore very pleasant indeed…

Jazz never died, but it did feel harder to find since major music publications effectively turned their back on it some time in the ’70s. Jazz is of course, in rude health and as disparate as it ever was. With that, we were super thrilled while listening to baritone sax’er Zoh Amba’s new one, which…

Island Records is one of the most legendary record labels in the history of rock, pop, reggae and more. Especially iconic is the ‘Island pink’ years, where the records sported a gorgeous baby pink label and was home to some of the finest records ever cut on the lathe. With that, following first volume, there’s…

It certainly seems there’s a quiet revival of boom bap rap in recent years, underlined obviously, by the all-conquering Doechii LP released last year. Of course, she’s not the only one putting a fresh twist on golden era hip hop, and now we look to the new one from prodigious talent Che Noir. Hailing from…

We wrote a very glowing review of the wonderful album by Tortoise cohort Jeff Parker and his IVtet, being one of the best jazz LPs we’ve bought in years. In case you missed, Parker and his band did a blissfully wonderful and super invigorating set for the always great NPR Tiny Desk. Watch it here.
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