
Hiroshi Nagai is the man who you may have seen the work of on a number of City Pop releases – for the uninitiated, that’s the cool ’70s and ’80s Japanese pop music that’s impossibly sophisticated; a bit like Yacht Rock with a smidge of disco and jazz fusion. Nagai’s work is synonymous with Japanese…

Sinéad O’Connor has died aged 56. It’s strange to write about her passing as, like many music fans, we’ve spent a good amount of time worrying about. While O’Connor showed incredible strength for much of her life, it was obvious there were breaking points and, to be perfectly honest, much of the music press that…

Black Grape have announced a new LP, which we didn’t see coming. They might have been talking about it for ages for all we know, but that’s not the point. We’re surprised and it’s not wholly unpleasant, is it? The group, of course, are a project of Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays) and Kermit (Ruthless Rap…

Much like recreational drugs, AI is a fine toy to muck around with if you already know what you’re doing, but wildly annoying in the hands of know-nothings with loud mouths and their hangers on who think it’s the future maaaaan. Anyway, with that, like recreational drugs, we’re going to have to live with it…

If you like standing around groups of other dweebs debating what constitutes a track that could slot into a Balearic set, welcome to the fold. We don’t mention that by accident, because when we first heard Art Feynman’s new single ‘Desperately Free’, we wondered exactly that. Anyway, Luke Temple (Art is his alter-ego, of sorts)…

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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