Sometimes we retreat into dreams. The last few weeks has seen a slowly-cresting wave of new music that drifts, dreams, flows, unfurls its pillowness around the soul and we have a run up of some of our favourites below.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Joanne Robertson & Dean Blunt
Backstage Raver
(World Music)
LP. Limited, one per customer
Joanne Robertson could sing the electoral roll and we would lap it up. Here with Dean Blunt, shimmering and breaking hearts as ever. Guitar + Vox, overwhelmingly Robertson’s, shimmering with chorus and reverb, augmented by percussion, sounding lost in a sea of reverb. Also features Elias from Ice Age.
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Man Rei
Thread
(SP04)
LP, Limited to 300, with riso print
Deep, repetitive waves of swell from our friends Somewhere Press and Man Rei. Shrouded in cloud, swell of dissipated vocals, utterly gorgeous and sparse, leaving room for the listeners’ own spirit to merge with the music. It gets so that you don’t know where you end and it begins, so don’t end and let it begin.
“Kristin Reiman, aka Man Rei, elevates and expands the choral tradition of their Baltic homeland with thesmudged drift of this quietly epic new album. A moody, dimly lit summoning of ambient music touched bythe enduring influence of classic dreampop, it’s a record full of pared-down arrangements and luxuriousinstrumentation, elevated by goosebump inducing vocals that make the thing so memorable.The soothing pulse of Kranky’s early years (think Labradford or even Windy & Carl) moves with tranquilmomentum, playing faded lower-register riffs to accent a pervasive longing in the lyrics. On ‘Edge knot city’,the influence of Harold Budd and the Cocteau Twins’ hangs in the air as Reiman marries muted electric pianowith pastoral field recordings.” – Boomkat
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Kelora
Gloomerald
(Self Released )
LP, Limited.
Utterly gorgeous doom folk with electronic elements in the fringes, Kelora’s debut album is in an edition of 300 and precedes their follow up on the US imprint True Panther.
From Glasgow with connections to London and Ardrossan, the duo may draw from the subterranean electronic music they move in but on record their music is effortlessly timeless. We’re reminded of Mazzy Star or even a detoured Lana Del Rey swirling in the darkness. So much to love on this understated gloomcore modern great.
“Kitty Hall and Benedict Salter capture the haunting energy of overcast skies hovering perpetually above the British Isles on their debut album as Kelora. The Glaswegian duo and PC Music affiliates have been releasing their tantalising brand of “cyberfolk” since 2016, where relatively minimal acoustic compositions meet maximal pop songwriting. While earlier material toyed more heavily with digital imagery and trap adjacent rhythms, their 2023 album Gloomerald turns down a duskier, marshier road, soundtracked by arcane lullabies for moonlit nights.”
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
Jabu
A Soft And Gatherable Star
(Do you have peace )
LP, Limited
Utterly gorgeous, Cocteau Twins-from-Bristol subterranean nocturnal pop music that just radiates sumptuous gloom. A Soft And Gatherable Star curls, stretches out in the dry ice, hushed vocalisations and chorus guitars doomed for all eternity.
Bristol trio Jabu return with their third album ‘A Soft and Gatherable Star’.
The album takes its name from a poem written by Childs’ father, another of his poems, which forms the backbone of ‘Ashes Over Shute Shelve’ hangs on the wall in the studio.
‘It feels like there’s a lot of hope in it in a way, even though I always read it as a poem about death (and I think it was about his approaching death) there’s something beautiful in it, seeing it as a chance to see things from a new perspective rather than something to be afraid of.’
The album feels like a meshing into a kind of group think for the band, allowing influences to bleed together and allowing songs to exist as they appear – rather than trying to shape or mould them.
There are echos of early influences bleeding through too, Rendall remembers tapes of Luther Vandross in the car with his mum – you can hear the ghosts of those straight-to-the-heart vocals, but everything extraneous has been stripped away, leaving just voice, feedback and guitar.
|
|
 |
