New releases this week: Indie/Alternative

Review: Tokyo-based post/math-rock noodlers Toe have a habit of cleansing the palette of each subsequent full-length they release with a follow up EP. Just like 2005's debut album The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety was followed up with 2006's New Sentimentality EP, the group would return three years on from their stellar 2009 sophomore effort For Long Tomorrow with 2012's The Future Is Now. From the twinkling emo-inflected shoegazing noodles of 'Run For Word' to the more acoustic-driven psych-jazz of 'Ordinary Days', the four cuts purposefully meander and fuse differing elements from the band's arsenal whilst somehow increasing the dense technicality to absurd, near impenetrable levels.

Review: It All Comes Down to This is the album latest release from Manchester icons A Certain Ratio, and it's a record that is helmed by producer Dan Carey from Speedy Wunderground. Somewhat returning to their origins, the record presents ten concise tracks with a hint of the group's signature electronic flair. Notably, it's the first recording featuring the core trio of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, and Donald Johnson, without any additional collaborators. From their celebrated 1982 album and right up to their dynamic last EP in 2023, this album shows the band's still evolving and still committed to new musical advancements. A testament to their enduring legacy, It All Comes Down to This solidifies A Certain Ratio's place among Manchester's finest.

Review: Manchester mavericks A Certain Ratio have been on a rare run of form of late, with 2023's 1982 counting as one of their most vibrant and endlessly entertaining albums for decades. Of course, all their albums are of a consistent quality, but It All Comes Down To This genuinely crackles with energy. From the word go, the veteran band's inherent funkiness is present, but this time it comes cloaked in fuzzy funk-rock guitar riffs, acid-fried effects, and vocals that are amongst the most forthright they've committed to wax (or, in this case, CD). In many ways, it is - as the band and producer/Sopeedy Wunderground boss Dan Carey intended - a 'back to basics' sound that focuses on the key aspects of ACR's sound. When those 'basics' are so strong, it's no surprise that the results are this impressive.

Review: Japanese psychedelic pop singer-songwriter Ai Aso hails from Tokyo and has an almost impossibly wispy thin folky style to her singing that makes her utterly unique. She has been active since 2000 and has worked both solo as well as with the likes of White Heaven members You Ishihara and Michio Kurihara. Her solo album arrived back in 2014 and now a decade on gets a vinyl press via Ideologic Organ. It is beautifully delicate and whimsical, with lullaby-like guitar melodies and her own vaporous vocals drifting gently with a real sense of innocence in the sparse tracks. Lo-fi and intimate, this is a quiet gem.

Review: The cult favourite Dark Entries hits 15 in style here and celebrates in the only way it knows how - with more great music. This time it is the legendary synth-punk yahoos Crash Course in Science aka Dale Feliciello, Mallory Yago, and Michael Zodorozny who are in the spotlight. The group formed back in 1979 and set out to make music using toy instruments and kitchen appliances. Their punk-y, aggressive, angular sound soon found a hardcore fan base and gave rise to big tunes like 'Cardboard Lamb' and 'Flying Turns.' In 1981 they recorded Near Marineland, a full-length that never actually saw the light of day but does now and shows the band moving into more diverse and polished territory.

Review: Los Angeles-based Canadian-American experimentalist Claire Rousay has made a name for herself due to her unique approach to post-rock-inflected ambience built off of primitive DIY field recordings captured on a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder, resulting in a curious form of emo musique concrete or "emo-ambient". Following on from a myriad of collaborations, projects, and singles, Sentiment marks her first full-length to put her usually hidden voice front and centre; utilising auto-tune to craft emotive hyper-folk musings delivered with androgynous hues. Described as a "meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex"; Rousay uses fractured narratives and one-way conversations to deliver painfully relatable, often uncomfortable musings, smothered beneath layers of droning reverb, monotonous acoustic plucking, and everyday sounds almost too familiar to pinpoint. The end result is the musical equivalent to our inner monologue at its lowest ebb, nattering incessantly while the world moves on around us, while sonically, it's the culmination of all Rousay's experimentation thus far, yet simultaneously more fearless and fragile.

Review: Japanese math/post-rock outfit Toe have become renowned for their virtuosic blend of jazzy, hyper-technical math-rock blended with emo shoegazing and tropical Balearic vibes. Originally released in 2006 as follow up to the band's 2005 debut full-length The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety, and beginning their trend of intersplicing each album cycle with an EP, New Sentimentality offers up four lengthy cuts running the sonic gamut of almost every water they wade within. Trading off noodling twinkles with acoustic pluckings, while abrasive jazz drum-fills clatter over the weaving gentle cacophonies, this is what happens when the emo kids become the new prog nerds.

Review: Anyone familiar with Tokyo, Japan's predominantly instrumental math-rock prodigies Toe, should already be clued into the fact that the member's prolific nature prevents them from resting on their creative laurels for long, with each full-length they drop bookended by an EP. 2005's debut LP The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety was followed by the 2006 EP New Sentimentality, while after 2009's outstanding For Long Tomorrow came The Future Is Now in 2012. At the time of writing, 2018's aptly titled Our Latest Number currently sits as the group's most recent EP; sandwiched in between 2015's sonically transformative Hear You and 2021's latest output DOKU-EN-KAI. Furthering the experimentation of its preceding full-length, the EP strays from their signature twinkling, mathy noodles and emotive shoegazing, and instead embraces elements of minimalism and trip-hop, whilst expanding their acoustic-driven nu-jazz flourishes, and even sprinkling some ethereal vocals into the mix.