Jagjaguwar US Vinilo y CD

Review: When it comes to plugging in mega stacks of amplified prog-rock, Vancouver-area band Black Mountain deliver a retro-futuristic sound that's as large as any Godzilla soundtrack. With Destroyer presenting a fifth LP on Bloomington label Jagjaguwar, Black Mountain go someway in delivering a bold cross reference of only the best and most legendary points of 60s, 70s and 90s rock n roll regalia. With keys and piano mixed with guitars, distortion and vocoders giving the band a futuristic, krautrock (Deutsche elektronik musik) edge, British psychedelic and raw but atmospheric arrangements give the band their own undeniable identity. With songs passing the bottle from slow dancing rock, flashy hair metal, to synthy guitars and cosmic arpeggios, the best metal of today is still way up there, on Black Mountain.

Review: Justin Vernon's voice has always been the people's main attraction to Bon Iver, and the fact his pseudonym even exists is certainly no coincidence. As fragile and heartbroken as it is forthright and experienced, when you're wearing a shredded heart on sleeve and confessing to all your deepest insecurities using a pen name can help immensely. Album number four perhaps proves this more than any of its predecessors. While the three previous chapters have all made his thoughts, feelings, insecurities and fears clear, this one takes honesty to new heights. Combining the frail electronics that have gradually slipped their way into his back catalogue with the acoustics of his earliest, rocket-to-fame efforts, it's a culmination of all that's been in the truest sense. Perhaps even more intimate than the breathtakingly personal "For Emma, Forever Ago", "i,i" is a striking work to say the least.

Review: The evolution of Justin Vernon from the broken-hearted, falsetto-voiced troubadour who emerged from his cabin to deliver his debut eight years ago to the here and now may seem downright implausible, yet the facts of the matter are this - '22, A Million' is proof positive that he is one of the most multi-faceted and enigmatic and inscrutable artists we have at our disposal, still capable of delivering heart-rending beauty in song form yet also of marrying it to wilful abstraction in a way that not only offers emotional resonance yet reflects and refracts its surrounding era to offer succour and salvation. Sing it from the rooftops, this is little short of a complicated modern masterpiece.

Review: Bullion is a virtuoso pop producer who brings a different perspective. His 80s tinged poptimism has won him a hardcore fan base. He draws on dusky yacht pop, synth pop, blue eyed soul and fantasy sounds for his inspiration and distils them all into his own unique outlook. Here he makes a classy debut for US indie label Jagjaguwar and sets sail on the lullaby like 'Heaven Is Over. 'Strike A Light' brims with more lush melodies and retro-future sounds with his own vocals drifting up top. A real standout is the closer, 'Loving Furlong,' which is intimate and sincere and shows his songwriting at its best.

Review: Your Day Will Come is the debut album from Chanel Beads (Shane Lavers), a fresh face and breakout force in the realm of contemporary, dreamy avant-garde music. The New York musician's first LP here follows up 2022 singles 'Ef' and 'True Altruism', and hears him fleshing out his distinctly catatonic and silken sound, achieved by his patented method of layering acoustic and synthetic instruments. A veritable traversal of the fantasy in sound, the album was born of Lavers' experience of lockdown in 2020, during which time the musician found himself reexamining his relationship to music and artistry, in a bid to find his authenticity. A recollection of an early childhood experience of loss followed, an experience which informs on the album's psychic-stylistic meanderings, which span every facet of electronic to punk to dream pop to pysch-funk to neoclassical folk.

Review: Indie and alternative rock have changed a lot since the mighty Jr. first hit us with grizzly riffs and Gen X tones. Nevertheless, this is a band that helped change the face of the Western guitar scene back in the late-1980s, and their influence and impact is still felt today. The whole reason the sound of this three piece is so familiar is it helped pave the way for much that has come since.

Sweep It Into Space might be the best reminder of that. Originally pegged for release last year, with Kurt Vile involved, sadly he fell ill and was unable to offer his talent, leaving the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup to do their thing. And do their thing they did. It's lo-fi but powerful, romantic but broken, high-energy but cool, gritty rock music for streets, skateparks and late-night bars and bonfires, and we never want it to end.

Review: Of all the reformations of classic '90s band to take place in the last decade and a half, Dinosaur Jr's - now nine years in - has been one of the most uplifting. Moreover, this has been largely down to this decidedly scruffy and unassuming outfit delivering nothing more nor less than the same old fabulous thing, with no drama or no rock star frolics, yet bucketloads of the raw magic, chemistry and style that always elevated their records far above the grunge-rock hurly-burly. 'Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not' has it all - memorable songs, wildly in-the-red production, a tight and electrifying band and J Mascis cementing his status as the greatest guitarist of a generation.

Review: Romance with a capital 'R', as they say, ivory key doyen Gia Margaret returns with another spectacular and spellbinding collection of beautiful movements and pieces that sees her invoke a sense of peace, tranquility and solitude. Reflective arrangements that seem to straddle both a sense of loss, or at least melancholia, and acceptance and comfort in oneself. "I wanted to make music that was useful," Margaret says of the record. "Romantic Piano is curious, calming, patient and incredibly moving - but it doesn't overstay its welcome for more than a second." Running between fairytale like 'Sitting On The Piano' to the opiate, neo-pop of 'City Song', its a rare beast that can simultaneously feel tripped out and surreal, but also grounded in the world we are so luck to experience.

Review: St Louis' indie icon Angel Olsen has always hinted at her country leanings in her music, but on her sixth album she goes more wholeheartedly into the tradition of Americana. At the same time, the album's themes centre around Olsen's journey of discovery as she came out as queer in her mid-thirties, and this gets explored wholeheartedly in the video for the title track with its testing of gender norms. Co-produced with Jonathan Wilson and featuring Drew Erickson and Emily Elhaj on keys and bass respectively, it's a stunning step on for Olsen as she explores the roots of her sound and her world as it stands now.

Review: Angel Olsen's Aisles is an 80s cover EP that has been put together after her last two emotionally wrought albums. It has some great moments like the brooding sounds of her versions of classics such as 'Forever Young' and 'The Safety Dance.' The artist says she heard the source material while in grocery stores and was inspired to just "have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous." Laura Branigan's Euro-disco anthem 'Gloria' is another standout as here it becomes a moody rework with slow tempos that draw you in deep, while there is a real tenderness to her take on Alphaville's 'Forever Young.'

Review: Unsurprisingly, Aromanticism - meaning to have little or no romantic attraction to others - is exactly the idea Moses Sumney explores on this stunning debut. Having written the majority of this album's lyrics in the solitude of remote north American cabins, Sumney's songs about loneliness and distance feel natural and sincere. Throughout 'Aromanticism' Sumney shows off his affinity with vocal acrobatics, leaping from his rasping lower register to achingly dulcet falsetto. Both in his instrumentation and as a vocalist, Sumney strikes a pitch-perfect balance between acoustic and digital, exhibiting his ability to blend the two. Sumney blends passages of spoken word, neo-soul, broken-beat, and the vocal harmonies and movements, cascading with gospel precision, that shone on his 2016 EP 'Lamentations'. 'Aromanticism' is a powerful and heartfelt opening statement from an artist well worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Review: The New Zealand-born, Portland-based Ruban Nielson initially made a name for himself by marrying psych rock and lo-fi styles in a messy, Beefheartian manner, with jam-band wig-outs vying for attention with expressive songcraft. On 'Multi Love', however, he's both reined in the excesses of yore and sharpened up his songwriting, and the result is a veritable tour de force. Pop-tinged melody and emotional candour make for impressive bedfellows on these nine expansive and inventive ditties, which take as much inspiration from Prince or Janelle Monae as they do The Grateful Dead or Zappa. 'Multi Love' marks the place where Nielson genuinely makes his presence felt as a modern-day psychedelic visionary.

Review: New Zealand psychedelic rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra received plenty of acclaim for their second album, II, originally released in February 2013. Fusing lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippy ideas, it take sin funky as you like guitar jams, drawn out and sun worshipping odes to a higher presence and raw, psyched out soul tracks. Tunes are packed with great detail and manage to strike a balance between light and dark, beauty and hostility. The often inward lyrics add another alluring element to this album, which won Best Alternative Album in the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards.

Review: Logic runs through the Unknown Mortal Orchestra back catalogue, even if that's just in terms of what the records are actually called. V, then, is album number five, a double-sized and long-awaited package that represents the first long form outing from Ruban Nielson and Co since 2018. In modern music, that's a hell of a long time. Rest assured, though, it seems like time was well spent honing crafts, polishing ideas, and coming out with 14 incredibly interesting and compelling songs.

In many ways V isn't a huge departure from IV, but - maybe because of that extended gap - you still can't shake the feeling this is you meeting the Orchestra for the first time. Packed full of surprises, running the gamut between blissed out, stargazing stuff, lo-fi funk steppers, and a kind of stoner pop-blues, it's love at first play. Again.

Review: New Zealand-born, Portland-based Ruban Nielson is well known for mixing up lo-fi, indie rock, psychedelic sounds and plenty of trippiness into unique and beguiling sound worlds. V is said to be the band's most definitive album yet and it was written between the dry freeways of Palm Springs in California and the much more lush coastlines of Hawai'i. As such it is drawn from a world of West Coast AOR, classic hits, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. This is the first double album in the artist's discography and it is well worth the extra playtime.

Review: Sharon Van Etten is an American singer-songwriter who dropped her sixth studio album We've Been Going About This All Wrong last year and captured plenty of the wrought emotions we all had during Covid. It showed she is very much on top of her game and the tenth anniversary edition of Tramp reminds us she has been for decades. This special version comes on limited edition heavyweight crimson splash vinyl and includes a new unreleased track. There is a reason this record was critically acclaimed at the time and has remained a fan favourite.

Review: On her new album Across Water Made Us, Jamila heads into all new musical territory. 2017's HEAVN album was one that found the artist connecting with the lineage of Black feminist movements, then in 2019 Legacy! reframed her own experiences through iconic Black and brown artists. Now she cross new genre borders, sharpness up her hypnotic wordplay and lats down plenty of playful melodies that all help make for one of her most personal albums to date. It is fun and intimate as it tackles veracious subjects from new romances to endless love with features from Chicago natives such as Saba and Peter CottonTale.