Tough Love Vinilo y CD

Review: RECOMMENDED
Often the most apt quotes come from unexpected places. The Great Spans of Muddy Time isn't just a great album title, it's reference to depression, originating from TV gardening legend Monty Don. It has now been re-used for the name of William Doyle's latest album in his post-East India Youth years, which have thus far been marked by a series of blissful instrumental LPs and the excellent, song-focussed Your Wilderness Revisited in 2017.

Things look to combine both here, with The Great Spans of Muddy Time an exceptional example of lo-fi folk-electronica, at times epic and monumental - huge, expansive synth builds - in other moods there's a Casiotone for the Painfully Alone quality to the more rhythmic tracks. An accomplished addition to an already exceptional oeuvre.

Review: The Town That Cursed Your Name is a welcome return from Glenn Donaldson aka The Reds, The Pink, The Purples. The LA-based artist says of the record that "I realised as I was piecing it together that it's a song cycle about trying to live while also feeling called to make music. The album addresses that duality ably with wry observation and a mix of the micro- and macroscopic realness Donaldson is so well-loved for. This record is heavier than the last with more fuzzy guitar textures and heavier lines throughout. From lo-fi to college rock, the influences here are varied and the songs are both beautiful and dazzling.

Review: Thus London-based five some may seem at first to be entranced by the two-chords-good mindset bequeathed to the world by Spacemen 3 and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, yet there's far more to 'The Album Paranoia' than mere heavy-lidded psych attack. There's off-kilter pop suss aplenty, with warped, Barrett-esque melody and eccentric charm in the tradition of Pavement and Sonic Youth, yet a sense of sonic adventure prevails throughout, as dreamstates are warped and guitar monomania gives way to psychedelic experimentation. These ten tracks are fit to expand the horizons of every self-respecting space cadet.