Wichita Vinilo y CD

Review: Ben Carr is Carrtoons, a much hyped multi-instrumentalist and producer from New York. He has some mad skills on the electric bass and brings that to all of his tunes which range from innocent dance-pop ditties to loved-up new soul slow jams and late night hip-hop all with superb samples adding extra class. After a fine debut album Drink Edition, he is back with another full length that will soon swell your heart and make its way into your affections as well as your summer playlists. Saturday Morning has guests like Rae Khali and Topaz Jones and coupled with the well informed and original production they make for a standout record.

Review: By the time they released Tarantula in 1996, Ride had run out of road. The band split shortly before the album's release and would not reform again for almost two decades. At the time, the album was panned by critics, but listening to this remastered reissue, it's hard to see why. Sure, the dense, dreamy and heady shoegaze sound they'd pioneered at the turn of the 90s was long gone, replaced instead by a nostalgic late 60s rock sound that doffed a cap to the Beatles and those Britpop era bands that emulated their sound (hello Oasis). The sound is authentic - all blazed vocals, alternately jangling and heavy guitars, dependable bass and wide-eyed audio effects - and the songs entertaining. Perhaps it will be judged more sympathetically this time round.

Review: Tarantula is one of those bittersweet moments in the history of UK rock & roll. On the one hand, it's a fantastic album that showcases the natural talent and innovative approach to song craft that Ride had first grabbed attention with. On the other, it marked the beginning of the end for the group, or more accurately, the first chapter following the end - finally getting a release after the outfit had called time and gone their separate ways. Still, in so far as swan songs go, there are plenty to celebrate here. Tarantula is a purist's rock & roll extravaganza at times, with its gritty riffs and forward momentum, tracks like 'Burnin'' perhaps best typify this, or those looking for a taste of the genre's 1960s origin story might look to 'Deep Inside My Pocket'. But then it's all much more complex than that, too, with the reflective indie balladry of 'Castle On The Hill', noise pop on 'Gonna Be Alright', and hypnotising layers on 'Ride The Wind'.

Review: When 2017's Weather Diaries marked the first full-length from Oxford shoegaze legends Ride in 21 years, many welcomed what was presumed to be a reshaping of legacy so as to not have bowed out with the negatively received Tarantula. This made 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place even more of a joyous sonic spectacle (before touching on the fact that the LP legitimately bore some of the band's finest work to date). Now that the dust has settled on a plethora of tour dates and festival appearances, we arrive at the third of their post-reunion albums with the highly anticipated Interplay. From the bubbling, ethereal synths of lead single 'Peace Sign' to the hazy, neo-psych dream-pop of 'Last Frontier', Ride appear more rejuvenated and hopeful than they've ever sounded, and it's a miracle in and of itself to be on the cusp of nearly having as many post as pre-break up records.

Review: Released in 1994 on the ever-incredible Creation Records, Ride's Carnival of Light was the band's third full length, and didn't so much mark a shift but a progression in the journey of the critically acclaimed outfit, who still retain the shoegaze and noise pop elements we all fell head over heels for, but look to draw on more traditional British sounds, too. The result is something that might be described as a laddish, plugged-in take on folk, at times at least. Sadly, this wasn't quite what critics said about it, and after successive slamming in the press the band began to look unfavourably at the release, too, with frontman and guitarist Andy Bell even going so far as to describe it as "carnival of shite". More recently, he managed to make peace with it, and revisiting the songs now reveals myriad classics waiting to be rediscovered and appreciated out of the context and weight of expectations they were born into at the time.

Review: Shoegaze and indie rock fans rejoice! The new Ride album - their first for five years - is here, featuring 12 new songs in total, many of whch were with some of them being debuted on their recent tour. 'Peace Sign' triumphantly begins the album with the signature wall of sound that Ride is so well known for, while 'Last Frontier' seems to be a firm fan favourite already. Stunning , dynamic and beautifully crafted, the album comes on double colored vinyl complete with insert and MP3 download code and looks likely to be the best shoegaze album of 2024.