An effervescent, mellow and energised summer playlist for 2020

Here’s a few cool albums I have been listening to lately. They have a nice beachy vibe, which is the kind of weather we are getting in Australia and New Zealand right now. Great background music for BBQS, on the headphones while sinking a few cold ones on the beach, while reading, and some ofContinue reading “An effervescent, mellow and energised summer playlist for 2020”

Album Review: Robohands ‘Green’

In case you have been living under a rock, Robohands is a UK jazz musician whose real name is Andy Baxter. His debut album Green which came out in mid-2018 is superb. With almost zero effort to promote the album, Robohands has grown in underground popularity getting over a million views on his album andContinue reading “Album Review: Robohands ‘Green’”

Boring Yet interesting: Drone Music

Drone music doesn’t change much in tonality or tempo. The nature of this means that it can confuse some people and attract others. Unlike most other types of music, drone cultivates a unique emotional soundscape that allows people to sink deeply into it. Some drone music is less like a warm fuzzy hug and moreContinue reading “Boring Yet interesting: Drone Music”

Ambient Album Review: Place Language by Various Artists @RobGMacfarlane

Sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy this one. It’s a compilation album inspired by the themes and evocative words in celebrated nature writer Robert MacFarlane’s book Landmarks. The book focuses on showcasing poetic landscape words, gathered from the dialects of Britain and Ireland. The book Landmarks separates out words into types ofContinue reading “Ambient Album Review: Place Language by Various Artists @RobGMacfarlane”

Ambient album review: The Fifty Eleven Project by Kasper Bjørke Quartet

Just a few weeks shy of his 35th birthday, Kasper Bjørke, a Danish ambient producer, discovered a tumor. The next five years of his life were spent in the clinical surrounds of hospitals and clinics. So he decided to document his feelings into his newest release, The Fifty Eleven Project. It’s deeply moving, fragile ambientContinue reading “Ambient album review: The Fifty Eleven Project by Kasper Bjørke Quartet”

A crate-digger’s guide to embarrasingly cringey music: 70’s and 80’s edition

I had my mind bombarded by a lot of great music and a lot of crappy music growing up. This was thanks to Rage (an Australian version of MTV). Also my dad had a massive vinyl collection that was filled with some great albums – Led Zeppelin and Kate Bush, as well as some reallyContinue reading “A crate-digger’s guide to embarrasingly cringey music: 70’s and 80’s edition”

The most embarassingly shit songs of my 90’s adolescence

This list is inspired by Anthony Fantano AKA The Needle Drop’s list of the most cringe-worthy songs that he loved as a teenager. In case you don’t know of his channel, Anthony normally reviews amazing music both new and old in a really interesting way.

Ambient album review: Suzanne Ciani Buchla concerts 1975 @sevwave

Electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani never achieved the critical mass appeal of Brian Eno or Aphex Twin. Although once you listen to her album I’m sure you agree, she deserves to be up there with the greats of ambient music. You never really hear much about female ambient music artists, it’s always men really –Continue reading “Ambient album review: Suzanne Ciani Buchla concerts 1975 @sevwave”

So long, Marianne: Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne Ihlen

In November 2016, the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, renowned for his melancholic and romantic ballads, died a few months after the woman who inspired many of his famous songs – his Norwegian lover and muse, Marianne Ihlen. On the summery idyll of Hydra, Greece in 1960, there was a bohemian community of artists and musicians livingContinue reading “So long, Marianne: Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne Ihlen”

EP Review:  Notion by Tash Sultana (2016)

Tash Sultana is the real deal. A genuinely talented and unique Melbourne multi-instrumentalist who made a name for herself the old fashioned way, by busking on the streets of Melbourne (Bourke St mall and Degraves St) and making homemade videos to YouTube. These simple and raw B&W videos of Tash subsequently went viral and gainedContinue reading “EP Review:  Notion by Tash Sultana (2016)”