Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down in the Light

Well, after the genius of The Letting Go, I’ll admit that my hopes were very high for this album.  I wouldn’t say they’ve exactly been fulfilled though, and it might be possible that Mr. Oldham has gone just a little bit too pop.  The Letting Go, from 2006, took earlier ultra-hushed work like Master & [...]

Porlolo - Meadows

I only found this band recently, and I am absolutely delighted with this album.  Delight is probably the right word for the music as well, which simply leaks loveliness into your life as if it had an infinite supply to spread around.  It’s somewhat fitting that the last song should be called Charm School too, [...]

Ghostkeeper & the Children of the Great Northern Muskeg

I honestly didn’t get this album the first few times through, and now I have no idea how that could have happened. The hooks, delightful little tunes lapsing into growly guitar, it’s all spot on. Maybe I was just having a dopey week - it does happen, you know.
This reminds me an awful [...]

Beck - Modern Guilt

You know, this is actually pretty good, for the most part. I’ll confess, my expectations were pretty bloody low for this album, given the extreme variability of Beck’s recent work.  Actually, the extreme variability of all of his work.
I loved Mutations, I liked Guero, I sort of liked Odelay and Mellow Gold, I like [...]

Honeytrap - Follies in Great Cities

I’ve been waiting for a while for this one, and it doesn’t disappoint. I have one quibble, and I’ll get it out of the way nice and early so I can concentrate on the good stuff: the new version of Death Before the Silver Screen is not a patch on the original. So [...]

Women - Women

In terms of making yourselves absolutely fucking impossible to track down on the internet, calling a band ‘Women’ has got to be pretty damn near the top of the list. I eventually found these guys by following my last.fm profile and discovering Flemish Eye Records, to whom they are signed.
They’re a Candian band, from [...]