Reviews: indie x

indie (indie / (post)rock / pop / lofi / shoegaze)

Fiel Garvie – Leave me out of this

After the excellent single ‘I didn’t say’ we now have a full-length album by UK artists Fiel Garvie, their second one. You can call it shoegaze, dreampop, ethereal indie or whatever you want, fact is that the eleven tracks have a pleasant hazy, misty sound and atmosphere. Perfect lounge music for late at night, to let your mind drift away while wtachning the stars…..

Johnny Hollow – S/T

Johnny Hollow isn’t only about music. The visual side is equally important. With sounds and images they paint their tales about madness and passion. Their website is pure visual extravaganza. If you solve the online riddles you can listen to their music and watch some clips too… They also made a lot of work from the cd booklet, which looks very stylish…

Rainfall Years, The – Disautumn

The Rainfall Years is a group from Denmark. I remembered their name vaguely, probably because they released their debut album on World Serpent, way back in 1996. After a long break due to personal circumstances the group is back. We can only cheer for that, because the melancholic pop music of The Rainfall Years is of a high level…

Mystechs – City folk

The hilarious artwork made me quite curious what to expect… According to the booklet, the Mystechs wanted to get back to their roots, to the soil… to the country, after too many years in the city. So they threw out their synthesizers, got some friends together and started to make music on the porch on some old countryside veranda. The end result is mostly hilarious…

Nesrin Sen – Type

Nesrin Sen is a multi-talented woman from Sweden. She is active in the field of visual arts, as a sculptor and painter. Now she has also produced her first album. In the booklet you see photos of her walking through the forest and sitting on giant tree with her guitar. Nesrin has created eleven songs in the best singer-songwriter tradition. Most of the music is rather tranquil…

Drunk with Joy – I say goodbye

A mini cd with three tracks of Drunk with Joy, a band consisting of Mila Oshin (who grew up in Holland) and Kris Jager (born in Hamburg) and based in London. This single will be released on February 9, 2004. I certainly like this material, which I find terribly difficult to describe though. The eclectic songs combine indie guitar pop with moody electronics but also classical strings…

Devics – The stars at Saint Andrea

Many records that are released are not that good (most of them are therefore not reviewed here), but there are also many releases that are good. Only few however are really good. This album by the American band Devics is one that is without a doubt one of those…

Creatures, The – Hái!

Right after the reunion tour of Siouxsie and The Banshees singer Siouxsie and drummer Budgie went into a studio to record a new album of their side project The Creatures. Hái! is the first album of this band in five years. Both the title and the artwork look Japanese…

Jackie-O Motherfucker – WOW/The Magick Fire Music

This 2 CD set is a rerelease of two old albums released on the Ecstatic Peace label and Fisheye Recordings. Since both vinyls are sold out for quite some time already this CD set comes as a welcome re-release to fans of JOMF. The music is what you would expect from JOMF if you knew them before, chaotic post rock tracks…

My Jazzy Child – Sada soul

My jazzy child is the project of Damien Mingus, active in the Evenement collective in Paris. This cd is the first to be released under the name of My Jazzy Child. The music is build up from loops, with the source material being a guitar, voices, drums, and some other occasional instruments. Although not all songs are good on this cd, the overall feel of the cd is great…

Ai Phoenix – The driver is dead

Although Ai Phoenix sound like they come from somewhere in Texas, they are actually from Sweden. Ai Phoenix combine sad guitartunes with subtle drums and lush female vocals, sometimes backed by male vocals. These form an incredibly moody and often depressing atmosphere, which is now and then penetrated by a touch of light…

Cash, Johnny – Hurt / Personal Jesus

A lot has been written already about Johnny Cash, the ‘Man in Black’ who died in september this year, aged 71. His melancholic, sometimes dark country music, with grim, realistic texts about the daily sorrow of the working man, gave him much success in the late 60’s and 70’s. With legendary concerts in the St…

Ostara – Ultima Thule

With their third album Ostara has definitely left the neo-folk genre behind. On their last album Kingdom Gone the sound was already more pop and new wave orientated. This new cd Ultima Thule is basically a moody rock album…

Meeting Places, The – Find yourself along the way

In the last two months I’ve played this album a few dozen times and I’m still fond of it. These four guys from California, with a traditional line-up of guitars, drums, bass and vocals have made an impressive and solid debut album. “Find yourself along the way” contains 10 perfect noisepop songs, in the best shoegaze/indie tradition, with hypnotizing guitar walls…

Interpol – The Black EP

At first it was a bit of a disappointment that this is not a cd with new songs from Interpol. This EP is more of and extended single, and ‘Say Hello to the Angles’ isn’t even one of best songs from the album Turn on the Bright Lights. Next to that song there are a demo version of ‘NYC’ and four live tracks, originally recorded and broadcasted by a French radio station, on this disc…

Cathari – Cathari

An unknown band on an unknown label. A modern sleeve which can be associated with various styles. With a blank mind I put this album in my cd-player. After about 8 minutes I ran to the player to push the ‘stop-button’. Was it that bad? On the contrary. The strangily titled first track ‘Astrological clock fortells the return of satan’ left me speechless and I wanted to listen to it again…

Broadcast – The HAHA sound

After releasing a great EP earlier this year (read my review here) there now is a full-length album, with the title “The HAHA sound”. This is Broadcasts second full-length, and once again it took them 3 years to produce it…

Erase Errata – At Crystal Palace

We live in a recycle age. From time to time certain decades are in the spotlights again, and the music and fashion from that era are being made and sold again. The 80’s revival has been going on for some time now. A thing like the electro(clash) hype is linked with this replay…

Antimatter – Lights Out

Antimatter is the new band by ex-Anathema bassist and songwriter Duncan Patterson. The symphonic rock of the Anathema albums Eternity and Alternative 4 is continued and further worked out by Antimatter. The band plays very slow and tranquil music. Luckily Antimatter doesn’t use as much notes in each song as some symphonic and progrock bands do…

Noctorum – Sparks lane

In the past I’ve listened quite a lot to the music of The Church, an Australian guitarpop group active since the early 80’s. They made great albums like “Of Skin and Heart”, “Heyday”, “Starfish” (with the immortal hit ‘Under the milky way’) and the underrrated “Gold Afternoon Fix”…