Review: In celebration of 50 years in the performing arts, Idris Ackamoor presents Artistic Being for Record Store Day 2025-a powerful blend of jazz, spoken word and activism. Featuring the voices of acclaimed actor Danny Glover and stage legend Rhodessa Jones, this record captures highlights from the Underground Jazz Cabaret, which was performed during Black History Month 2024 at The Lab in San Francisco. Co-produced by Ackamoor's Cultural Odyssey, the release fuses poetic storytelling with evocative musical textures while reflecting on social justice, identity and resilience. Artistic Being is a profound statement from a visionary artist.
Review: In 1995, Portland hipsters The Dandy Warhols made tentative steps towards gatecrashing the mainstream by signing a major record deal with Capitol Records after their indie debut Dandys Rule OK caught their attention. But it wasn't until this album, their second on a major label though, that things really started to kick off for the Courtney Taylor-Talor fronted icons. And it's easy to see why it was such a hit, Dandys could conjure pure beauty with their psychedelic indie pop melodies. The single that became their definitive hit and likely haunts them to this day is 'Bohemian Like You, who some of you will remember from that Vodaphone advert. But it's an album that doesn't rely on a single hit, it's one to whack on, go through the looking glass and see the world through their artfully fantastical vision.
B-STOCK: Slight creasing to outer sleeve, record slightly warped
Black Shuck (3:20)
Get Your Hands Off My Woman (2:43)
Growing On Me (3:24)
I Believe In A Thing Called Love (3:31)
Love Is Only A Feeling (4:18)
Givin' Up (6:53)
Stuck In A Rut (2:51)
Friday Night (3:53)
Love On The Rocks With No Ice (2:00)
Holding My Own (4:54)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight creasing to outer sleeve, record slightly warped***
Permission To Land is the debut album by glam rockers The Darkness, originally released in 2003. True to their name, The Darkness were dark horses indeed, having been sorely underestimated by the guffawing gatekeepers at Sony, who failed to see any promise in the band after being deemed "uncool", perhaps due to their bombastic rock & roll sound and high vocal drawl from Justin Hawkins. Sony were easily knocked off their high horse, however, when the band later signed with Atlantic, after which the album would top the US Albums Chart, peaking at number two. For the fans, this reissue harks back to their earliest hits, such as 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love', and 'Growing On Me'.
B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition
Incidental (I) (5:27)
Doberman (1:59)
Magnolia (4:12)
The Garden Route (5:48)
Heathen (5:03)
Amethyst (8:09)
Incidental (II) (4:12)
Revelator (6:27)
Body Behavior (5:30)
Incidental (III) (4:37)
Winona (4:46)
The Marvelous Orange Tree (5:52)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***
Following on from 2021's hard left turn into dream-pop territory on Infinite Granite, San Francisco blackgaze legends in the making Deafheaven return with a work that they've always been striving towards. Their sixth full-length, Lonely People With Power, takes lessons from the saccharine shoegaze of their previous outing and injects it directly into the veins of their heaviest material since 2015's New Bermuda, culminating in a deft balancing act that finally combines vocalist George Clarke's shrieking, inhumane howls with his recently discovered crooning lilt, exuded as such on the beautiful warring of styles that is 'Heathen'. Elsewhere, 'Magnolia' provides a cataclysmic beast of proggy black metal akin to latter-day Emperor whereas 'Doberman' goes full euphoric blackened shoegaze reminiscent of 2013's breakout sophomore triumph Sunbather. Striking a unique chord between their equal and effortless understanding of black metal malevolence and the ethereality of cinematic post-rock, the album sees a notable trade off from their their usual smaller collection of lengthy, grandiose tracks that all clock in at over ten minutes a piece in favour of a more varied, yet succinct and instantaneous batch of cuts, 12 in total, marking the most that any Deafheaven project has ever offered.
Review: Djrum (Felix Manuel) presents his latest full album in six years, in what has been described as a "literal creative rebirth". Beginning in earnest in the 2020 COVID lockdown, this a record whose creation treads a path of almost archetypal infamy: all the best electronica albums, in our view, are born of hard-drive losses. And Djrum's hard-drive meltdown, of course, seemed to correspond to a literal collapse and renewal; such ostensible catastrophes are painful at first, but they tend to breed re-incarnal transformations. Reflecting in the shaking disaster-piece stutters of 'Three Foxes Chasing Each Other' to the ambi-spatially adept 'A Tune For Us', the record spans prodigious instrumentality and electronica abstractions, verging on speedcore, jazz and techno-halftime in places. From vinyl DJ to reckoner of hardcore musicianship.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.