Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: The Tetine trio started writing and composing together in the lockdowns of 2020 - no doubt observing all the arcane rules about hands, face and space as they did so. They have an intuitive style that now translates to this record which was written for cello, voice, piano, organ and electronics and was born as "a respiratory, meditative, and improvisatory piece of DIY tropical-mutant-punk "chamber music". They have succeeded in their mission to subvert here with plenty of subtle background sounds bleeding in from the nearby street as themes such as hearing loss, menopause, pollution and respiration all come up.

Review: Tokyo-based post/math-rock noodlers Toe have a habit of cleansing the palette of each subsequent full-length they release with a follow up EP. Just like 2005's debut album The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety was followed up with 2006's New Sentimentality EP, the group would return three years on from their stellar 2009 sophomore effort For Long Tomorrow with 2012's The Future Is Now. From the twinkling emo-inflected shoegazing noodles of 'Run For Word' to the more acoustic-driven psych-jazz of 'Ordinary Days', the four cuts purposefully meander and fuse differing elements from the band's arsenal whilst somehow increasing the dense technicality to absurd, near impenetrable levels.

Review: A collaborative EP between 2 Australian rock giants, this limited one-sided collectors disc comprises the 19 minutes long 'Satanic Slumber Party' split into three sections. 'The Chairman's Portrait' intro is a dark, heavily distorted spoken-word piece backed by dark rumbling guitars that explodes into the head-banging electronic banger 'Midnight in Sodom'. The angry lyrics are paired with awesome melodic guitar solos and chiptune noises, before shifting into noise rock territory. 'Hoof and Horn' takes up most of the runtime at a hefty 12 minutes, in which ambient drone begets experimental sound effects that are reminiscent of the liquid bass and synths favoured by producer SOPHIE. The track evolves into a demonic lullaby that wouldn't feel out of place in an episode of American Horror Story, and fans of 2 Mello's 'Atmospheric Horror Music Vol.1' will greatly appreciate this track. The EP is all-in-all a camp experience. An Avante-Garde, quintessentially fun blend of two incredible groups.

Review: Captain Beefheart - AKA Don Glen Vliet - was apparently looking to right some of the wrongs that accompanied the release of his previous records with this 1972 outing. Although catapulted into the cult premier league with Trout Mask Replica three years earlier, and delivering three very good records between then and this, commercial success had continued to evade the arty blues master, something he went out to rectify here.
Failing to chart in the UK, and peaking at 191 in the Billboard 200 Albums Chart stateside, it's hard to make any big claims about him achieving that goal. Nevertheless, Clear Spot is a timeless slice of evidence in support of his legendary status, with the raw, grizzled sound we love him for defines everything here, not to mention incredible guitar riffs and genuinely innovative song craft (see the broken and surreal 'Golden Birdies' for one example.)

Review: Time Is Away is a lovely sonic daydream that takes you on a heady trip through beautiful and weird, romantic and exotic, intimate and hard-to-define sounds. It has been selected and arranged by London duo Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney and is one of those brilliantly beguiling collections that invite you into all new musical worlds. The pair behind this are well known to NTS listens who love their cult show and often span musical, literary and filmic worlds with their selections. While far-flung and obscure at times, this is an absorbing and rewarding listen.

Review: Club scene doyen, dance music veteran, and rave culture hero Johannes Auvinen opts to depart from the dance floor, at least for the time being, and deliver Arles - an ode to the other side of the electronic-acid scene, those sounds that make most sense after the chaos and carnage of a party have subsided and you're safely home on the couch with you and yours and all dearest.
And it works as well as it should, with the experience both of living in that world and making anthems for it clearly evident in the overall production quality and ideas. Arles is a warm blanket, that friendly therapist, an album that understands where you've been because it was there too. Remarkably, despite what that may suggest, this is not ambient or particularly leftfield stuff. Instead, it's rhythmic, pop-infused electronica goodness, for want of a more succinct, less awkward turn of phrase.

Review: Anyone familiar with Tokyo, Japan's predominantly instrumental math-rock prodigies Toe, should already be clued into the fact that the member's prolific nature prevents them from resting on their creative laurels for long, with each full-length they drop bookended by an EP. 2005's debut LP The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety was followed by the 2006 EP New Sentimentality, while after 2009's outstanding For Long Tomorrow came The Future Is Now in 2012. At the time of writing, 2018's aptly titled Our Latest Number currently sits as the group's most recent EP; sandwiched in between 2015's sonically transformative Hear You and 2021's latest output DOKU-EN-KAI. Furthering the experimentation of its preceding full-length, the EP strays from their signature twinkling, mathy noodles and emotive shoegazing, and instead embraces elements of minimalism and trip-hop, whilst expanding their acoustic-driven nu-jazz flourishes, and even sprinkling some ethereal vocals into the mix.

Review: Japanese math/post-rock outfit Toe have become renowned for their virtuosic blend of jazzy, hyper-technical math-rock blended with emo shoegazing and tropical Balearic vibes. Originally released in 2006 as follow up to the band's 2005 debut full-length The Book About My Idle Plot On A Vague Anxiety, and beginning their trend of intersplicing each album cycle with an EP, New Sentimentality offers up four lengthy cuts running the sonic gamut of almost every water they wade within. Trading off noodling twinkles with acoustic pluckings, while abrasive jazz drum-fills clatter over the weaving gentle cacophonies, this is what happens when the emo kids become the new prog nerds.

Review: Purely democratic bands are hard to come by, but Tortoise might just be a known exception to that rule. 'Rhythms, Resolutions and Clusters' is probably ther best LP in their lot to encompass this outlook; a well-rounded album of trudging quasi-electronic codi, released in 1995 as part of the industrial and post-rock scenescape. It hears 7 tracks nod to wonky, pained, muddy dub in the vein of 23 Skidoo, This Heat, Pole or Muslimgauze, and this new cream reissue of course contains all the remixes; Steve Albini, Jim O'Rourke, and Bundy K. Brown et al.

Review: Tortoise's 1995 album Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters gets a first new vinyl pressing in almost three whole decades. It is a fine collection of remixes that is from ended associates and family including Casey Rice, Mike Watt (Minute Men), John McEntire, Bundy K.Brown and many more. They all help make it a much better than average remix album with a couple of all time gems from these a-listers who are all in fine form. Jim O'Rourke's 'Initial Gesture Protraction' and Steve Albini 's take on 'The Match Incident' are two particular standouts.

Review: As he's moved further towards a career in soundtrack composition, Trentemoller's music has become increasingly widescreen and atmospheric, with the Danish artist drawing inspiration from dream-pop, the Cocteau Twins and Durutti Column as much as the ambient, electronica and immersive techno he was once famous for. All of these strands combine beautifully on 'Memoria', a picturesque and enveloping affair whose multitude of highlights include the yearning, string-laden and bittersweet brilliance of 'No More Kissing The Rain', the wall-of-sound dream pop shimmer of 'In The Gloaming', the mid-80s indie-pop haziness of 'Dead or Alive' and the glassy-eyed and tactile 'All Too Soon'.

Review: For the uninitiated, Russian trio Trna have been making waves for the better part of a decade, due to their crushing, cavernous unification of grandiose post-rock and shoegazing black metal.

On their fourth full-length, 'Istok', the group elevate their dynamism to spectral planes with warring elements of chaos and cohesion, crafting instrumental epics of ethereal and abrasive beauty.

The sole vocals are found on album centrepiece, 'Shining', with a horrifically unsettling feature from Portuguese depressive black metal outfit, Gaerea, which allows for the band to fully embrace their malevolent side, while cuts like 'Burning Bridges, Shattered Dreams' are spellbinding in their hypnotic blackgazing.

Review: Tropicantesimo's Session 3 is the third in what is a trio of EPs that all come ahead of and tease a new Gitania album. This is a collection of sounds steeped in ritual, in healing and celebration of self through sound and dance. Tropicantesimo was originally a party in Rome that soon became a "collective listening experience" which now has its own studio. DJs Hugo Sanchez, Lola Kola, Rocco Mago, Gabor, and Egeeno are behind the sounds and they all bring a mix of world rhythms, messages and sounds that are steamy, deep, languid and alluring.