AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE
A Trip To Bolgatanga
U-SOUND
8/10
Psychedelic dub ensemble return for their first album in 12 years
Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s project – with Adrian Sherwood, as ever, on the controls – returns for another voyage into the woozy world of psychedelic dub. Inspired by Noah’s current hometown in north Ghana, from the opening “A Bad Attitude”, the record is teeming with distinctive percussive flurries and chanting specific to local tribes. However, merged with Sherwood’s unique production – such as on the spacey, electronic dub of “I Chant Too” – it results in a genuinely unique concoction of styles. This is a ceaselessly unpredictable and eclectic record that manages to sound as traditional as it does experimental.
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
DOT ALLISON
Consciousology
SONIC CATHEDRAL
8/10
One Dove singer back to her blissed-out best
Consciousology is a step up from Dot Allison’s 2021 comeback Heart-Shaped Scars, which announced her return after 12 years with a set of introspective ballads. The Scots singer’s sixth marks a comparative leap into the unknown, a lush dalliance with shimmering acid-folk and electronic textures – supplied by Ride’s Andy Bell and composer Hannah Peel – that helps her songwriting bloom and become vividly expressive as she explores the natural order of things. From tone poem “220Hz” to the Mazzy Star shuffle of “Unchanged” and “Milk And Honey”’s spectral allure, it seems Allison has finally found her voice, on her own terms.
PIERS MARTIN
EMIL AMOS
Zone Black
DRAG CITY
7/10
Spooked library music from underground metal veteran
Zone Black marks an unexpected tonal shift for Emil Amos. Best known as drummer for metal groups Om and Grails, here Amos is on a different track, unveiling instrumentals originally composed for library music service KPM Music. It’s a diverse set, bringing to mind Johnny Jewel’s synth-powered film music (“Realistic #1”), the melancholy piano of Angelo Badalamenti (“Static Mist”) and a particularly gloomy take on spaghetti western twang (“Interloper #1”). Perhaps the stand-outs are the ones that gesture to hip-hop: see “Moving Target”, its punchy drums and eerie chuckles bringing to mind a long-lost Madlib production.
LOUIS PATTISON
JILL ANDREWS
Modern Age
VULTURE VULTURE/TONE TREE
7/10
Nashville songstress looks back
Since disbanding her alt.country duo The Everybodyfields in the late noughties to pursue a solo career, this Tennessee-raised singer-songwriter has ploughed a more mainstream Americana furrow, but this fourth LP benefits from a softer-sung approach allied to a nostalgic theme. “80’s Baby” has a soft-rock lilt to it, while the gently despondent regret of “Better Life” hits home all the more poignantly when expressed by Andrews’ gorgeously understated vocal. Similarly, the delicate piano ballad “Wrong Place, Wrong Time” manages to offer comfort in its sense of romantic resignation. Edge-free, then, but a smoothly bitter-sweet pleasure.
JOHNNY SHARP
BE YOUR OWN PET
Mommy
THIRD MAN
8/10
Nashville misfits return to the garage after 15 years
Be Your Own Pet grew up all wrong. They were just teenagers when they split in 2007, old enough to know they weren’t old enough to handle sell-out shows and screaming fans. They return as thirtysomethings with families and medications: “I got two kids and a mortgage, what the fuck?!” Jemima Pearl Abegg shouts on the FOMO anthem “Goodtime!”. They’re bummed to learn that adulthood breeds more angst than adolescence, which inspires a sharp-edged ’70s hard rock, with songs celebrating kink (“Worship The Whip”) and demanding equal pay and full-body autonomy on “Big Trouble”.
STEPHEN DEUSNER
BLUE LAKE
Sun Arcs
TONAL UNION
7/10
Delicate introspection from the Swedish woods
Blue Lake is the solo project of American-born artist Jason Dungan. Now residing in Denmark, he does a wonderful job of colouring sound with his adopted region’s elegance and economy. The record was written while Dungan lived alone in the Swedish woods and that meditative introspection weaves its way around these tracks with drones, zithers and woodwind. On “Green-Yellow Field”, the melancholy gives way to a ballet of crystal strings. “Rain Cycle” is particularly vivid and, while the music can occasionally feel polite, the sincerity with which Dungan decorates these delicate pieces makes Sun Arcs a very enjoyable experience.
JACK MILNER
BORIS & UNIFORM
Bright New Disease
SACRED BONES
7/10
Tourmates turned collaborators submit to audio illness
There are few groups these days quite as open to possibility as Japan’s Boris – best known for their roots in doom, stoner rock and has them collaborating with American industrial metal gang Uniform for a short, sharp blast of an album – much of it plays to Uniform’s strengths, with shredded vocals and feverish rhythms: best, though, is the scorched-earth drones of “The Look Is A Flame”. It doesn’t always work, but even in its more awkward moments, Boris and Uniform find ways to unsettle each other.
