An unexpected side effect of the worldwide pandemic on music has been the mushrooming culture of ‘stripped back’ albums or straight performance recordings by bands bereft of opportunities to perform live in a significant manner, for obvious reasons. Similarly, gathering…
View More Airbag – A Day In The Studio / Unplugged in Oslo
What is it about Norway? I mean a lot of English bands and artists seem to have some sort of innate ‘Englishness’ to their music. Norwegians just sound like they’re from a different planet, and perhaps that is why the…
View More The Eivind Aarset 4tet – Phantasmagoria, or A Different Kind of Journey
Happy New Year! Well, hopefully things will start to show an improvement at last. Despite the restrictions on social gatherings, live music and fun in general, the boffins at various music-making facilities around the globe have been beavering away to…
View More TPA Best Albums of 2021
To mark Camel’s 50th anniversary I thought I might use the opportunity of this particular landmark to take a nostalgic look back at one of Camel’s finest moments, and a personal favourite album from their catalogue, Harbour of Tears, released…
View More Camel – Harbour of Tears
Featured artists: Drott | Grorr | Alex Ward | Seven Nines and Tens | Fair Wind Pleases ||: In this final ADA (shorter reviews) update for 2021 Nick Hudson takes a look at recent releases from… • Drott – Orcus…
View More A Different Aspect #72
I am in the car with my daughter, a mother of two. “Dad, what kind of music are we listening to? Is that something from Robin Hood?”. To my surprise she got it right first time; it is indeed Chris…
View More Chris de Burgh – The Legend of Robin Hood
Like most rabid Jethro Tull fans, I have dutifully opened my wallet and said “Help yourself” each time a new box set has rolled out of the Steven Wilson remix factory. And, for the most part, I haven’t regretted a…
View More Jethro Tull – Benefit: 50th Anniversary Enhanced Edition
In my review for Nodo Gordiano’s fifth album, Sonnar, I mentioned in my introductory paragraph that it had been six years since we’d last heard from the band. I ended with the thoughts that “between [Natalia Surovina’s] vocals, Brilli’s stunning…
View More Nodo Gordiano – H.E.X.
Giant Sky is the eponymous debut album of the new group project of Erlend AaStad Vikem, the vocalist, keyboardist and creative leader of the Norwegian post-rock group Soup. Joined by a large number of guest musicians, he has produced a…
View More Giant Sky – Giant Sky
Jacob Holm-Lupo, known for White Willow, The Opium Cartel, his production, mixing and excellent remastering work, fronts this current project, Donner. The main aim for Donner is to be place where exploration and fiddling with synthesisers and other hardware forms…
View More Donner – Hesitant Light