NMIXX are at a point where “they’ve done it again” feels like an understatement. Each release seems to widen the gap between them and what most K-pop projects even aim for, and Heavy Serenade is another huge leap in that direction. It feels like they’ve taken the more experimental identity they’ve been shaping over time and finally aligned it into something that sounds fully self-assured and intentionally chaotic.

The obvious talking points are still there: the ... read more

I was hoping for a little more from Blue Dawn, especially coming off the kind of legendary singles run Vax has been on, but there’s still a lot here to like. It’s a fun record, and considering how young he is, it’s hard not to give it some grace.

What really stands out is his voice and his command over flows, that’s the lane I’d like to see him lean into more, because it’s where he separates himself. The production, though, holds things back. It feels a bit ... read more

Some real solid, eclectic production completely wasted on the vocal embodiment of the word Pipsqueak. Notice how even a rather average Lucy feat makes the song about ten times better immediately.

I too feel nothing at all

The whole thing sounds well scrubbed to a fault, absolutely nothing catches. The mix is oddly muted. Vocals painfully bland in both tone and delivery and It doesn’t help that the lyrics lean whiny in a way that doesnt match anything else going on in the record.

You see, My New Band Believe is like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

A dazzling, overstimulated spectacle, flinging color and motion at you with relentless enthusiasm, hoping that somewhere in the blur you’ll mistake density for depth. It’s very referential in spirit, constantly gesturing toward ideas that echo far more confident predecessors.

There are flashes, undeniable ones. “Target Practice” opens with a sly theatricality, its troubadour-like framing giving way to ... read more

Endless has been left to exist in the margins of its own legend, forever eclipsed by Blonde even though, in many ways it feels more essential, more unguarded, because Blonde still carries the outline of expectation, the residue of what an album is supposed to be, its beauty shaped, polished and contained, whereas Endless dissolves entirely, a drifting interior where structure erodes and time softens at the edges, and in that erosion something more honest, more raw emerges, and I keep returning ... read more

You will have people claim Jazz is dead when this exists

12 albums, halfway through Sachi Hayasaka’s records, it feels undeniable, this is my favourite jazz discography. A beautifully varied run of avant-garde performances, alive, catchy even, and brimming with so much personality!

She moves between songbook interpretations of past greats and original compositions tied to her and other contemporary Japanese legends with such calm authority, and it’s hard not to also sit with the ... read more

In a matter of weeks, Geese pushed past the usual alternative rock perimeter and became something close to a phenomenon; a huge leap for a band that until recently felt like another sharp New York rock act.

And somehow, it is still difficult to explain why.

It's dense, volatile, and constantly shifting shape, yet somehow able to keep opening up. In many ways, a love letter to music, not because it imitates, but because it keeps rummaging through history. The album pulls from indie rock, ... read more

Over the past few years, Jane Remover has shed, disowned, resurrected, and ultimately desecrated her own past. From the chaotic bricolage of her Dariacore beginnings, to the fragile, glitching adolescence of Frailty, and the suffocating, guitar-drenched despair of Census Designated, each phase felt complete, almost sealed in time. And yet with Revengeseekerz she stages their funeral.

And then dances on the grave.

This is an album obsessed with self-destruction: abrasive, maximalist, ... read more

Scenery by Ryo Fukui is easy to like.

It’s warm, cleanly played, and built around familiar standards that make it an approachable entry point into jazz. Nothing feels out of place, nothing feels overworked. That’s also where it stops for me.

The trio is clearly talented, but the music rarely demands your attention. It’s hard to criticize something this inoffensive without sounding pretentious, but I do wish people who love this album would dig a little deeper. Compared to ... read more

This album is a complete BEHEMOTH, four hours packed with some of the most exhilarating, playful, and inventive jazz you’ll ever hear, musicians constantly throwing ideas at each other and seeing what sticks. Ideas stretch, collapse, and reappear, solos waver into unexpected directions, and the whole thing carries this infectious sense of momentum.

I was already familiar with a few pieces here, especially “Naadam,” from its appearance on Shibusashirazu recordings. That ... read more

The record resurrects the lush, meticulously crafted pop language of the 70s, full of sweeping strings, glowing slide guitars, and towering choruses, recalling an age before the full consolidation of neoliberal consensus; before deregulation, labour suppression, and the deep commodification of culture reshaped the world that pop music spoke to. Rather than escaping the present, I believe the album uses that sonic past to highlight what has been lost: a time when transcendence in pop still felt ... read more

Today I think of communal grief. Every once in a while, you ought to step out of yourself and live in someone else's pain and try to understand it. Maybe it will help you understand your own.

Because grief is rarely solitary. It passes through people like water, gathering force as it moves. And every once in a while, someone gives it a voice so powerful that it stops feeling like theirs alone. There are things in this world you hope you never have to see. On Sinner Get Ready, Kristin ... read more

Trying to talk about the songwriting or production here feels a bit like trying to talk about the writing of Clarice Lispector. With her, the mechanics of the sentence were never really the point, though much like Phil she was a master of her craft. Lispector often felt less interested in describing an idea than in tracing the outline of it, letting the gaps between sentences stencil the real thing into existence. The meaning lives in what can’t quite be said, in the quiet murmur just ... read more

The sound of adolescence barricading itself and then painfully learning how to crack the door open. TSNPD is by and large a landmark record for this generation of bedroom shoegaze artists and crystallizes that late-capitalist alienation under unbearably loud drums so, so well.

With Plan 76, The Orchestra (For Now) refine their self-coined “London prog” into something sharper and more assured. The EP is intricate, unpredictable, and bursting with both chaos and clarity. Plan 75 hinted at this ambition and the follow-up realizes it fully, transforming their maximalism into a distinct language.

Lead single “Hattrick” captures that evolution perfectly: labyrinthine instrumentation swells into shamanic vocal surges and cinematic bursts before ... read more

The world ends every day in its own small way, and Wednesday, in their most realized record yet, seem to know this better than most. Bleeds straddles between tragedy and comedy until they’re near indistinguishable. The noisy shoegaze distortion piercing through mellow country in a way that shouldn’t make sense, yet does, because wounds and warmth so often occupy the same space. That tension is where the album lives, choosing to clash until everything bleeds together.

There’s ... read more

Here it is, the age old japanese tradition of bands moving further and further away from shoegaze as they gain fame.

Though kurayamisaka delivers a solid enough set of tracks to remain a present voice in the j-rock sphere, their debut album "kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete" hardly makes them stand out against the flood of other somewhat noisy, somewhat shoegazey indie bands that spawn in tokyo every other week.

The first thing of note is Sachi Naito's vocals. She has a sweet ... read more

Frankly, this record should be up there in the conversation alongside karma as one of the most sublime spiritual offerings in the jazz canon.

The record may not be the most far-out in terms of compositional ideas, but what makes it, so mesmerizing is the sheer strength of the performances here, with Harpers conversationalist sax flowing from one terrific idea to another hardly giving one time to appreciate what already came. Harper’s sax may set the tone from the very start, but its ... read more

A love so earnest it bleeds out of every note, Racing Mount Pleasant spill their hearts into the ether in the prettiest album I've heard all year.

Words, paintings, music, none of it can ever fully capture how we feel, but this record does its best, shaping its soothing silences so they seem to stencil out an aching soul. For an act only into their second attempt, Racing Mount Pleasant are bursting with emotional maturity and an almost unsettling ease in their craft. A seven-piece outfit ... read more