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Glasgow new wave of avant-garde artist CLAIR builds on the promise of her debut album with a submersive and ecstatic digital single
Ambient Babestation Meltdown & JBS repurpose material from SF paperbacks and VHS cassettes as ambient-not-ambient and EBM for Optimo Music
A sonically adventurous compilation of underground sounds from 1980s Japan curated by Optimo’s JD Twitch on his Cease & Desist imprint
A round-up of wild vital sounds, featuring Mr Bongo, Brian Jackson, International Anthem, Analog Africa, Ben Marc, The Trilogy Tapes and more
Gilles Peterson tells the story of his life in radio as we celebrate his Lockdown FM book and the new STR4TA single
Sara Dziri’s Close to Home for Optimo Music defies easy techno categorisation by occupying different spaces that are yet the same space
Raw Poetic’s Laminated Skies is a future-tilting conscious rap record where the rhymes flow fast and the beats don’t stand still
Scandinavian jazz bassist Petter Eldh’s Koma Sax ensemble commit an act of magic with a miraculous stew of future jazz avant-garde beats
These are the seventy-five albums of 2021 that have meant the most to us, alongside our compilations & archives of the year
A double bill of Ghost Box and Clay Pipe, with Pye Corner Audio and The Hardy Tree making sonic journeys into speculative fiction
A review round-up of jazz and beyond featuring Scrimshire, David Ornette Cherry, Theon Cross, John Coltrane, Ben LaMar Gay and more
Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio further recombine outsider downtempo pop, soundsystems and forward-thinking jazz on In Spring for World of Echo
Glasgow duo Cahill//Costello chart an improvised course under sheltering skies and ocean depths, with their minimalist debut Offworld
Andrew Wasylyk talks about reasonable daydreams, meeting migratory geese and the making of his intoxicating new LP for Clay Pipe Music
Germany’s ToiToiToi returns to Ghost Box with Vaganten, an LP of wayward electronics, Medieval plunderphonics and Chaucerian machine music
Ishmael Ensemble’s new LP Visions of Light is a bold expression of UK jazz without borders, shaped by the sounds and aesthetics of Bristol
Producer, DJ and record collector Rebecca Vasmant talks in depth about the vibrant Glasgow jazz scene and the making of her magical debut LP
Emma-Jean Thackray’s Yellow LP is an essential work of cosmic jazz-not-jazz informed by club culture and unlike anything else around
Decca Records initiate their British Jazz Explosion reissue series with a vital collection of hard to find UK jazz cuts from 1965 to 1972
Frank Foster’s 1972 spiritual jazz meets jazz-funk set The Loud Minority sees the light of day on vinyl again courtesy of Wewantsounds
Jorja Chalmers’s second album Midnight Train is a confidently noirish affair that is as much dream pop as dreamscape
A roundup of short reviews from Concrete Islands HQ, with jaimie branch, Amanda Whiting, DJ Format, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Ziad Rahbani
Lebanese singer-songwriter Rogér Fakhr tells the story of Fine Anyway, his remarkable lost 1970s album now reissued by Habibi Funk
Italian DJ and producer José Manuel tells the story behind Janara, his astonishing LP of ritualistic electronics for Optimo Music
A quick roundup of short reviews from Concrete Islands HQ, with releases from International Anthem, Soma, Ghost Box, Strut and Jazzland
Mark Churcher discusses the musical foundations of V-Neck and his A Nice Random Meet LP, plus Glasgow connections and the return of Emote
We asked Laurent Fintoni about the musical foundations behind his Bedroom Beats book, including mid 90s hip-hop, Mo’ Wax, Dilla and Madlib