Rock And Pop

Following the critically acclaimed silver album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, featuring Grammy nominated single “Midnight City,” and two triumphant years of world touring, Anthony Gonzalez - who serves as M83’s musical architect, songwriter, front man and primary vocalist - returns with an artistic evolution, explaining, “I want to show different sides of me on this album. I want to come back with something more intimate, yet somehow with…less me!”

Minna Choi’s music inhabits an alternative universe, a place where sound is unfettered by limiting categories, free to drift between rock, pop, classical, electronic and ambient music, following its own impulse to explore the infinite possibilities of melody and meter. The sensibility she brings to the songs she composed for her eponymous debut album, agik*Magik, was honed by her work as the Music Director of Magik*Magik Orchestra, a group she started while attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2008. When she told fellow students about the session work she’d been doing at recording studios in New York City, they got excited about doing studio work themselves, so Choi put together a string orchestra that would work with people outside of the classical sphere. “We started doing session work for rock bands, hip hop artists and pop singers, to create a name for ourselves,” she says. Shortly after they got together, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood hired the orchestra to support a performance of his classical piece, “Popcorn Superhet Receiver.” The sold out concert launched their career. Since then, they’ve recorded with hundreds of artists, toured with Pop-Up Magazine scoring the live stories, contributed music to video games (Iron Man 2) and film scores (Looper, The Dam Keeper), written and performed string charts for Death Cab for Cutie’s Codes and Keys album and backed the band on stage. “Ben (Gibbard) handed me 20 songs from their back catalogue,” Choi says. “I wrote the charts and we toured with them for six weeks.” 

The Magnetic North is Erland Cooper, Hannah Peel & Simon Tong. 

The Magnetic North’s 2013 acclaimed album “Orkney-Symphony” was a soundtrack and homage to the landscape and folklore of the Orkney Islands, home to the band’s singer, Erland Cooper. 

Their follow-up album is a collection of songs and music based around the town of Skelmersdale in Lancashire. Inspired by works such as Ken Loach’s “Kes” and Ted Hughes’ “Remains of Elmet” - “Prospect Of Skelmersdale” is a musical reflection of the town, its past and its continually developing present. It draws on childhood memories, the urban landscape and the lives of its inhabitants, uncovering the beauty, magic and mythology that can be found in the most unexpected places.

The first vinyl and cd offering by Welsh doom outfit Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, or MWWB if you will, is a beast indeed. ‘Noeth Ac Anoeth’ is an old Welsh phrase which the band tells us is a druidic concept, meaning an abode of existence, or Hades crossed with nothingness, it captures the mood perfectly – mysterious, dark and spacious. Though this 3 tracker could possibly be called a mini album, rest assured, at over 50 minutes of music you will feel at turns, high, low, pummelled, seduced and sated. MWWB’s sound has all the crushing weight and expanse of Ufommamut, Windhand or Yob, combined with a love of the hypnotic grooves of Amon Duul II, the cosmic soundscapes of Hawkwind and Cult of Luna at their most cosmic, and a dose of dark psychedelia. In fact, this Wrexham quartet has created a sound wrought from the very forge of Vulcan itself.

Y Proffwyd Dwyll is once again produced by Chris (Conan) Fielding, and is without doubt a whopping great slab of heaviness. But that’s not all. Those who’ve investigated beyond the name, have already discovered that both the band and their music are deadly serious, and though MWWB may share sonic alliances with likes of Conan, Windhand and Yob, the many who tuned into their impessive debut have discovered that MWWB don’t stick to the usual tropes, and are a unique proposition, with a sound all their own. Down-tuned to ‘Z,’ the guitar tone is tar thick and the riffs massive and full of hooks ... of course. But with the soaring, angelic, multi textured vocals of Jessica Ball, MWWB have added an extra dimension to what’s considered doom. Not your normal melodramatic dark chanteuse here pilgrims, more like MWWB’s secret weapon, a vein of crystal in the rock. In fact it’s a combination which sounds at times startling and often beautiful. Like if Liz Fraser had fronted Kyuss or Sleep ... though that’s too simplistic a comparison.