The Art of Pretending to Swim, the fifth album by Dublin quintet Villagers, is a focused affair that places singer-songwriter Conor O’Brien’s gentle voice, unnerving poetry and acoustic guitar in a carefully sculpted soundscape of digital bleeps, orchestral swells and … Continue reading Villagers – The Art of Pretending to Swim (2018 LP)
Lightsleeper, the first co-credited collaboration from father and son team Neil and Liam Finn admirably ignores expectations that may surround such a project, revealing itself to be a meditative and somewhat eccentric collection of songs. The Finn’s familiar gift of … Continue reading Neil and Liam Finn – Lightsleeper (2018 LP)
Dirty Computer is Janelle Monae’s third album and the first to diverge from the storyline that featured on all previous releases, including 2008’s debut EP Metropolis: The Chase Suite. This means that, at least for the sake of presentation, Monae … Continue reading Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer (2018 LP)
Perhaps the most damning criticism I can level at Golden is that I’ve been listening to it intermittently all week and can’t decide how I feel about it because it doesn’t actually make me feel anything. The 14th studio album … Continue reading Kylie Minogue – Golden (2018 LP)
Having evolved naturally out of Erica Dunn’s Palm Springs project, Mod Con’s debut album breathes fresh air into the well-worn familiarity of barebones rock’n’roll. The trio of vocalist and guitarist Dunn, bassist Sara Retallick and drummer Raquel Solier approach each … Continue reading Mod Con – Modern Convenience (2018 LP)
The aptly named Mostly Sunny does a great job of capturing the jangly, nervous exuberance of Sydney’s Flowertruck. The band have released several of the tracks as singles over the past 12 months, including the excellent ‘Dying To Hear’, which … Continue reading Flowertruck – Mostly Sunny (2018 LP)
Marlon Williams’ voice is a beautiful instrument capable of expressing vulnerability, lust, defiance and melancholy all within a breath. Throughout these 11 songs, he sings in a confidential tone, his tenor far forward in the mix, as befitting the pop … Continue reading Marlon Williams – Make Way For Love (2018 LP)
Miguel has always been smooth, but over the last few years as he’s allowed some rough edges to show, he’s become all the more interesting because of it. At the beginning of his career it felt a little difficult to … Continue reading Miguel – War & Leisure (2017 LP)
2017 has been an incredible year for Australian releases, and most heartening of all is that roughly half of those on this list are the artists’ debut. These are ten of the albums and EPs that really blew me away … Continue reading The Top 10 Australian Albums and EPs Of 2017
On Birds And The BEE9 Sampa the Great continues her artistic journey with a musically rich and thoughtful update to the sound established with 2015’s debut, The Great Mixtape. It’s interesting that once again she has chosen to label these … Continue reading Sampa The Great – Birds and the BEE9 (2017 LP)
Moses Sumney’s instrument is his beautiful voice, which is layered and treated throughout Aromanticism and framed by his own unobtrusive production. I say unobtrusive because the tracks almost resemble soundscapes, with percussive elements almost completely absent, as layers of Sumney’s … Continue reading Moses Sumney – Aromanticism (2017 LP)
Losing is the second album by Nashville rock band Bully, an outing that sees them both refine the project and let their hair hang a little. Their debut LP, 2015’s Feels Like, created a thoroughly enjoyable balance between team captain … Continue reading Bully – Losing (2017 LP)
words by watts 