Reviews

Saar

Estbel

This quartet could be said to be a kind of quintet, their phantom fifth member being the Baltic island of...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: March/2018

Ergo

Zhen Chen

Piano wunderkind Zhen Chen has an ambitious mission: to forge a new style of music that chimes with a generation...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: Jan/Feb/2018

Gharnata

Luis de la Carrasca

Gharnata takes its name from the Arabic for Granada, capital city of flamenco. Singer Luis de la Carrasca has long...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: November/2019

Mambo Noir Trio

Mambo Noir Trio

More noir than mambo, this curiosity instantly casts the listener upon gentle but foreboding waves of Scandi piano jazz. Since...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: December/2019

Real Music for Unreal Times: Vol 2

Kumea Sound

Limitations can spark creativity and the global lockdown necessitated by COVID-19 has been nothing if not a limit to musicians....

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: Aug/Sept/2020

Østerlide

Østerlide

Norwegian trio 0sterlide cannot be accused of overstatement. This album of folk vignettes is so subtle as to at times...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: January/2021

Ikivirta

Sarah Palu

Finnish-French composer Sarah Palu chose to release this, her debut, as a download code hidden within a bar of vegan...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: November/2020

Zoo of Songs

Pulsar Trio

German group Pulsar Trio have transplanted the emblematic instrument of Hindustani classical music – the sitar – into a northern...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: November/2018

A Cassowary Apart

Andrew Tuttle & Padang Food Tigers

The world of ambient banjo is a small one. This was the joke that brought together two participants in the...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: June/2021

Is That So?

John McLaughlin, Shankar Mahadevan, Zakir Hussain

John McLaughlin sparked a paradigm shift in the East-West fusion genre with his 1970s group Shakti. He is seeking another...

Reviewed by Liam Izod in issue: May/2020