Nusantara Beat - Podium ZWART Concert 2025

Nusantara Beat didn’t form around a manifesto. It began with a shared sense of curiosity: six musicians in Amsterdam reaching for half-remembered melodies, family songs, and traces of Indonesian heritage, determined to turn them into something alive. The band took shape during lockdown, but its story runs deeper: into Dutch-Indonesian homes where cassette tapes, family recordings, and quiet rituals carried sounds from another place, shaping identity long before anyone spoke about it.
We met the group twice this year — first at Budapest Ritmo in April, just before they stepped onto the Klub Akvárium stage, and again a few weeks ago as they prepared their debut album for its 14 November release on Glitterbeat Records. What began as a brief chat backstage turned into a longer reflection on identity, sound, and the process of creating something that belonged fully to them.
In Budapest, we sat down with Jordy Sanger, guitarist and one of the band’s main arrangers, and Rouzy Portier, guitarist and keyboardist. The Budapest stop-over was part of a wider stretch of performances across Europe and Asia, all of them growing steadily through word of mouth and a handful of singles. They were in town for Ritmo, the city’s annual showcase for forward-looking global music, a week when the centre fills with concerts, talks and late-night sets. Inside Klub Akvárium, Nusantara Beat were only minutes from their debut Hungarian show, yet neither musician seemed in a rush. From the first answer, it was clear they were ready to get into what drives the band.
“We all have Indonesian blood running through our veins,” Rouzy began. One member, bassist Michael Joshua Yonata, was even born in Indonesia. “He only recently got a Dutch passport, so while we can’t say he’s fully Indonesian anymore in legal terms, he was born and raised there.”
Jordy followed the thought. “The rest of us grew up in the Netherlands, but always surrounded by Indonesian culture.” Rouzy added, “Through our families, yeah. And interestingly, each of us – without really knowing it from each other – always had this urge to explore our heritage musically.”
That idea, first shared during lockdown, became the foundation of Nusantara Beat. “Mid-to-late pandemic, we started to connect and thought, maybe we should try to make Indonesian music,” said Jordy. “People started bringing examples. Rouzy brought in Sundanese music, which I didn’t know much about at the time. It was intense.”
The more they exchanged, the clearer the picture became. “Everyone had their own personal link to Indonesia,” Rouzy explained. “The culture is so wide, and each of us had access to a different expression of it through family.”
Each member traces their story to a different part of the archipelago. “My family’s from West Java, between Jakarta and Bandung, the Sundanese region,” said Jordy. “Megan too, she’s from Bogor. Michael was born in Bandung and spent many years there. My family is from Manado,” added Rouzy.
That diversity inspired their name. “The band name — Nusantara Beat — comes from Nusantara, which means the Indonesian archipelago. It’s vast! And each region has its own musical identity,” said Jordy. “Right now, we’ve focused mainly on Sundanese music from West Java and we’ve explored a Balinese piece too. But we’ve started researching the Minahasa region in the north, where the instruments are completely different. And of course there’s Sumatra, Kalimantan, and everything east of Bali, still lots to dig into.”
Before working on original material, Nusantara Beat released reinterpretations of well-known Indonesian songs from the 1960s and 70s. Their singles on Bongo Joe Records linked back to Sunda-pop, the movement that blended Sundanese traditions with Indonesian pop and Western styles. “So far, we’ve leaned into 60s–70s vintage Indonesian music, especially Sundanese classics like ‘Warung Pojok‘ or ‘Sabilulungan’. They’re almost like nursery rhymes, songs our grandparents would’ve sung,” said Jordy.
Rouzy smiled. “The first time we went there, we were staying at a hotel and one of those songs was playing while we had breakfast. It was surreal.” That moment of recognition carried into their first performances on Indonesian soil. “It was crazy,” Rouzy recalled. “I’m not usually nervous, but right before our first show — in Jogja — my hands were sweaty. The audience understood every lyric. Some of us are still learning the language, so it was intense. But people sang with full hearts.”
Jordy continued, “At the Jakarta festival, people were going wild. Singing along. It was really heartwarming.” Rouzy laughed and turned to him.“That was your first time in Indonesia, right?” Jordy nodded. “Yeah, totally mental.”
From those shows came a sense of direction. Their music wasn’t about reconstructing the past but about allowing those rhythms to exist in new contexts. “It’s quite different from what’s usually happening,” said Rouzy. “But people seem to like it. Maybe because it’s something unique, something they haven’t heard before.”
He went deeper into the work behind the reinterpretations. “The whole process is about exploring those old songs and blending them with our own flavours, keeping the tradition alive while fitting it to now.”
Jordy followed on. “Those originals already sound so rich: tapes from the 60s and 70s with all that saturation. We try to honour that sound. We can’t fully recreate it, obviously, because we’re not in that time anymore, but we do aim to get close.”
The point, they agreed, was understanding how that older music imagined itself. “Once we understood how they were trying to sound, we felt more confident to adapt it and bring in our own identity.”
As they spoke, it was clear how quickly their project had grown. “I think we’re doing something a bit pioneering,” Jordy said. “We’ve been invited to play in Japan, Korea, Scandinavia, and we’ve been to Indonesia twice now. It’s surreal. Clearly people are curious.”
Rouzy followed with a comparison that seems to stay with him. “In the end, it’s all just music. It’s universal. I always compare it to food: food’s for your tongue, music’s for your ears. Indonesian cuisine is globally known, so maybe the music from that region deserves some of that recognition too.”
Only after talking through the bigger picture did we circle back to where it all began. Amsterdam shaped the band long before Nusantara Beat had a name. Several of the musicians were already woven into the city’s musical networks: Megan had been singing with EUT, percussionist Gino Groeneveld had just stepped away from Altin Gün (also on the Ritmo line-up), and Sonny Groeneveld had spent years drumming with Jungle by Night. Those paths fed directly into the band’s early identity.
“Amsterdam is such a musically and culturally diverse place. Living there we are exposed to a lot of different musical genres, but at the same time the city isn’t that big, so most people within a scene know each other and inspire each other.”
Jordy put it plainly: “There’s actually a big Indonesian community in the Netherlands, but no other band here is really doing what we’re doing. That helps.” And curiosity, they said, doesn’t flow one way. “It’s also cool if other bands start doing similar things. Maybe we inspired them, or maybe they inspired us. It’s a two-way street.”  From: https://rhythmpassport.com/interview-nusantara-beat-november-2025/ 

Jack O' The Clock - Blue Tail Fly

We recently sent a few questions to Damon Waitkus of the critically-acclaimed San Francisco area band Jack ‘O The Clock. He was kind enough to reply at length.

Your music has been described using references to Henry Cow, Gentle Giant, Sufjan Stevens, Frank Zappa and others. Are those individuals and groups your actual influences as well? What other influences do you have?

I was into first-generation progressive rock as a teenager and those guys were in there for sure, but I also loved melodic, lyric-driven music like Paul Simon and (a bit later) Leonard Cohen, also The Smiths, David Bowie, and early R.E.M., among a whole lot of others. In my early 20s I discovered Henry Cow and Laurie Anderson, who were gateways to Modernism and contemporary experimentalism. Then I found Charles Ives, Morton Feldman and Gyorgy Ligeti, became “serious” about composition and foreswore songwriting as a guilty habit every two weeks or so. Scott Walker and David Sylvian helped me find my way back a few years ago. Around this time Nicci Reisnour, who was also studying composition at Mills, said the only sort of rock or pop music she thought would be worth making might sound something like Sufjan Stevens’ Michigan album, I thought that was good enough for me and we founded Jack O’ The Clock.
Kind of a caricature of 20-odd years of listening, but it does the job. I’m speaking only for myself here. No one else in the band except maybe Jason had any sort of prog rock listening background, and everyone has other influences, including some folk across the board. To paint the others’ backgrounds with an even broader brush, Jason’s coming from metal and improv, Jordan from jazz and improv, Emily and Kate from the classical and new music performance world. Kate’s trained as a conductor as well as a bassoonist.
The avant/progressive rock community has been very supportive so far and that has probably one reason that pedigree turns up. And of course Fred Frith has had a huge influence on the band as a musician and mentor, so you often see us described as a RIO band even though we have little in common with that very specific sound, which is also true of a lot of Fred’s music for that matter. If it was the singer-songwriter community that responded to us, I think you’d see a different list of reference points.
When I talk about influences I sometimes feel that I’m drawing an arbitrary line between music and other art, and ignoring huge tributaries of aesthetic information. Kafka and Beckett are impossible to ignore. Also Chekhov, Grace Paley, J.M. Coetzee, and Raymond Carver. And films by Charlie Kaufman, Lars von Trier, Werner Herzog, Atom Egoyan, Coen Brothers, Stan Brackhage, Jan Svankmajer, Harmony Korine. There’s a spiritual heft to much of this stuff that’s hard to find in popular music.

Compositionally, are Jack ‘O The Clock’s tracks the work of one or two main writers, or are they group efforts?

I’ve done most of the writing so far, with Jason contributing some music to the second two albums. The simpler songs we put together in the usual singer-songwriterly way: by ear, with my guitar or hammer dulcimer providing the chords and backbone, the others working out their own parts, sometimes with a notated head or detail-idea also coming from me. More involved pieces like First Of The Year I often bring to the group unfinished–there won’t be a full score, but there will be some fully notated passages, some passages where I furnish chord changes, and others which we work out together by ear, and all of this will be subject to change as we rehearse and see what works. Seeing how my ideas are transformed by other musicians is one of my favorite things in the world, and it’s distinctly different with an open-minded band than it is with “composed” music in that the band takes ownership, feels free to improvise in places, vetoes certain ideas, changes certain harmonies: you don’t go back and rewrite endlessly as the composer, the music is just given over to the band at whatever stage it emerges and evolves because everyone is free to tweak what they want without breaking protocol. It does mean you have slips of paper half x-ed out all over the place and no score, but who cares about that, we’re usually trying to get it to memory anyway.
Lately though our composing has been more truly group-oriented, with Jason and Jordan beginning to bring notated music and initiating ideas. Emily has also provided harmonic material for a couple songs we’re just beginning to perform, and we’ve composed-out ideas based on recorded improvisations. Often the lyrics will make certain demands of the basic structure, and those are still coming from me, though the music can put pressure on the lyrics as well. This material isn’t recorded yet, but is some of the most comfortable-sitting, fun to play, organic music we’ve come up with and I think that comes across live. Our live sound engineer, Sarah Howe, has also been getting more involved in the new pieces, recording and triggering samples that become integral parts of the songs, and is additionally working on a video for The Pilot.
I’ve been talking about the live band. I have a somewhat heavier hand in the recordings because there are always several songs on each album that are composed for the studio, like Old Friend In A Hole and Blue Tail Fly, where I take advantage of certain instruments and effects in ways that would be impractical live. The rest of the band has an enormous influence on these too, but they contribute a bit more blindly, adding parts as the pieces are recorded without hearing the as-yet-unrealized sections of them, and I see them through myself.

For the most part, All My Friends sounds highly composed. Do you improvise as well, either in the studio or live?

Yes to both, though you’re right that it’s not the way most of the music is made.

Well, I feel like free improvisation and improvisation within a song are two different questions. Jason and Jordan are brilliant free improvisers and play out regularly in that capacity with other musicians. Jack O’ The Clock has done a little of this, usually circumscribed pretty strictly by song or set, in the tune Analemma for example. I have been slow to admit to myself that different standards of pacing apply to songs than apply to free improvisation and instrumental art music, but for some reason when you introduce words and melodies, it’s very difficult to then drone convincingly for twenty minutes. As I’ve moved away from writing instrumental music (and lain off the Feldman a little bit), I’ve found myself tightening up the songs, and this probably accounts for an increase in brevity and density since Rare Weather. I find myself bringing different pacing standards to bear depending on what sort of music I’m listening to, and a nicely-paced free improvisation can be sublime, but I try to keep my songs as fat-free as possible. Half of them still can’t fit through the door. As for improvisation within a song with a predetermined structure, that happens all the time, both on recordings and live. Usually not by me.

From: https://avantmusicnews.com/2013/10/08/amn-interviews-damon-waitkus-jack-o-the-clock/ 

 

Tweedees - A La Mode

Tweedees—the band formed by singer Natsumi Kiyoura and composer/music producer Reiji Okii—has completed their second album, *The Second Time Around*. Having each built their own careers in the past, the duo initially embarked on their band activities by feeling their way through the process. Their second album serves as a vivid reflection of the changes that took place for the pair during the roughly one-year period following Tweedees' launch. In this interview, we sat down with the duo to discuss, in depth, the journey from the band's inception to the creation of the album, as well as the shifts in their mindsets along the way.

──Our previous interview took place immediately after you had completed your first album, and before you had even performed any live shows. At that time, you spoke with us while still in a state where you couldn't even imagine how the public would receive you.

Reiji Okii: That’s right.

──It was a launch preceded by over two years of trial and error—a period of meticulous preparation that even saw you change the band's name midway through. Now that you’ve actually gotten things moving, what has the experience felt like? What are your impressions?

Okii: When you stand on stage, you get direct feedback from the audience. Plus, there are the reactions you get on Twitter—something that didn't exist back in the old days. I imagine it’s the same for everyone, but you end up becoming a total "ego-surfing" fiend [searching for mentions of yourself online]! (Laughs) You find yourself constantly wondering: *How are people perceiving us? How are they listening to our music?* Contrary to my expectations, the people giving us the most positive reactions weren't the fans of my old band, Cymbals; rather, it was the new listeners—people who likely didn't know much about me beforehand—who responded most enthusiastically. That made me incredibly happy. I’d have people—kids who looked to be around high school age—reaching out to talk to me via Twitter. It really made me feel like, "Okay, we’re being embraced in exactly the right way for a brand-new band."

──That’s certainly true; looking at the demographic of your live audiences, the crowd generally seems younger than the generation that would have experienced Cymbals in real time.

Okii: Also, speaking for myself, it had been quite a while since I’d played this many live shows in such a concentrated period—doing a whole year's worth of gigs back-to-back like this. And as for *her* [Kiyoura], she had only performed live a handful of times during her solo career. I imagine that over the past year alone, you’ve already far surpassed the total number of live shows you performed prior to this.

Natsumi Kiyoura: Yeah. We definitely have.

Okii: Live performance is like a crucible—a melting pot for all sorts of thoughts and feelings: how we appear to others, what they think of us, and conversely, how we *want* to be seen and perceived... Because of that, we’ve made a great many discoveries on stage. I feel that our very way of being—how we exist as a unit—has fundamentally shifted for us compared to a year ago. We’ve really settled in.

── Settled in?

Okii: We started this project with the mindset that it would be a "second career" for both of us, built upon our respective past activities. Consequently, because we were standing on a foundation constructed from our previous work, our footing felt a bit shaky at first. But now, that old foundation has completely fallen away, and we’ve found a sense of stability—the confidence to stand firmly as Tweedees. I’d say that shift probably happened around the time of our joint show last autumn with Kitagawa (Katsutoshi / Round Table). That’s when I felt that sense of shakiness finally disappear.

Kiyoura: I know exactly what you mean. As we kept performing live, I noticed myself gradually becoming less sensitive to external pressures. At first, I was constantly worried about how the audience perceived us or what kind of reviews we’d get. But as we went through that process of trial and error on stage, little by little... well, I suppose you could say we grew accustomed to being Tweedees—we learned how to fully switch into that specific "mode."

── So, the Tweedees identity has really become second nature to you.

Okii: Exactly. Tweedees has become the absolute center of our daily lives now. Even on our days off, it’s all we ever think about.

── So, what was the most unexpected thing that happened?

Okii: That’s a great question. Let’s see... It would have to be during that joint show with Kitagawa I mentioned earlier; we performed a Cymbals song called "Okoreru Chiisana Chairoi Inu" (The Angry Little Brown Dog) as Tweedees. While there were certainly audience members who got excited out of a sense of nostalgia, I actually didn't find it particularly enjoyable myself. It wasn't a case of thinking, "Damn it, why are they getting so hyped up over my old songs?" Rather, when I was actually performing them, they just didn't feel authentic to the person I am now. I couldn't fully immerse myself in the music. In comparison, Tweedees’ songs feel like a perfect fit for me; they’re genuinely fun to play. "Okoeru..." [The Angry Little Brown Dog] was actually one of my favorite Cymbals tracks—and since the band broke up almost immediately after we released the album containing it (our 4th album, *Love You*, released in May 2003)—I’d always felt a lingering sense of, "What a waste." Even after Cymbals was no more, it remained at the very top of my list of songs I still wanted to perform. Yet, when I finally played it again, it turned out to be far less enjoyable than I’d expected.

──So, you had evolved—updated yourself, so to speak—even more than you yourself had realized?

Okii: That might be it, or perhaps the songs have simply lost some of their freshness over time. More than anything, though, I find the music I’m creating *right now* to be much more fun. I was actually quite surprised myself when I came to that realization. I’d always assumed that a truly "good song" would feel just as good to play no matter when you performed it.

──At that live show, when the audience was going wild for "The Angry Little Brown Dog," you—Ms. Kiyoura—called out to them: "I’m going to make you forget all about Cymbals! I’m going to make Tweedees an even better band—better than Cymbals, better than any other band out there!" I truly believe that moment marked a significant milestone—a historic page—in the story of Tweedees.

Kiyoura: Hmm... That particular concert actually leaves me with a lingering sense of regret. I said what I did because I genuinely felt that way at the time, but looking back, I feel like I shouldn't have just *said* it—I should have demonstrated it through my actual performance. I wanted to convey that conviction through my actions and attitude, but the thought that I—someone who hadn't quite reached that level of mastery yet—had the audacity to say something like that... well, just thinking about it makes me cringe and go, "Aaaargh!" [Laughs]

──I still think that single remark was a pivotal moment—the instant Tweedees truly came into its own, proving it was far more than just a "second-act" project.

Kiyoura: Oh, goodness... I’m absolutely mortified just thinking about it!

Translated from: https://natalie.mu/music/pp/tweedees02 

The Dandelion - Every Other Day / Strange Case Opening

 The Dandelion - Every Other Day

 

 The Dandelion - Strange Case Opening

 

Everything started back in 2002, in the Land Of Oz, by a neo-psychedelic band called The Dolly Rocker Movement, formed by singer-guitarist Daniel Poulter. They managed to release three full-length albums, “Electric Sunshine” (2006), “A Purple Journey Through the Mod Machine” (2007) and “Our Days Mind the Tyme” (2009), through independent Australian record label Off the Hip before disbanding in 2013. Thanks to Danish label Bad Afro Records which re-released “Our Days Mind the Tyme” in 2010 and 2014, I had the chance to learn about this Magnificent band! In 2013 Bad Afro released the 7-inch Single “Your Side Of Town” which symbolized the transition from The Dolly Rocker Movement into The Dandelion. Also in 2013, The Dandelion self-released their debut album “Strange Case Of The Dandelion” and in 2014 Bad Afro records released “The Dandelion” – a mini album containing 6 songs taken from “Strange Case Of The Dandelion”. In 2015 through Strange Yonder label, the band released their 2nd album, the ethereal, magical and beloved “Seeds, Flowers and Magical Powers of The Dandelion”. Through the recording sessions of this album, Daniel transferred all of his artistic creativity into Natalie De Silver, through this transformation, the Spirit remained worried and concerned, however, the final sounding result obtained Natalie’s ‘stamp’, musically and lyrically… In December 2018, France label Six Tonnes De Chair Records released the 7 inch Single “Every Other Day”, a precursor to their 3rd album entitled “Old Habits And New Ways Of The Dandelion”, scheduled for release on the 1st of April (2019) through Greek label Blackspin Records! All of you who have bought the Single or listened to it on YouTube you must have noticed that something is going on here. Is there a change? Is there a musical turn in the band’s direction? Hmmm… Well, at this very moment which I’m writing this review (27 March 2019), I’m patiently waiting and counting the days till the 12th of April, which The Dandelion are going to perform live in Athens, Greece. I want to ‘check’ them Live… To experience their music by first hand… I’m also curious about how capable enough the band is to present live on stage their just-released “Difficult” and “Deeply Esoteric” new Album…
“Old Habits And New Ways Of The Dandelion” consists of 13 songs, clock-ticking from 2:02 to 4:34 min. ALL songs composed, performed and recorded by Natalie de Silver! On their previous Album, they had a song on Side ‘B’, called “Goddess Yhi”. Well, now their album takes off with “Garden Of Yhi”, the further adventures of this Goddess in the Garden of the Earthly Delights! This is a tweaked song, drenched into a mysterious psychedelic vein with various studio effects and a soft Quentin Tarantino film atmos! A tricksy song, full of surprises and Natalie’s invitation to enter… Yes, THIS is going to be a DIFFERENT record! The self-titled “Old Habits And New Ways” follows. So we crossed the entrance of the Garden, came across numerous down way steps. The band has built a tremendous pop-psych musical environment while Natalie is stepping down the stairs, falling down… deeper… into this unconscious paradox of reality… “El Poncho Rojo” moves into The Dandelion’s familiar garage-pop-sike timbre, the usual “grooviest” melody (that the band has used us to), emerging a lovely but loner Calexico musical feeling! “Beneath The Rowan Tree” is a glorious instrumental that unashamedly flirts with a mix of Middle Eastern and Medieval scales! It feels like dancing with Dionysus while waiting for Ancient Pan to come over and join the festivities! “All I Ever” is a sweet sounding tune with a gentle euphoric impact becoming a little melancholic. The last track on Side ‘A’ is called “Who May Have Found God?” and emerges a nostalgic feeling, it moves through a psychic surf-a-licious beat, so extremely esoteric but so remarkably openly free given to the people! Side ‘B’ opens with the Eastern scaled “The Holy Son (What Have You Become?)”, the Sitar sound is shining, Natalie is singing in a divine ecstatic way, the organ sound has a cinematic feel and the final result is so beautifully psychedelically trippy! The next one, “Message From The Fire”, comes straight from their previous LP, Garage, Beat, an upbeat happy cool tune. “de Silver’s Dream” is an acoustically weird tune, with a pinch of experimentalism, very psychedelic, with a flute sounding that refers to other ‘ages’, entering deeper into the white rabbit’s hole… “Deep Down In The Hollow” has a groovylicious pop-sike tuning with a prodigious Strawberry Alarm Clock feeling, it seems that the other side of the hole is so wonderfully bright and Groovy! Oh! Behave! This one could have been an Austin Powers Theme! “Song For All Seasons” is full of melancholic Psychness, Sitar drenched, internal psych, a tune that brings to mind a version of Chocolate Watch Band’s “Voyage Of The Trieste” but with lyrics!!! “Incognito” is another one that seems to have escaped from their previous album. A danceable speedy tune, a garage-rock dynamite! Eventually, the album closes with “The June Light”, an acoustic track, naked from all unnecessary instrumentation, just the guitar accompanied by Natalie’s full of melancholy and nostalgia voice! So… I’m getting the feeling of a concept musical album, an album that is made this way in order to dress a fairy tale, a Hans Christian Andersen or a Lewis Carroll one! A very Self-Exploration Trip to the Unknown Corridors of the Mind… I also got a feeling of Ecstasy! The Ecstasy Once Told… Yes! And If I’m allowed to borrow/steal a couple of lyrics from another guy hailing from the Down Under, I would describe the Album this way “Still I seemed so obsolete and small… I found God and all His devils inside her”…  This Album is so Apocalyptically Ecstatic! And Esoteric too! And Existential! Religious too! The Dandelion stands there… Natalie de Silver stands there… Still… Through The Looking-Glass… The Dandelion is Dead! Long Live The Dandelion!  From: https://timemachine-productions.gr/2019/03/28/the-dandelion-old-habits-and-new-ways-of-the-dandelion-2019-lp-blackspin-records/ 

 

 

David Bowie - Drive-In Saturday

Heavily influenced by 1950s doo-wop, "Drive-In Saturday" describes how the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world in the future (Bowie once said the year was 2033) have forgotten how to make love, and need to watch old films to see how it is done. The narrative has been cited as an example of Bowie's "futuristic nostalgia", where the story is told from the perspective of an inhabitant of the future looking back in time.
Its composition was inspired by strange lights amidst the barren landscape between Seattle, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, as seen from a train at night on Bowie's 1972 US tour. The music featured Bowie's synthesizer and saxophone, while the lyrics name-checked Mick Jagger ("When people stared in Jagger's eyes and scored"), the model Twiggy ("She'd sigh like Twig the wonder kid"), and Carl Jung ("Jung the foreman prayed at work"). The reference to Jung is significant according to artist Tanja Stark, and heralds the pivotal influence of Jungian depth psychology frameworks upon his career. She suggests the lyric "crashing out with sylvian" is a cryptic reference to the Sylvian fissure in the brain associated with visionary and hallucinatory experiences.
Bowie premiered the song live in November 1972—initially at either Pirate's World, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix—well before committing it to tape. He offered it for recording to Mott the Hoople but they turned it down, Bowie later saying that he did not know why they refused it. However, in his 1972 tour narrative, Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Star, Mott leader Ian Hunter appears utterly perplexed by the song's pop complexity when Bowie plays it to him, writing that it has "a hell of a chord rundown". Bowie claimed on VH1's Storytellers that his frustration with Mott the Hoople's rejection of the song led to him shaving off his eyebrows during the Ziggy Stardust tour, an alteration that remained evident in photographs as late as 1974.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-In_Saturday

DakhaBrakha - Tartaryn

DakhaBrakha – is a world-music quartet from Kiev, Ukraine. Reflecting fundamental elements of sound and soul, the Ukrainian “ethnic chaos” band DakhaBrakha creates a world of unexpected new music. The name DakhaBrakha is original, striking, and authentic at the same time. It means “give/take” in the old Ukrainian language. DakhaBrakha was created in 2004 at the Kiev Center of contemporary Art “DAKH” by the avant-garde theatre director, Vladyslav Troitskyi. Theatre work has left its mark on the band performances – their shows retain the imprint of its scenic effects. Having experimented with Ukrainian folk music, the band has added rhythms of the surrounding world into their music, thus creating a bright, unique and unforgettable sound all their own. This has helped to release the potential of Ukrainian melodies and to bring it into the hearts and consciousness of the younger generation in Ukraine as well as the rest of the world. Accompanied by Indian, Arabic, African, Russian and Australian traditional instrumentation, the quartet’s astonishingly powerful and uncompromising vocal range creates a trans-national sound rooted in Ukrainian culture. At the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore and theatre, their musical spectrum is first intimate, then riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms, inspiring “cultural and artistic liberation.”  From: https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/d/da-dn/-dakhabrakha/ 

Brass Camel - Why Bother

What can be said about Vancouver’s own Brass Camel? There is no denying that this quintet—originally formed as a trio and now expanded to five members—shows no sign of slowing down. They carry the legacy of hard rock, progressive rock, and funk, blending these elements with the force of a cannon blast ready to erupt at any moment.
“Everything on this new record is pure happenstance”, Daniel Sveinson explains to Philip Wilding in Classic Rock Magazine (Issue 353) for this year’s High Hopes feature. “Some days we’re a rock band putting a proggy spin on things, other days we’re writing shorter, funkier songs, or a zany Zappa one”. That sense of spontaneity is essential to Brass Camel’s identity, and it shines throughout their third, self‑titled album—fun, eccentric, and delightfully quirky.
A particularly notable contribution comes from Terry Brown, the legendary producer known for his work with Rush, Discipline, Klaatu, Max Webster, and Voivod. His mixing elevates the album into a full‑fledged tour de force. Listening to Brass Camel, one feels as though something magical and otherworldly is unfolding beyond the stratosphere.
While comparisons to Frank Zappa may be too easy, the band’s sound does evoke elements of Led Zeppelin, Yes, Bigelf, and 10cc—blended together like a vibrant, genre‑bending smoothie. With Kevin Comeau of Crown Lands joining as co‑producer, the album also reflects a strong sense of Canadian musical camaraderie, showcasing a shared spirit of creativity and mutual support.
‘Why Bother’ delivers unexpected time‑signature shifts reminiscent of Bigelf, as though Damon Fox himself were watching in admiration. The track carries forward the theatrical, dystopian flair of Cheat the Gallows, complete with a Queen‑like grandeur. ‘Can’t Say We Didn’t Try’ brings Brass Camel onto a Broadway‑styled stage, tapping into a playful, tap‑dancing energy reminiscent of Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, with mellotron textures drifting through its funk‑driven arrangements.
‘Everybody Loves a Scandal’ shifts from mournful to pastoral before lifting into an upbeat tempo. The song tackles the press, paparazzi, and media’s obsession with “gotcha” moments—scandals that quickly become headline fodder for tabloids like National Enquirer and TMZ. The drama escalates further in ‘Catch Us If You Can’, propelled by a fast‑paced time signature that mirrors the frantic pace of the rat race.
One can imagine animator Chuck Jones being delighted by this kind of music—perhaps even preferring it over Dean Elliott’s compositions for Tom & Jerry, or using it to score the frantic chases of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Brass Camel’s sound carries that same kinetic energy, humour, and momentum.  From: https://echoesanddust.com/2026/05/brass-camel-brass-camel/

 

Buke & Gase - Derby

Buke and Gase are often billed as an experimental pop act, a tag that has more to do with their inputs than their output. More than a decade ago, Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez designed the instruments from which they take their name—a bass ukulele (Buke) and a guitar-bass hybrid (Gase). More recently, they've crafted “the Arx,” a multi-instrument electronic control system that sounds awesome and sounds awesome. Still, on Scholars, their third proper LP and first in almost six years, they sashay into a familiar lineage of deconstructed, bold pop alongside the likes of Dirty Projectors and Braids, bands folding ingenious electronic elements into potent, acoustic-centered songs. The pair built these dozen colossal tunes by jamming and chipping away at their most ecstatic improvisations until the most powerful snippets with the heaviest grooves remained. The result suggests a robotic chamber orchestra, soldered together by someone shielded in a helmet emblazoned with a Bananarama sticker, Hot 97 blaring from a nearby boombox.
Dyer enters the album with a sky-high lament, her voice rising through a web of droning chords: “I fall down on the weekend/I fall so many times on the weekend/Yeah, you couldn’t find a better friend than me,” prompting memories of younger days of inebriated abandon from a distant, more-calm vantage. It sure feels beautiful, though—especially the way the sun glints from every word hanging in the air. Like Imogen Heap, she routes the round through Auto-Tune, creating harmonies that chase her transfixing voice like an army of droids. The melodies are huge, unfurling as multi-colored banners in the sky. Dyer meanders through them like she’s lost, ultimately finding her way back home via unpredictable but meticulously plotted rhythmic and melodic routes.
“Scholars” itself sets up a Bizet-worthy aria before bending toward 1990s grunge, all smashed to bits under relentless drums. Dyer and Sanchez play all these tricky grooves with their feet, using kick drums, tambourines, snares, and other triggers like subway buskers; rather than a limitation, it’s a kind of formalist constraint, establishing the cohesive framework from which they build. It recalls the early work of Yeasayer (or, more generally, dance forms like disco) in that the percussion and songwriting feel mutualistic, so that one cannot exist without the other. The off-kilter beat of “Pink Boots” seems to have shaped Dyer’s very syllables.
Living somewhere between Animal Collective and the Dresden Dolls, Buke and Gase’s 2010 debut, Riposte, established them as an innovative outlier amid the blog-rock flotsam. In 2013, General Dome added more complex arrangements, astounding vocal lines, and some studio wizardry. Scholars ups even that ante, as Buke and Gase largely ditch their namesake instruments in favor of the Arx and other electronics, setting up a transfixing contrast between synthetic and acoustic sounds, all led by Dyer’s skywriting voice. The production here snaps with the clarity and force of stadium-sized headbangers while maintaining the intimacy of Buke and Gase’s earlier work. It’s as if stints opening for the likes of the National and Battles challenged Buke and Gase to consider their sound in larger spaces without losing their fascinating edge.
Dyer manages space so well with her voice on “Derby” that the track sounds like a lost Sneaker Pimps single. There are shades of Frank Ocean’s Blonde, as when “Temporary” flosses an ode to New York through a vocoder and over a bouncy riff. “Wrong Side” wrangles the hard-knocking inflections of Björk’s Volta, while “Eternity” simultaneously recalls the insouciance of Tom Waits and the global rhythmic explorations of Yonatan Gat. Even in their extended absence, Buke and Gase have exemplified the ethos of self-determined musicians, songwriters, and sonic explorers, looking for ways to warp and refine an idiosyncratic craft. With an eye toward the innovations of contemporaries working in similar modes, Scholars exists on its own proud terms—suggesting the authority of a peer-reviewed entry to the canon.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/buke-and-gase-scholars/ 

The Doors - End Of The Night

"End of the Night" is essentially a psychedelic track, in the key of E Minor. The song was written in the band's early days, before guitarist Robby Krieger had joined the group. It was recorded in 1965 in an attempt to land a deal with Aura Records; however, the band failed to get signed. In 1966, when they were signed to Elektra Records, the song was recorded for their self-titled debut album. In the recording, Krieger provided a distinct slide guitar, tuned in a minor tuning. As Krieger himself explained, "I'd try different tunings until one worked".
Although the songwriting credit was given to all four members of the Doors, the lyrics were written by Morrison. Its title is derived from the 1932 French novel Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The line "Some are born to sweet delight; some are born to endless night" is lifted from a William Blake poem "Auguries of Innocence", written in 1803 and published in 1863.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_Night

The Joy Formidable - Gotta Feed My Dog

Q: The Joy Formidable – ‘Cradle You Again’ tour commences on the 20th September, their first in four years in the U.K. – How are you feeling about it all?

Rhiannon "Ritzy" Bryan: ‘I am constantly taken by surprise by touring to be honest, whatever experience you’ve had in the past, obviously we’ve been a band now for over ten years and you go play a gig somewhere, then you return and it can be completely different from the first time you played. 
I think that’s the beautiful thing and just very much about the moment. I think that’s what I try to tell myself now is you have to go into a moment completely open, I think it’s lovely to go into it with no preconceptions. I think I’ve become a lot better at doing that in the last five or six years.’

The band recently released the single ‘Cut Your Face’ – A beautifully atmospheric, psychedelic fuzzy output teamed with mesmerising visuals by Francesca Lawrence.  

‘Francesca is our drummer’s wife. She’s brilliant, she’s a collage artist and she did a beautiful job, it added a little bit of a Monty Pythonesque vibe to me.’

How do you keep being creatively consistent?

‘Looking back, there’s been a few wobbly bits, but writing ends up becoming just a very natural part of your life, I’m always grappling for something to write something down, it does end up becoming entwined in your everyday observations.
For instance, over lockdown i felt like it regenerated me as a writer a little bit because sometimes when you are on tour, certainly a band like us who’ve toured a lot, it feels like you can end up just with a lot of different heads and you’re trying to slot everything in. 
We were making albums on the road while we were still touring and then coming off the road, having to move the studio to somewhere else, then have to pack it up and take it back out on the road, that’s obviously worked for us over the years and it’s part of having to be quite dynamic I think. But there was something quite nice to just sit back for a minute and have a little bit more space and time and observation and just be like, hold on. You know, where am I actually at the moment?
Sometimes when you’re on the road, you can lose quite a bit of yourself because it’s a really exciting wheel and I’m grateful for it but it does end up covering up quite a lot of things that you haven’t necessarily dealt with. I think you just have to be really patient and kind to yourself.’

Share My Heat is the new track from a trio released by The Joy Formidable and is over 15 minutes long, it winds its way through numerous musical shifts, twists and turns in relentless but exhilarating fashion.

‘It’s a song about true connection and love. Deep, selfless love between humans is a beautiful part of our existence, but I’m also singing about our inherent love of nature, the living world and our kinship to everything: plants, animals, mountains and water. Can we repair our relationship with the earth and bring more reciprocity, compassion and companionship to a world that already gives us so much.‘

On Focus Wales 

‘It’s lovely seeing the festival really grow and thrive, I think it’s really great for some towns and cities to have that weave of the arts and music running through them, bringing the community together and Focus Wales has just been curated so well. 
I think the line up every year is just mind blowing, It really is and it’s a great source for finding new music. We saw Walt Disco who we love and HMS Morris who are a Welsh language rock band, they’re awesome.’ 

What musicians inspired you growing up? 

‘I was really lucky growing up because my mum and dad were big record collectors, so I had a big library to just dig into, they had thousands and thousands of vinyl and I was an only child up here in North Wales in the middle of nowhere. 
They used to take me to a lot of gigs when I was little, one of the reasons I got into playing guitar was definitely seeing Elvis Costello, I just loved the energy and the fuck off’ness. Van Morrison, Richard Thompson for guitar playing for sure and John Martyn. Really fucking unique.’

NDR is on a mission to help artists and musicians understand the mental health and addiction pressures that come with being facilitated within the music industry, we are trying to spread awareness by asking our featured artists to give advice in hope that it helps the future generation of artists and musicians create a safer passage for themselves.

‘I think the most important thing is you’ve got to surround yourself with good people, you’ve got to surround yourself with authentic, peaceful people, you are a family ultimately when you end up in a band and you go out on the road together, you are sharing your core values and having each other’s back is a huge part of having longevity in your career. 
In the music industry, you’re inevitably going to come across people who maybe aren’t so wholesome or don’t really give a fuck about being your friend so i think it’s really important to have that grounding from people that are around you. 
You have to look to yourself as well to also make sure that you’ve got that emotional maturity and that you’re healthy and working on yourself, enjoying the moment and being mindful and taking stock of that consistently, because it moves very fast, you can get swept up and you don’t always look after yourself that much. 
Often you’re a sensitive person, you lean into music, you’ve had stuff that happens to you that drives some of the creative force sometimes in the early days but just make sure that you don’t get too much of your identity wrapped up in the ups and downs of the music industry because it can be quite destructive. I’m still tussling with that but I’m doing a lot better now but it’s been constant work.’

From: https://noisedelaysrecovery.com/the-joy-formidable-interview/

Kula Shaker - Wormslayer

There’s a delicious irony to an album called Wormslayer planting relentless earworms in the mind that tunnel through it for days on end. Listeners fond of hook-laden, grand-scale sonic storytelling will find that English rock band Kula Shaker’s eighth effort delivers mystic folk rock every bit as adventuresome as Frank Herbert’s Dune—(ear)worms included.
Wormslayer sees a band beloved for its spiritual sensitivity stitching threads of observation into a familiar tapestry: an image of worldly evil alongside glimpses of what the heart longs for most. On a planet that “weeps beneath a mantle of shadows” (per the 2006 game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), Kula Shaker advocate for mobilizing the “poets of light”, finding healing, and slaying the apathy that dampens our power.
A tall order, to be sure, in a world governed by wyrms (European dragons). Fortunately, these wyrms inevitably reveal themselves by their devouring greed and monstrous abuse, as Wormslayer‘s title track and the single “Good Money” illustrate. The former—an epic force of eruptive riffs and stouthearted rock—sees the wicked worm “turn” and power tip in the protagonist’s favor.
Before this catharsis, however, one must face the darkness. “Good Money” introduces a character listeners check in with at various points in the collection: Shaunie, a winged boy who embodies youthful innocence and, for the predatory, an opportunity to empty people’s coffers. “There’s two types of cash in the world,” explains Shaunie’s exploiter, who runs the “Midnight Circus”, where Shaunie performs for paying onlookers. “There’s your cash, and there’s my cash. Your cash is also my cash.” Shaunie’s “employer” promises the boy stardom and the chance to be loved “as you are,” but of course, like many industry guarantees, there’s always fine print.
“Shaunie” and “Winged Boy” expand on how others perceive this character. While he’s a pawn for the avaricious, some view him as gifted, even angelic. It’s a story that frontman Crispian Mills’ grandmother conceived and passed on to her family. It illustrates the different relationships people have to those with obvious or extraordinary callings, talents, and abilities. As in Tim Burton‘s Edward Scissorhands (1990), where the gentle Edward is regarded as either fascinating or freakish by members of his community, Shaunie similarly struggles with outside opinions.
Part of Wormslayer‘s encouragement may lie in a call to embrace a more solid identity and sense of personhood. We cannot be defined by other people, even if those people directly influence parts of our lives. At times, we may need to simply spread our wings and soar to the Isle of Innisfree.
Wormslayer makes the flight a welcome retreat. Its swaggering, rock-and-pop-infused singles, infectious hooks, and gentle dusting of Indian psychedelia craft an experience no less entertaining than it is thoughtful. Bouncy opener “Lucky Number” grabs you from the first verse and doesn’t let go. In this age of brittle attention spans, it’s easier than ever to sample an album and then abandon it at the first sign of weakness. Wormslayer never shows one. It is unwaveringly solid, a gem whose every angle gleams with some fresh and beautiful surprise.
”Be Merciful” is a prime example. This stirring slow burn glows steadily to life on a bed of soft guitar strums. Crispian Mills’ voice enters gently; then, like Shaunie, it reaches toward the stars as it glides atop a chorus whose voices smolder with yearning. “So long waiting” feels like the heart cry of a need unmet, or a desire that dances tantalizingly close but will not bend within the protagonist’s reach. “Be Merciful” may not be Wormslayer‘s closing track, but its swells of layered vocals and guitars ring out like a hero’s hard-won return home from war.
Another heavy hitter is the title track. The rousing seven-plus-minute rock piece is Wormslayer‘s beating heart, larger than life in sound, substance, and vigor. Like “Be Merciful”, it takes its time blooming. Then it delights with an explosive guitar riff that might recall Paul Atreides riding a sandworm as it rages through the desert. If the album had ended here, it would have tied its conceptual and sonic ideas into a neat bow—a fitting conclusion to a narrative in which every piece plays like a chapter. Instead, Wormslayer follows its climactic centerpiece with another (still excellent) song, which might have been better placed elsewhere to allow the title track to have the last word.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/kula-shaker-wormslayer-review

 

Kitchen Witch - Rosemary

I love the image of a Kitchen Witch. I promise I’ll try not to overuse the metaphor, but kitchens, food, and cookery are a central part of pretty much every expression of religion and spirituality across the world and throughout time. This includes, of course, one of the most beloved of stoner-doom genre tropes, the witch.
This particular quartet of South Australian witches consists of Georgie Cosson – Vocals, Conor Kinsella – Guitars, Simon Elliott – Bass, and John Russo – Drums. They’ve been delivering their hoodoo blues brews since 2013, and Earth And Ether is full-length number two. I caught a show in Melbourne last year, and was mighty impressed with the Janis vibes on display. The band’s bio agrees with me, name-checking John Lee Hooker, Kyuss and Janis Joplin.  From: https://thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/kitchen-witch-earth-ether/

Manassas - Beat-Workshop 1972

In 1972, with an already embarrassingly rich resume including Buffalo Springfield and CSN&Y, Stephen Stills’ finest hour was still to come. Along with ex-Byrd/Burrito Chris Hillman, Stills co-founded Manassas and issued a 2LP set that was called “a sprawling masterpiece”. Manassas was barely 6 months old when they convened at the film studios of Germany’s Radio Bremen to record this excellent 35+ minute live performance for the TV show Beat Club. Released on DVD in 2000 and reportedly the only visual documentation of the band, Manassas, with no audience, expertly fuses Stills’ musical passions (blues rock, Latin & country) into a distinctively potent blend. This set’s suite of songs begins with “Song Of Love” and runs uninterrupted through to “Jet Set (Sigh)”. Instead of concluding the run as originally recorded on the LP (with “Anyway”), Stills throws the band a live curve ball (you can actually see and hear the momentary confusion at the 20:45 mark) and, in front of the rolling cameras, kicks off an extended jam instead (at 22:00). The DVD is worth owning just to see Stills’ short-lived Manassas in performance mode, something most of us never got the opportunity to experience.  From: https://thefatangelsings.com/2014/12/20/stephen-stills-and-manassas-live-at-the-beat-club-march-25th-1972/ 

Crumbling Ghost - Are You Going to Leave Me

Feel free to introduce your band, Crumbling Ghost, to our readers. What got you involved in this endeavor?

Ruth (Bass): A shared love of the same types of music — old folk, metal, and heavy, riff-based music. We all knew each other in different capacities and have all played in different bands in the same circles in London.

Donny (Guitar): I’d known John (Guitar) for a while and after his band broke up and I’d left my previous band, he asked if I wanted to join in jamming with him, Matt (drums) and our original bassist Neil. We ended up playing as Damo Suzuki’s ‘‘sound carriers’’ for a night and decided to keep it going. Shortly after Ruth and Katie (Vocals) joined and eight years later we’re still here.

You’ll be performing at the Vernal Equinox festival, how has the festival atmosphere changed since your bands’ first festival?

Donny: Vernal Equinox will only be our third festival, all of which have happened within the past twelve months, the others being Roadburn 2016, and The Great British Folk Festival. Ruth was away for both of those, so our good friend Simon Kobayashi filled in. Aside from those we’ve just played normal gigs. However, Roadburn and The Great British Folk Festival were about as different from each other as you could get, so it’s difficult to compare. They were both amazing fun though.

What unexpected inspirations stimulated your latest EP, ‘Five Songs’?

Donny: For me, I tried to channel some a twin peaks vibe into my guitar lines on ‘Lose And Get Something Good’. Not sure that’s clear in the end result, but that’s what I tried.

How do your songs come about in the recording process?

Donny: The traditional songs mostly come via John. He’s the real folk fan of the band. He’ll earmark something he likes and will bring to us with a general idea of what he wants to do. Then we ruin all of his careful plans and ideas by adding our own, and then we either keep playing it or abandon it. With the original pieces, one of us will come in with some ideas, sometimes full formed, sometimes just little pieces of music and we just bounce them around for a few weeks/months until we’re happy with them. Usually once we have 4 or 5 we’re happy with, we go and record them. Although for the next release I think we’re going to try and record the whole thing all in one visit.

Ruth: We tend to go into the studio with fairly fully-formed songs which don’t really change too much as we record them, apart from the odd tweak here and there. We might get creative with some layers of instruments, but they sound on the recordings pretty much as they do when we play them live.

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Your songs are often historical in nature, transporting listeners to a forgotten time in Britain. What interests you about these times in particular?

Ruth: I suppose we tend to be attracted to the darker songs of the folk canon — murderers, tricksters, nasty events.

Donny: It’s all so bleak and miserable. These were the popular songs of the time, and all about people being drowned, killed at war, tricked by con-men and so on. It’s gruesomely morose and appeals to us as fans of darker musical themes. It also appeals to our dark sense of humour I think. Nothing quite like singing 200-year-old songs about drowning people.

On your second album ‘II‘, you brilliantly cover ‘Reynardine’, a song most people would be familiar with as a 60s/70s folk revival standard. How do you think today’s folk revival holds up in comparison?

Donny: Difficult for me to answer as in all honesty I don’t listen to much folk. John is the big folk fan of the band and I enjoy hearing what he’s unearthed and enjoy playing around with it. But otherwise I’m utterly clueless about the folk revival. Though I have found it fascinating that several bands have embraced folk themes around a similar time to us and have been mixing it with heavier themes. Even more so that people have developed a real hunger for it. Must have been something in the water.

What are some favourite folk songs of yours that you have yet to cover or put your eclectic spin to but would like to in the future?

Donny: Again, that’s more John’s thing. It’s possible we’ll record ‘Gower Wassail’ properly after we recorded a live version for ‘Bright Young Folk‘ last Christmas. That said, it’s not really folk but I’d love to attempt ‘Wreck’ by Gentle Giant, such a great song. I’ve wanted us to cover that since we first started.

Ruth: Watch this space, I suppose…!

What’s on the horizon for Crumbling Ghost? A new full-release?

Ruth: Playing live this year, and writing new songs, and hopefully a new album in 2018.

Donny: Yep, Vernal Equinox fest, then supporting our friends Church Of The Cosmic Skull at their London show, then the Ilfracombe Folk Festival. In between we’ll be working on the next full length album. It’s slow going as we’re all spread across the UK, but we’re tentatively aiming for summer 2018.

From: https://lastdaydeaf.com/crumbling-ghost/ 

Spinning Jenny - The Light In Me

In the summer of 1994, after the breakup of seminal St. Louis folk-rock band Three Merry Widows (TVT Records), four remaining members, Sean Garcia, Brian Simpson, Charles Shipman and Matt Albert, regrouped, set aside their electric guitars, and began to explore the musical space that could be created by limiting themselves to only acoustic instruments. With the addition of Meryl Press (vocals) and Mira Tanna (violin), they formed Spinning Jenny, a musical experiment influenced by the British and American Folk Rock scenes of the 1960/70’s. A collection of 8 original songs, recorded and produced by the band, garnered label interest, but the band members soon went their separate ways, and the music was never officially released. Fast forward almost 30 years, and the original recordings, remixed and mastered, are now available for the first time on The Great Story. Acoustic guitars, bass, violin, mandolin, banjo, sitar, and other found instruments simultaneously create melodic lines that weave around the vocal melodies sung by Press, whose tonal purity belies the musical power that sits just below the surface of every word.  From: https://spinningjennystl.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-story 

Albion - Calan Mai

Sorry, but I can’t resist: It was in the month of May that I sat down to review the newest album by the British folk-rockers Albion, titled It Was In The Month of May I. This gaggle of self-declared whippersnappers blew this reviewer away with their 2024 album Lakesongs of Elbid. What started as an unassuming filter piece grew on me more and more to the point it made my (and my co-conspirator Killjoy’s) end-of-year list. Albion’s timeless, joyful folk-rock music has enjoyed constant rotations in the Hugebeard tower since then, and so a new album has been a hotly anticipated affair. Now that it’s in our hands, has Albion continued their trend for quality?
For those unfamiliar with Albion, they play a flute-heavy, wistful sort of progressive folk-rock that draws an obvious comparison to Jethro Tull and reminds me a great deal of Big Big Train. For those a little more familiar, it’s worth mentioning that It Was In The Month of May has somewhat toned down the already limited metal crunch that graced Lakesongs of Elbid. Rest assured, this is no criticism, as this album remains energetic and adventurous in all the right ways. The opening prelude, “Mis Mai,” followed by the first true foray into the album’s essence, “The Green Knight,” demonstrate Albion’s sonic strengths right out of the gates. “Mis Mai” highlights the dulcet pipes of Joe Parrish-James as he lathers the song’s Welsh lyrics in decadent velvet, while “The Green Knight” starts the album in usual Albion fashion with grandiose flute melodies explored atop galloping guitar strumming.
What I love about Albion’s music, and what they maintain in It Was In The Month of May, is a sense of effortlessness. The music is fun, it’s accessible, it’s breezy, it’s comfortably warm and full of well-crafted little moments so crisp and yet so obvious it almost makes you wonder how no one else thought of it first. The pub-rock verse of “Down With The Hero” and the epic call-and-response between the flutes and guitars in the middle of “Calan Mai” come especially to mind. In the album’s longer songs, Albion are quite eager to just let the music run free through the meadow in spacious explorations of riffs and solos, but it never feels aimless. The melodies of “The Green Knight” and “Eldest” in particular see the guitars and flutes bounce merrily along in an endless up-and-down like the rolling hills stretching before you as you prepare for adventure. The closer, “Calan Mai,” is the longest at ten minutes, but even at its most unrestrained, the song’s melodies wield graceful finality in a way that always feels satisfying.
It Was In The Month of May is almost 20 minutes shorter than its predecessor, Lakesongs, which makes for an overall cleaner listening experience. However, the album’s pacing does waver a little by over-saturating the latter half with lower-energy tunes. I really quite love “Hymn to Elbereth,” as it has this gently twisting nature to it that happily makes me think of Glass Hammer, but it’s misplaced between the otherwise pleasantly acoustic “She Is The River” and the ballad “Cherry Hill,” making for an overly languid sequence of songs. “Cherry Hill” in particular leans a bit too heavily on chorus repetition for its six-minute runtime. Still, the album ends on the right note with “Calan Mai,” and there are no other noteworthy structural issues or damaging patterns affecting the album. However, I simply must mention the “la-da-da’s” and “doo-do-do’s” in the chorus of “Down With The Hero.” I don’t mind vocalizations at all and they work perfectly well as little interstitial passages like in “Eldest,” but I find it to be a heavily misguided choice for them to carry the chorus of the album’s most upbeat song.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/albion-it-was-in-the-month-of-may-i-review/