Loma – 'Half Silences'

Loma's 'Half Silences' was one of my favourite songs of 2019 – but then it disappeared from the web just before the band released their last single, 'Ocotillo'. Turns out that 'Half Silences' was the first song recorded for Loma's forthcoming second album, Don't Shy Away. The band chose to revisit the mix, presumably to make the sound of the song more consistent with the other tracks on the new album.

'Half Silences' is driven by a terse, gritty rhythm track, creating an unsettling space in which the song unfolds. Emily Cross has rarely sounded quite so haunted as she does here, ominously shadowed by Jonathan Meiburg and Dan Duszynski's backing vocals. The glimmering synths and sound effects that flit around the mix like fireflies are fittingly echoed in the DIY video's fireworks, which spark out across the ink-black nightscape of Dripping Springs, Texas, where the album was recorded at Duszynski's studio, Dandysounds.

Even though 'Half Silences' has been around a good while, it remains one of my favourite Loma songs, especially now that the mix has been finessed. Fantastic stuff.  

Don't Shy Away is released by Sub Pop on 23rd October.  

  

Chris Cohen – Chris Cohen

My relationship with Chris Cohen's music began with ‘Odyssey’, a Cohen-penned track on Deerhoof’s The Runners Four, which remains one of my favourites in their formidable discography. (I was also lucky enough to see Deerhoof live during their Runners Four tour.) That song's gentle, lilting nature, at odds with the majority of Deerhoof's full-throttle garage-rock, struck a chord with me. I sought out his 2012 debut Overgrown Path thanks to Eleanor Friedberger's Baker’s Dozen piece on The Quietus – and I’ve followed Cohen’s output ever since.

A recent in-depth interview with Aquarium Drunkard focused on the influence of Cohen’s parents’ recent divorce on these songs. While there are references to his estranged father in gorgeous singles 'Edit Out' and 'Green Eyes', overall the album feels as much about coming to terms with one's place in the world and how we learn from each generation’s mistakes. What resonates with me most is that sense of longing for connection across time; the sinking feeling that you’ll never quite have the relationship with your family that you hoped for.

Part of the reason the backstory to this album resonates so strongly with me is that I lost my father to cancer in 2016. Although I now live in Australia and he's always lived back in England, I was lucky enough to spend two uninterrupted weeks with him before he became too frail. Even though there was plenty of unsaid stuff hanging between us, I feel like I came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the man I wanted him to be. That feeling of acceptance, however painful, permeates this deeply empathetic LP.

The atmosphere of the album is typified by gently swaying opener ‘Song They Play’, which sounds like a cousin of As If Apart’s ‘The Mender’. The three lovely singles follow, including the spiralling bass-and-organ-driven groove of 'Sweet William', before folk staple 'House Carpenter' offers a welcome change of pace, its droning arrangement lulling the listener towards the end of side A after the dense harmonic shifts of the first four songs. Side B opens especially elegantly with 'Twice in a Lifetime', and album closer 'No Time To Say Goodbye' is heartbreakingly beautiful, buoyed heavenward by its beatific sax solo.

It's interesting to note that the album was mastered by legendary engineer Bernie Grundman, responsible for such classics as Steely Dan’s Aja. Chris Cohen has a wondrous depth and warmth, deft arrangements, and an intimate feel to Cohen's vocal delivery. Even though Cohen has an enviable melodic sensibility and plays the majority of the instruments with aplomb, there are tantalising glimpses of expansive new directions, such as the ending of 'What Can I Do', where there's a suggestion of a moody coda that's cruelly faded out. And while Cohen's wildly expressive guitar playing provides some searing counterpoint to the relatively serene songs, it would be amazing to hear where his songwriting could venture given further instrumental collaboration. (All of the guest musicians here make notable contributions, especially saxophonist Kasey Knudsen.)

Overall, Chris Cohen is another superb addition to Cohen's discography – and one I'll be revisiting for months to come. It's full of tuneful goodness, counterbalanced by a bittersweet edge, and I'm looking forward to receiving my vinyl in the mail.

[Chris Cohen is out now on Captured Tracks.] 

Feather Beds – Blooming

Michael Orange (The Star Department, Soft Bones) is a chef of the sublime, bringing familiar musical elements together so beautifully that it occasionally defies belief. Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is simple: impossibly dreamy washes of guitars, synths and other hard-to-identify textures, juxtaposed against crisp drum patterns. On recent single ‘Soft Yellow’, the real magic lies in the drop at 2:29 – the moment after the break when the beat returns, ratcheted up a notch, and the song starts to run away at a heady clip, chased by a gorgeous synth melody, raising the hairs on the back of your neck. Get a load of this:

Elsewhere, the momentum is sustained from the get-go by surges of guitars ('Drip Feed'), or is withheld in favour of vertiginous, atmospheric drifting ('Fear of Water'). While Feather Beds' debut The Skeletal System sounded more vulnerable and home-spun, Blooming feels lush and robust, able to carry the listener a significant distance, suspended aloft on clouds of ambient-pop.

The only criticism I could level at this release is that Michael’s vocal melodies tend to follow a similar contour from song to song, but when the overall feel of the album is this beatific, such nit-picking feels mean-spirited. Especially when not a moment is wasted across these 35 minutes. The only option is to go back for more.

And the more I listen to Blooming, the more it keeps, y’know, what’s the word...

[Blooming is released on Moderna Records on 27th October.]

Jonathan David Shaw – Waa

Here's a first for dots and loops: a guest review! A good job too, as I haven't written much lately, plus it's an album by Jonathan David Shaw, the lead singer and acoustic guitarist in my band, Summon the Birds. This review of Jon's new solo album Waa comes courtesy of C.J. Lahey...

Armed with an acoustic guitar, vocals and late-night candle-lit eiderdown reverb, Jonathan David Shaw (JDS) delivers what could be his most accessible album since 2005’s conceptual Boo.

What delineates this from JDS’s other works is a certainty that steers the album confidently through 13 lush tracks. The welcome mat track, 'Overture', is an appropriately sized and framed instrumental blueprint through which the album unveils.

JDS’s vocals, while not hardening in the sense of cement, are certainly more defined, stronger and more purposeful than in the past. In Waa, the way his vocals shape his lyrics is almost akin to a melodic actor, allowing the dense and earthy imagery of his words to form. Tracks like ‘Bird on a Branch’, ‘Run Like You're Never Still’ and ‘Bird Knows Where You Are’ are the best reflections of this, where along with his vocals and accents, JDS peppers his delivery with poignant and purposeful pauses.

Another aspect that gives Waa wings lies in the guitar work. While always working as the foundation upon which JDS and Marlene Samson sing, JDS's fingerpicking style adds a nuance and flair that elevates these songs. A special note to the engineer, who allows the album to develop a sonic signature within the tasteful reverb that the songs soak in.

A return to form for the Melbourne balladeer; we hope he finds time in his busy schedule to tour it.

– C.J. Lahey

Waa is available to download via Bandcamp, and to stream via Spotify.

Gersey – What You Kill

For about a year, before Gersey vocalist/bassist Craig Jackson and his wife Camilla left Melbourne for L.A., I was lucky enough to play guitar in their band, The Sirens of Venice. Craig and Milli started writing songs together after Gersey guitarist Matt Davis moved to Paris, where he formed the instrumental band Bombazine Black, and things wound down for Gersey. Or so it seemed. Despite the friction of distance, the band reconvened for What You Kill, their fourth album since forming all the way back in 1997.

Before Craig left for L.A., Gersey (minus Matt) recorded 14 songs in Melbourne over the course of two weeks, with 12 making the final cut. The fact that the bulk of the album was completed quite quickly comes across in the easy, flowing nature of the performances, no doubt a product of the long-standing chemistry within the band. In Gersey’s soundworld, simplicity is a virtue, with chord changes and melodies unfolding naturally, unhurried. There's a sense of melancholic drift tempered by resilience, Craig's lyrics and vocal performances keeping things ambiguous, coloured equally with sadness and happiness. When they hit their straps, they're like the best bits of mid-tempo Mogwai with vocals – which is a very good thing.

  
For me, the highpoints of the album come when the band stretch out across six or seven minutes, such as on 'When You Hollow Out', 'Endlessness', and ‘She Knows’, a swooningly gorgeous waltz. On the more concise end of the songwriting spectrum are 'See Lucienne', and ‘Summer Days’, which evokes that mid-afternoon music festival grogginess, where you realise you’re happy and drunk, but dead on your feet with hours of bands left to watch – you can practically see the sun glinting off Jackson’s sunglasses.

The countless hours spent in rehearsal rooms and on stages across Australia, plus the new-found distance between members, could have resulted in an album that sounds tired and needless. Though the album stretches out across nearly an hour – so perhaps losing a couple of the less engaging cuts may have enlivened the whole – there's little here that doesn't sound vital and woozily ethereal. Like the gruesome monster on the cover, about to sink its teeth into a severed arm, Gersey still sound hungry.

Shearwater – Jet Plane and Oxbow

When I first moved to Melbourne and joined a band, I received some advice I shouldn't have heeded. After our first gig, a friend's wife recommended that I face the crowd more and perform in a way that acknowledged someone was watching. (Admittedly, I was playing in an instrumental band, which can be notoriously boring to watch unless there are visuals.) I tried being more animated for a couple of the gigs that came after, but it felt weird and unnatural, so I gave up and concentrated on playing the music well, hoping this would be enough for anyone watching.

What's this got to do with Shearwater? Well, this new album sounds like Jonathan Meiburg is self-conscious that more people than ever will be listening to his music, all of whom want to be impressed – and few of them will be paying for the privilege. Like its superb predecessor Animal Joy (2012), and the disposable covers album Fellow Travelers (2013) that followed, Jet Plane and Oxbow is released on Sub Pop. The stakes are high. It sounds like Meiburg may have considered that he needs to go big or go home. (He does have a parallel career as an ornithologist, so if Shearwater tanks, he could do that instead?) The promotional emails touting this release implored Shearwater fans to preorder, especially if they want the band to tour Australia. (I live in Australia, I'd love to see the band live, so my preorder dollars were immediately thrown their way.)

As much as I applaud the band's perspicacity, something feels awry. Let's suppose, for a moment, that it's possible to create a mid-tier indie-rock album in the 21st century without paying any attention to what's going on in the music industry, or of hoping to recoup the hours and dollars invested. Let's suppose that this music was created because its creators had a burning desire to do so – that this music needed to be made. Then, let's listen to Jet Plane and Oxbow and wonder how Shearwater got here, to these particular eleven songs. Much like Wild Beasts and Lower Dens – two bands whose recent albums (Present Tense and Escape From Evil, respectively) I also eagerly anticipated – there have been pre-release murmurings of a more '80s-sounding direction for Shearwater. First single 'Quiet Americans' seemed to suggest as much, with its prominent synth lines, strident drum sounds and in-your-face production.

Indeed, in an interview with Michael Azerrad on the Sub Pop website, Jonathan Meiburg makes reference to Bowie's Scary Monsters, Eno and Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and Talking Heads' Remain In Light as influences. Great albums all, but their relationship with Jet Plane feels tangential at best. Those albums may have inspired Meiburg to employ synths, rototoms and gated snares, but these instrumental additions feel superficial.

What seems to have changed is Meiburg's confidence in occasionally reaching for a sound that could best be described as 'stadium rock'. When this confidence over-reaches, I can't help but cringe in embarrassment. 'Pale Kings' is the worst culprit, its breakneck banjos falling over themselves to keep up with the fist-pumping pace, the songwriting falling short of Meiburg's ambition. As far as I'm concerned, the song should never have made the final cut, which is especially perplexing when more worthy songs, such as 'Evidence' (the demo of which features on the Headwaters podcast), were abandoned. Later in the album, 'Wildlife in America' is a bland and uninspiring piano ballad, and 'Radio Silence' strives for a motorik momentum that soon wears out its welcome, dragging on for nearly seven minutes.

That said, when Jet Plane hits home, its power is undeniable. 'Backchannels' is stunning, with a guitar break reminiscent of Talk Talk's sublime Laughing Stock. 'Filaments' sounds like a re-work of Radiohead's 'Bangers and Mash', all bass filth and percussive clatter. New single 'Only Child' has elegance and restraint on its side, with a lovely turnaround on the bass. 'Glass Bones' is an anthemic rock song done right, its riff down and dirty enough to cut through my skepticism. And glorious closer 'Stray Light At Clouds Hill' injects some welcome space into the mix, its vocals sent boomeranging through a tape delay.

Listening to the Headwaters podcast, it sounds like Meiburg and his band developed the songs on Jet Plane through jamming. However, little on this album conveys these origins. Somewhere along the way, something has slipped off kilter, taking Shearwater in an unsatisfying direction for such a great band. With a frontman as intelligent and articulate as Jonathan Meiburg, some of the musical decisions here are frustratingly inexplicable. My expectations of this release were high, but like Spoon's latest album They Want Your Soul, what could've been a great album is simply a quite good one.

Flying Saucer Attack – Instrumentals 2015

It's hard to know what to say about this new album by Flying Saucer Attack. I first heard FSA at uni in the mid to late '90s, and they had a vague and faintly cosmic mystique unique to pre-internet bands. All you had to go on might be the album cover and a review in the NME or a mention by John Peel. Back then, FSA were a duo (David Pearce and Rachel Brook) who stirred faint beats and vocals into their mix of atmospheric languor and MBV-esque guitar-storms. Instrumentals 2015, the first FSA album in 15 years, is just Pearce, his guitar and effects.

I don't know if these pieces have been tinkered with over the years or if they were all recorded recently. The title would suggest the latter. But it doesn't really matter either way. The context is fairly meaningless. All there is is the music. And it has the same vague and faintly cosmic mystique as it had in the mid to late '90s.

There's certainly no lack of this kind of guitar-driven ambient music around. Chuck a rock and you're bound to hit someone who plays the guitar through a string of effects pedals. However, it's rare to find someone who plays the guitar in such a beguiling way. Pearce isn't reinventing the wheel, but he does create a yearning, melancholic atmosphere akin to Windy & Carl at their most minimal and forlorn.

Describing how each of these 15 pieces sound is beside the point, really; they begin and end as though they're drifting in and out of the room, making sure they colour the air without drawing too much attention to themselves. Pearce's sound is purposefully hesitant and ambiguous. Whether the individual pieces fade out after a couple of minutes or stretch on for six, seven, ten minutes, there's the sense that in leaving the music sounding unfinished, Pearce has expanded the music's horizons, leaving it open to interpretation.

Repeat listens to this album bring fresh perspectives on the music, but no definitive answers. In that regard, Instrumentals 2015 feels so open-ended that what you take away from it largely depends on what you bring to it. I started with faint fond memories of their self-titled debut album. I walk away with a nagging sensation that there's something there worth unearthing, just beyond my grasp. So I keep coming back to explore.        

Lower Dens – Escape From Evil

When Escape From Evil was posted on NPR's First Listen a week ahead of its release, I couldn't get into it at all. I love Lower Dens' previous albums Twin Hand Movement (2010) and Nootropics (2012), so to find myself disappointed with this long-awaited third album was frustrating. My reaction was similar to when I first heard Wild Beasts' Present Tense – what the fuck is it with bands I love suddenly employing 80s synth sounds and production?! Thankfully there was a lot to enjoy about Present Tense once I got past my objection to the synths – and there's a lot to enjoy about Escape From Evil, too.

Now the album's out and I've had the chance to live with it for a week, the over-riding impression is that Lower Dens have learned how to successfully adapt their sound yet again (the change-up from Twin Hand Movement to Nootropics was, in itself, pretty striking). Following the departure of guitarist Will Adams and miserable sessions working on new songs, Jana Hunter sought a new direction that favoured immediacy, clarity and emotional directness. The best way to understand this evolution in sound is to compare the version of 'Non Grata' that appears here with the version that appeared on a split 7" with Horse Lords released back in 2013. The earlier version has a similarly icy aesthetic to Nootropics, betraying a clear debt to Kraftwerk; the new version on Escape From Evil introduces buoyant layers of instrumental counterpoint, edging it more towards the lurid synth-pop of the 80s. It's certainly the track on the album I found it hardest to warm to, despite the fact it's superficially catchy.

While Nootropics was stark and initially forbidding, these new songs are bright and muscular. This is partly thanks to production help from Chris Coady, Ariel Rechtshaid and John Congleton – which brings the synths to the fore and makes the rhythm section really pop – and partly down to some striking guitar work from both Hunter and new member Walker Teret (Arbouretum, Cass McCombs). At the heart of it all is Hunter's smoky voice, as alluring as ever, but intoning what are, for the most part, some pretty lacklustre lyrics, such as this clanger from 'Electric Current': "I only want to dance with you, all night, on the street". What rescues it all from becoming a shallow, neon nightmare is the conviction of the execution and Hunter's sharp songwriting instincts.

First single 'To Die In L.A.' is, inevitably, one of the peppier cuts, but the aforementioned 'Non Grata', the galloping 'Company', with features a seasick, serpentine guitar solo, and stunning closer 'Société Anonyme' are just as upbeat – the latter akin to The Smiths, with nimble guitar lines worthy of Johnny Marr. Gorgeous second single 'Ondine' is an early highlight, while 'Your Heart Still Beating' introduces some steamy breathing space into the middle of the set. The closest this album gets to the Lower Dens of old is probably the morose torch song 'I Am The Earth' and opener 'Sucker's Shangri-La', with its prominent, echoing guitars.

Ultimately, though, I feel ambivalent about this release. It's easy to be cynical about the band's new direction when you think of the recent success of fellow Baltimore bands Future Islands and Beach House. If this album wasn't by Lower Dens, would I spend as much time with it, testing my aversion to 80s production? I think what keeps me intrigued is Hunter's vision: a balance between the stark and the flushed; between distance and intimacy; between the affected and the guileless. I'm conflicted, which is part of what keeps me coming back for more.

Fred Thomas – All Are Saved

Even though Fred Thomas has released dozens of albums, whether solo or in his band Saturday Looks Good To Me (plus numerous other outfits), I'd not heard any of them before All Are Saved, his latest on Polyvinyl. If any of his previous albums are even half as good as this gorgeous, warped gem, I'll have a long and fruitful time digging back through his discography.

Listening to this album feels like rooting around under the sofa cushions for the remote control, only to find a photo of your beloved departed dog, an unopened bottle of beer, a dusty cassette compilation made by an old friend, a dog-eared journal, and a pack of gum. It's surprising, ridiculous, hilarious, infuriating, brilliant, silly, beautiful, profound, knowingly throwaway and deadly serious. All Are Saved is truly an unexpected delight.

It starts and ends with songs about dogs, littered with tape hiss, cymbal crashes and tape echo. The lyrics – some of the funniest and most heartbreaking I've heard in ages – either tumble out in torrents of half-remembered ideas and f-words, or are measured carefully in Slint-like cadences, half-spoken, half-sung. So all the words don't become too much, Thomas throws in juicy instrumental synth confections 'July' and 'Thesis (Lear)' to keep things spacious and radiant.

While offering up a few reference points helps me understand where this fits in my personal history of musical enthusiasm – 'When They Built The Schools' is Radiohead's 'There There' half-asleep on the couch; 'Cops Don't Care Pt. II' is a prime Tobin Sprout cut from a lost '90s Guided By Voices album; and 'Monster Movie' is Elliott Smith with a backbone – the baffling thing about this album is that the deeper I dig into what I love about it, the more elusive its appeal becomes. All I can do is put it on again, writhe around in its warm recesses and itch-scratching edges, and let Thomas's inspired outpourings work their dark magic.

[All Are Saved will be released on vinyl, cassette, CD and digital by Polyvinyl on 7th April.]

Feather Beds – The Skeletal System

I'd like to think I'm an omnivorous listener, open to many genres and styles, but really, who am I kidding? I'm inexorably tied to the music of the mid to late '90s, when I was in my late teens and early 20s: Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, The Flaming Lips' Clouds Taste Metallic, Sparklehorse's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. I rarely listen to those particular albums any more because they're so familiar, but their enduring appeal lies in the balance between songcraft and soundscaping – there's always a tune to hitch your ear to, plus plenty of interesting stuff going on within and around the songs to explore on repeat listens.

Michael Orange mines the same rich seam, and his debut album as Feather Beds, The Skeletal System, is a short, sweet distillation of this aesthetic. Nothing is played absolutely straight, but nothing is showily odd. The video for 'Animal Fat' visualises this effect nicely:

 

I know it's a kaleidoscope; you know it's a kaleidoscope. But can you look away? No. It's hypnotic. Understanding something doesn't necessarily make it less alluring. I hear what Orange is doing and it all sounds just right to me. I appreciate the craftsmanship that gently eases the album from more focused, melodic passages into ambient washes of sound. There's a lightness of touch, a gentle flexing of arrangements to make reflections glint off surfaces. A blurring. The pleasure of parallax as you stare out of a train window. Although I could happily zone out to tracks like 'Airbrushed' if they were two or three times as long, the restraint demonstrated on this lovely album keeps me coming back.

The Skeletal System is available as a limited edition CD on Happenin Records and for streaming on Spotify.

The White Birch – The Weight of Spring

The White Birch is time slowed down, moments drawn out, emotional burdens given their space to be felt. In the ten years since Come Up For Air, Ola Flottum has lost his mother, fathered two children, and bought a house in Oslo, where he's set up a basement studio. You can feel it. Despite the air and light in the arrangements of these slow, sad songs, there's the weight of earth around them, the slow transformation of leaves into soil, the movement of feelings from felt sensations into memories.

The Weight of Spring is so uniform in its mood, so consistently poised, it's almost ambient music, tinting the room with melancholy. It glows and thrums with an internal rhythm that allows it to unfold naturally without the desperate need to grab your attention. If you're not moved by this music, you're not listening, not really – you're waiting to be impressed. Key to this is Flottum's voice, a strange, wavering, deflated instrument, and once you acclimatise to its timbre, it has its own unique beauty.

Most of these anti-gravity ballads are sparse and beatless, traced out lovingly on piano and strings. Whenever rhythms are introduced (such as on 'New York' 'Lamentation', 'Lantern' and 'Spring') it feels like the clouds parting, like feeling your heartbeat again after being slumped listless on the couch. It gets the blood flowing, lifts the mood, breaks the daze. The album also employs striking textural shifts to break the narcoleptic fog, such as the second half of 'Lantern' and 'Mother'. These moments need the context of their neighbouring songs to create their dramatic effect, which lends the album a wonderfully unified atmosphere.

I still feel like I'm coming to terms with the subtle shifts this album stirs within me. It needs more time to absorb. It needs more space to breathe it all in. It's truly beautiful.

The Caribbean – Moon Sickness

When I shared The Caribbean's last album Discontinued Perfume with my best friend and bandmate Jono, his initial response was similar to mine – the music's too busy, there are too many words, frontman Michael Kentoff has a nasal vocal tone akin to Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan on a caffeine buzz. It's hard to find a way in. Jono persisted, thanks in part to the appearance of the wonderful 'Mr Let's Find Out' on a mix CD I gave him, plus my continued insistence on the band's idiosyncratic brilliance. Given time, he had to admit The Caribbean have a certain something, a unique magic that I attempted to put my finger on in a write-up about my favourite albums of 2011.

On their new album, The Caribbean are more immediately persuasive. Although their attention to detail makes repeat listens a necessity, both to appreciate the smooth songwriting and to luxuriate in the wonderful production, Moon Sickness feels more vivid than Discontinued Perfume. Most notably, first single and album standout 'Imitation Air' juxtaposes guitar parts so sonically differentiated that the effect is deeply psychedelic – a warbling, chewed-tape guitar in the left channel, a clean phased guitar in the right – especially when the vocals, bass and drums sit soberly between them, carrying the song forward with a crisp clip. It's my favourite Caribbean song to date, perhaps for the band too – after all, that's a snippet of the song's lyrics on the album's front cover.



Second single 'Jobsworth', premiered late last year on rollingstone.com no less, is almost as appealing, with its chiming guitar refrain, shuffling drums, and some of Kentoff's most resonant lyrics to date:

American Jobsworth
Sends us out to scan the city
We've got nearly zero asshole factor here
No real shouters
In fact, everyone speaks quietly
And smiles your soul to sleep.

'Electric Bass' has a propulsive groove and the cheeky line "Cue electric bass!" prompts that goosebumpy feeling when a song's bassline kicks in and the energy level jumps. Except it's a feint. Nothing changes for a few bars – very funny, fellas – then some delicious instrumental colours begin to expand the song's horizons, tingling the extremeties. The guitar licks on this one are hot shit, too. Similarly tasty fretwork crops up later on 'Echopraxia', the song title potentially pointing to another sly Caribbean "joke". Are those guitar licks aping the earlier song? Or another band? Or both? Whichever way you cut it, it's smooth without being smarmy. A suburban Steely Dan.

Given Kentoff's fondness for chatty, literate lyrics, with his vocals pretty much guaranteed to start up as soon as the song gets going, the feel of The Caribbean's verses can get a bit samey, but just as you start to wonder whether you should skip a trick, something changes – beautiful instrumental details will pop up or drop out, a fresh chord sequence will evolve. They judge exactly when to make things interesting again to persuade the listener from tuning out, whether between songs or within songs, maximising the impact of each twist and turn. And on the title track, the band muster a rare extended instrumental coda for some much-needed breathing space. Smart songwriting.

I love how succinct The Caribbean are, and how much they cram into these 35 minutes. I love how I feel when I listen to their smart, deftly executed songs. Moon Sickness is a beauty, and probably their best album yet. If you need further convincing, producer Chad Clark's overview at the Hometapes website should do the trick.

Hidden Shoal artist profile: City of Satellites

City of Satellites

Imagine a Venn diagram with one circle that says 'dream pop' and another that says 'shoegaze rock'. The area where they overlap is a wonderful place. That place is City of Satellites. It's all about synthesis - between electronic beats and live drums; between shimmering keyboards and breathy vocals; between post-rock guitar sounds and rich basswork. The result is dizzyingly beautiful and futuristic music that is perfectly suited to a range of visuals - and has already been heard in episodes of Australian drama Offspring.

The band have released a stunningly expansive EP called The Spook and debut album Machine Is My Animal, from which the single 'BMX' is taken:



The title track of their debut album is included as part of my alt.pop/rock compilation on Soundcloud:



If you're interested in licensing City of Satellites' music for your creative project, please contact tim@dots-and-loops.com

Hidden Shoal artist profile: [The] Caseworker

[The] Caseworker

[The] Caseworker are a continent-spanning trio whose music has the feel of a shoegazing Velvet Underground reared by the Flying Nun label – the perfect balance of drone and chime. Their hazy, melodic pop songs have irresistible momentum, but a momentum that's infused with ambiguity and doubt. In my head, [The] Caseworker's songs best suit those funny, downbeat indie movies in which every song on the soundtrack is good, conveying that the director has impeccable music taste!

'National Runner', the addictive opening track on their latest album Letters For Coast, also opens my compilation of Hidden Shoal alt.pop/rock:



There's also a video for the track on my YouTube channel if you want to witness the song as a soundtrack to the athletic prowess of incredible Ethiopian long-distance runner Miruts Yifter:



If you're interested in licensing [The] Caseworker's music for your creative project, please contact tim@dots-and-loops.com

Hidden Shoal artist profile: Apricot Rail

Apricot Rail

Perth-based instrumental pop band Apricot Rail create the kind of gleaming, melodic music to perfectly soundtrack moments of wide-eyed discovery, blue-skied revelation and intimate tenderness. Woodwinds, glockenspiels and trumpet weave amid chiming guitars to create music that is as moving as it is playful. The band released their self-titled debut album, produced by Umpire's Simon Struthers, in 2009. It features beautiful single 'Pouring Milk Out The Window':



In 2011 the band released their latest single 'Surry Hills', the first to include newest member Justin Manzano:



If you're interested in licensing Apricot Rail's music for your creative project, please contact tim@dots-and-loops.com