Jeniferever

I’ve got mixed feelings about ‘choose a bright morning’, the first album by this swedish band. Some songs are incredibly great not too far from Mineral, Gregor Samsa, Ariel Kill Him, Appleseed Cast or Mew, but at other places their songwriting seems confuse with a lack of precision and ideas and too much production gimmicks.

Same things for the lyrics, incredibly well written on the first three songs and less and less coherent as you progress through the album. I’ve got the impression of a band grown too fast, a bit like Khonnor with ‘Handwriting’, but the achievement here is less complete.

I’m curious to discover how this band will evolve, which part of them will win, because finally if I’m not totally convinced by this record I still have spent many hours listening it compulsively.

jeniferever @ derives

Spokane

The recording of the new Spokane album seems to be a long and difficult process, even if the participation of Gregor Samsa members is very promising.

So it might be quite interesting to return spend some time with ‘measurement’, just to realize this record is maybe even more crucial these days, with the passing of years, and the memories of this last colder than usual European winter.

Rick, Courtney and Robert are at their best, playing this ethereal slowcore, crossing paths between the universes of early Low, Labradford, showing the direction to follow for their peers of Gregor Samsa (and not only to them).

spokane @ derives

Hood

It's easy to admit for me that in the whole Hood discography, "Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys" is my favorite album.

Because it's not the same band as before and after, with the main members from Empress and Remote Viewer among them, with Matt Elliott as sound engineer. And they explore the more atmospheric, melancholic and ambient sides of their expression. Almost ten years after its recording, this record is still urgent, deeply true and moving.

hood @ derives

Broken Flight

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Broken Flight released one ep and one lp so far, almost self-released.

But the sensitivity, the melancholy, the kindness and subtlety behind their songwriting are incredibly great, recalling early records by Owen, The Apartments or a sparser and ethereal Art of Fighting.

broken flight @ derives

The White Foliage

One of the loveliest bands ever.

The purity of the 4AD aesthetics mixed with the better parts of L'Altra and Khonnor and you come close. Except that some of the songs on this ep have a wonderful complexity - It's impossible to know where the song will go 30 seconds later - and a heavenly charm from out of this world. And both are just nineteen. A very very promising band, never felt like this since the first ep by L'Altra.

the white foliage @ derives

Quintin Nadig

It's a crime that so far Quintin Nadig is so much under the radar, when his records are the equivalents of the Spokane, Hayden or Patrick Phelan ones, with moments of pure bliss and melancholy echoing the best moments of slowcore subtlety.

Deeply moving, don't make the error to not give him the attention his music justifies.

quintin nadig @ derives
quintin nadig @ myspace

Peril Hill

Peril Hill is the musical project of one Mark Gardner helped with a few friends and giving us the most moving and melancholic folk music coming from UK since the early records of Appendix Out and the marvellous debut of Songs of Green Pheasant.

His music is a dream, it makes you float into a cloud of bliss and intimacy.

peril hill @ derives
peril hill @ myspace