The Snuts’ new record Joy in Short Moments marks the Scottish band’s fourth studio album, and it follows the huge commercial success of their opening trilogy, all of which peaked in the UK Top 10. It’s easy to see why; the band are constantly catchy and often relatable.
There’s no better example of this on the record than the reflective and wise ‘Youth Ain’t Easy’, featuring the lyrics “Now that I’m old, youth ain’t easy”, which seems sure to resonate with a young crowd. Yet, the group do not remain so upbeat and joyous that it becomes cheesy; they contrast the happy, upbeat numbers with more sombre moments like ‘PTS’, a song looking back on a relationship through the lens of ‘Post Traumatic Stress’, which ends on the slightly sour…
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Daughter’s Elena Tonra originally released the 2018 eponymous album Ex:Re (pronounced “ex ray” and derived from “Regarding Ex”) as a one-time outlet for feelings following a difficult breakup. The solo project’s whispery, melancholic vocals and gloomy, often eerie acoustic-electronic textures connected with certain listeners, and it became something of a cult favorite in the years to follow. Tonra eventually went back to the studio with engineer/producer Fabian Prynn and cellist Josephine Stephenson from the debut to record a follow-up. Joining them was Ben Reed (bass), Jethro Fox (electric guitar), and experimental musician Hinako Omori (synthesizers). The resulting Save As picks up where 
Radio Free Alice’s debut album What’s in Between has the most surprising of starts. It kicks off with ‘Crying with You’ which initially tinkers experimentally with sound before the fierce drum beats of Lochie Dowd and vocals of Noah Learmonth jump in and effortlessly pull the whole together. And what a whole it is. The track encapsulates everything about this Australian band who have seen a meteoric rise in the last couple of years. The vocals dance all over the track as it soars, creating such an expansive soundscape.
There are few more distinctive artists in contemporary music than 
Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica ensemble continue the longstanding relationship with ECM’s New Series on Pages of a Biography, bringing together music by Georgs Pelēcis, Andrius Žlabys and Arvo Pärt.
The templates and aesthetic he draws from on his third album are about as old as the concept of popular music itself, channelling the canyons around Los Angeles, top pickers in 1960s Nashville studios, and smoke-filled Greenwich Village folk clubs. Assisted on some tracks by co-producer Jonathan Wilson, who knows a thing or two himself about reviving the glory days of West Coast swoon, the LA-based Palestinian–American musician reaches for new levels of emotional resonance with an authority that instantly shuts down claims of derivative recycling.
The year is 2008. Steve Gunn was experiencing the itch to start working on material under his own name after having spent the last several years playing in and around Philadelphia and Brooklyn in collaborative projects such as GHQ. He had recorded some experimental CDRs on his own under the moniker Moongang before branching out in 2007 to placing the name “Steve Gunn” on titles for the first time. The first couple of releases displayed an immediate leap in his songwriting and confidence. His growth as a solo artist seemed to meet the use of his name head on with a burst of creativity. Nowhere was this growth more visible than with the 2008 title “Sundowner”. The album’s first iteration was released on CD by Digitalis Recordings.
Phil Lynott is best known to most as the frontman of Irish rockers Thin Lizzy, but now, 40 years after his death, his solo work is being celebrated with an 8CD box set called 
…Remastered from the original master tapes by longtime Sparks engineer Bill Inglot, expanded edition includes the 9 original tracks alongside 17 bonus tracks featuring rare remixes, alternate versions, and previously unreleased demos.
The first indication that 
GarciaLive Volume 23: August 14th, 1993 presents the Jerry Garcia Band’s final performance at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. The two sets that the group performed that night were originally recorded to two-track digital audio tape straight from the soundboard by John Cutler. All told, Garcia played Shoreline 39 times with the Grateful Dead and on three occasions with the Jerry Garcia Band. This show took place seven years after the opening of the venue. The Grateful Dead were slated to perform the initial gig at the facility but it was cancelled due to Garcia’s health complications. Indeed, as the label notes, “Although JGB was conceived as a low-key respite — a chance for Garcia to relax and cut loose in small clubs away from the stadium circus…
…May 1975 found Pete Townshend turning 30 and troubled by thoughts of the future. What would it hold for The Who, the music business, and rock and roll itself? He poured his anxieties and emotions into The Who by Numbers, the October ’75 release of which would become the band’s seventh studio album. On October 30, Polydor and UMe celebrates 51 years of The Who by Numbers with a new 5CD/1Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition.
For many of us who have a faint aversion to heavy rock, Queens of the Stone Age have long occupied a strange loophole. On paper, they ought to repel: the bulldozing riffs, the desert-rock machismo, the leather-jacketed sneer. And yet the songs slip past the defences. Beneath the fuzz and menace, Josh Homme has always had the instincts of a classic pop craftsman making MOR in disguise – decisive chord changes, gleaming hooks, tight structures, middle-eight pay-offs – dragged through a heavy-rock filter and left out in the sun to warp.
Best known for his film scores, particularly those associated with Studio Ghibli, 
Prolific musical collaborator and tireless rhythm generator 
By the early 1980s, the electric organ had started to infiltrate the iconic hotel bands that defined the Addis Ababa music scene of the previous decade. And so keys player, arranger and producer 