Experimental musician and dancer Raquel Bell has been involved with many projects over the years, such as Normal Love, Mesiko and The Dialtones. But the recently released “Swandala” marks her debut as a solo artist. Having relocated from New York City to Austin, Texas, Bell found the additional space and time benefited her creative process.
When Avant-guitarist Robert Poss set out to make a new solo album, he initially envisioned it as a rock record in the vein of his former group Band Of Susans. But the resulting ‘Frozen Flowers Curse The Day’ ended up being a much more diverse collection of music. There are ambient tracks, experimental compositions and also vocal-driven rocks songs. Poss explains how the album came together and discusses his creative process.
When Norway’s Mortiis initially put out ‘Perfectly Defect,’ he was ‘super pissed off with previous negative experiences in the record industry’ and decided to give the album away to fans during his 2010 tour. Long unavailable, the album now has a proper release on Mortiis’ own Omnipresence Records. Mortiis has revisited another of his past works, actively touring with a live reinterpretation of his classic 1994 album “Ånden Som Gjorde Opprør.”
With his new solo album, “Science Fiction,” former Thompson Twins member Tom Bailey has made a welcome return to pop music. After Thompson Twins ended in the early 1990s, Bailey remained active with such projects as Babble and International Observer, but his music had shifted into more experimental and varied directions. But after starting to perform Thompson Twins material live again, he founds his love for pop music re-ignited.
ZANTi is a new project from Anni Hogan and Derek Forbes. Hogan is known for her solo career work and collaborations with Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Barry Adamson & Wolfgang Flur, among others. Forbes was a long-time member of Simple Minds and has also been part of bands such as Propaganda and Big Country. After 18 months of work, they completed their cinematically inspired eight-song debut album “Broken Hearted City.”
Midge Ure is no stranger to radically re-working music from his past. On his 2015 “Fragile Troubadour” tour, he proved that even such Ultravox classics as “Vienna” and “Reap the Wild Wind” could maintain their power when stripped down to just guitar and voice. On his new album, “Orchestrated,” Ure goes to the other extreme, re-imaging solo and Ultravox material with the accompaniment of an orchestra.
Dave Wakeling has been touring as The English Beat for many years, but until now had not released any new material. But the recently released “Here We Go Love,” is well worth the wait. The album captures the essence of classic English Beat without trying to recreate the past.
Since emerging in 1988 with the club classic “I Sit on Acid,” Belguim’s Lords of Acid have gone through many line-up changes and incorporated a variety of influences into their hard electronic sound. For the latest Lords of Acid release, the crowd-funded “Pretty in Kink,” leader and founding member Praga Khan got the fans directly involved, allowing comments and feedback to shape the album.
For her most recent solo album, “Queen Victoria,“ Joy Askew looked to the past to bring a new creative angle to her music. One day in 2013 she found herself inspired to incorporate the sound of traditional brass bands into her sound. After demoing material with local musicians, Askew traveled to England to work with the famous Brighouse & Rastrick Band.
This Wilderness is a new electro-punk duo comprised of Cop Shoot Cop’s Jim Coleman and singer/performance artist Robert O. Leaver. Their debut album, “Sorry About Tomorrow,” exhibits a sense of gloom and room, but also a strong dose of humor. Coleman and Leaver bring their talents together flawlessly to create a catchy but utterly twisted sound.