Daniel Avery - Tremor (Midnight Versions)
For me, it's a lot more fun than Tremor's original incarnation which surprisingly fell short of expections. Not quite glow-sticks and hands-to-the-lazers box fresh but naggingly relentless and worthy of a head-nod or hip-writhe or two at the very least.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Anne Paceo - Atlantis (Expanded)
Paceo's sound isn't just jazz per se, it instead occupies similar ground to the likes of Peter Gabriel , Steven Wilson or Agnes Obel whose progressive global approach to music has served them well.
The opening four bonus tracks here range from soulful pop, atmospheric ballads to blistering prog-rock, including an alternate version of The Diver. Then it's onto the main event, Atlantis itself. It's an absorbing collection of atmospheric Anglo-French songs, with guest vocalists Laura Cahen and Cynthia Abraham adding sweet fragility and hope to L'écume and Inside respectively, and a collection of Paceo originals and collabs that benefit from the tasteful colouring in by trumpeter Zacharie Ksyk and Icelandic synth-wielder Ozy.
Highlights include Mantha with its familiar classically-informed melody, the pretty dewy-eyed ballad Lovesong and the busy and almost tribal, Aube Marine with its melange of tumbling drums and stuttered sampled vocals. I like this a lot.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Eve Quartermain - The Heart Wants What It Wants
Recorded under the banner Late Transmissions, THWWIW has been curated and created by pals David Balfe (Teardrop Explodes/Dalek i/Food Records) and David Hughes (OMD/Dalek i) and seemingly borrows influences from forgotten crime capers of the '60s and the '90s trip-hop scene (bands like Mono and Kinobe previously mined a similar seam back then). Tracks like At the Starlight Lounge, What Went Wrong and A Little Drop of Poison strengthen the comparisons, yet despite all this sounds-like-this-sounds-like-that narrative, Quartermain and co sound like they've been making albums like this for decades. They haven't - this is the first of hopefully many. A curiosity worth investigating.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Joe Jackson - Hope and Fury
Anyway, I disgress.
Hope and Fury is Jackson's most 'pop' album since the '90s, jam-packed full of the eccentricities and lyrical descriptives we've come to expect. Englishness coats the opening Welcome to Burning-By-Sea with a bittersweet icing that explores the contrasts between his hometown and that of Brighton, which in turn commentates on the whole of Britain - "it's a tramp of a town but it gets in your blood", he opines.
Perhaps the most poignant track plays to Jackson's strengths more than most. End of the Pier revisits the past with a tear in the eye and a lump in the throat, gaw bless me guv. But it could also be about life today when he sings about "a safe and fun-free zone at the end of the pier" and "Dad sits there half dead, another hard day on the wine". Pop songs appear here and there, including the gleeful Do Do Do and the rainbow radio-friendly Fabulous People, while Jackson's love of the middle-of-the-road continues memorably on After All This Time. In his 71st year, Joe Jackson is still vehemently crafting some very credible nuanced songs.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Company Town - Fools / Wrong Generation
Straight out of Brooklyn, the somewhat anonymous Company Town set-up has debuted with the hip-hop inspired Wrong Generation E.P. and follow-up single Fools. Both releases incorporate minimal sampled dialogue from unknown sources with gentle summery hip-hop grooves and breezy melodies, with other critics quoting The Avalanches, Durutti Column and Go Team as possible reference points. The E.P. gathers up a quartet of slightly psyched-out anthems, the pick of which is the flutey bonged-out Obscura Six, followed closely by the only example of a song that I can find by Company Town, Some Daze. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Fools is a level up from its predecessor though - a Tom Scott break, some strings, a little soulful vocalising, some smokey sax rising up like steam from the pavement - it's sunshine carefully bottled in a beat. A name worth keeping an ear out for with hopefully more to come. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Ayk - Demon in the Mirror / Dharma - One Clean Sock / Subject 13 - The Whole Truth / Human Safari - Children of the Sea (all R&S)
The defining Belgian imprint has started 2026 with a vengeance so far with a quartet of singles and E.P.s from the established to the new. Ayk is an Iranian rapper and producer whose gritty Demon in the Mirror is presented three ways, starting with the soulful-then-urbane original which features a straight-up personal rap against a background of warped sampled vocals and a dervish of what sounds like traditional middle-eastern stretched out. There's a terrific grimy UKG style remix courtesy of French breaks duo Som 1 and a tougher Trash Cells which reminds my ears of the 2000s thug-rap trend, until there's strangulated bawling midway through. Interesting. ☆☆☆☆☆☆
Dharma follows his 2024 R&S single Gracie with a pair of pulsating electro tracks, one of which may truly define laundry-related nightmares of the future. One Clean Sock fidgets around for four and a half minutes with portentous percussive triggers and drones, climaxing here and there with what sounds like a Chinook in trouble, while the longer, offbeat and more melodic Questions flurries nicely for six. Promising. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
The pick of the bunch for me is Subject 13's drum and bass epic The Whole Truth. Swathes of synths and a classic rolling liquid beat keep the whole thing consistently tight, making this S13's best work. Leaving behind their recent grime-rap collabs, it's back to sheer class with this layered 6-minuter. R&S haven't dabbled in d'n'b that often in recent years, but this is up there with what Voyager and Jacob's Optical Stairway were rolling out nearly 30 years ago. Glorious. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Last up is a four-track EP from Malta's Human Safari. Musically a little more in keeping with what the old clubbing guard might label as 'typical R&S', things start at a furious pace similar to Source or CJ Bolland, but lighter and jazzier like Dave Angel - Children of the Sea is a cracking start and even affords a filtered sax solo and riff. As if to push the jazz motif a little further, Jazz Affair is exactly that, albeit in a techno stylee with fevered hi-hats and a rather morbid-sounding singular piano note ushering in the track's conclusion. Turbulence at the Orchestra goes all ravey with its sampled (laughable) dialogue featuring media writers proclaiming the evils of acid-house, while closer Lido returns us back to the urgent higher tempo of old. Inventive. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
