Posts Tagged ‘Jazz’

Smag På Dig Selv – This Is Why We Lost

Posted: 17 February 2026 in Reviews, Albums
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Stunt Records – 6th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Well, this is a conundrum. This Is Why We Lost is the second album by Danish trio Smag På Dig Selv is pitched as a work which ‘shatter[s] the boundaries of electronic music’, and was made with the ambition ‘to create music that can exist within a trance or club-oriented setting, while still carrying a strong melodic and narrative arc’. Only, the band lineup consists of two saxophonists and one drummer, while single cut ‘Vik’s Rawcore’ features vibraphonist Viktoria Søndergaard. No arguing that it’s an intriguing, even exciting proposition, but can it really ‘shatter the boundaries of electronic music’? Or does it instead take acoustic music into new territories?

I’ll admit that I’m not mad keen on conventional ‘club’ music – no doubt a revelation which will come as a shock to many – but then perhaps I’ve never been to any decent clubs. It may seem perverse that I like noise and drone but find bangin’ choonz insufferable. This Is Why We Lost is built on techno / electronic tropes with insistent beats and some throbbing basslines – the second half of the album’s first track, ‘Like A Word I Never Knew’ goes full drum ‘n’ bass… and sax. For atop the frenetic fills and frenzied rhythm, not to mention the pulsating bass – whatever instrument is responsible for that – there are some strong jazz currents.

‘Let’s Go!’ is a slab of lively Europop / EDM, while ‘Vik’s Rawcore’ is full-on HI-NRG stomper – albeit with a mellow breakdown in the mid-section which prefaces the inevitable build before the beat drops again.

There’s no question that this is technically (or techno-ichally, if I’m up for deploying a shit pun) accomplished and innovative, and while AI is insidiously creeping its way and hollowing out the arts at a devastating rate, it’s refreshing to find an act which turns the tables, instead using acoustic instruments to create sounds associated with electronic music. The fact musicians and artists in all fields are embracing AI is bewildering. Why? Just why? The creative process is what makes the work of creativity, learning new techniques and ways to articulate the contents of the mind via any given medium. When I write, as much as delving for words and scouring a Thesaurus may at times be painstaking, this is precisely what it’s all about. The fundamental purpose of art is to convey the complexities of the human condition. To remove the human element from the art is to remove its very heart and any sense of feeling. AI is not art, it’s entertainment plagiarised from all preceding art. Fuck that.

Smag På Dig Selv aren’t the only ones using conventional, acoustic instrumentation in unconventional ways: Jo Quail is very much striking forth in new territories in forging immensely powerful ‘(post-)rock’ music with solo cello (aided by effects and a loop pedal), but what they’re doing is rather different.

‘Ya Tal3een’, featuring Luna Ersahin is altogether different, a stirring, primal folk composition led by an immensely powerful vocal performance, is more reminiscent of the earthy works of Wardruna, evoking vast expanses of woodland and rugged mountains. Elsewhere, the title track manifests as a thick, textured drone, an ambient piece which forms shapes as it evolves, but sounds more like strings, organ, synths, than any of the instruments listed. There’s a fleeting moment of melody which reminds me of something else, too, but it eludes me. ‘Fitness Bro’ amuses with its hyperkinetic energy, the pulsating groove – topped with big sax action – evokes fast treadmills and rapid reps, pumping biceps and perspiration. It also call to mind that brief moment in the early 80s when post-punk acts embraced saxophone, extending the initiative of The Psychedelic Furs and Theatre of Hate.

‘Jeg Ved Ikke Hvad Jed Siger’ swings into dark hip-hop territory, and it’s cool, unlike the happy hardcore of ‘Hits 4 Kids Vol. 3000’, complete with whistles and samples. Just no. It may not be quite as bad as Scooter, but there really is no need for this.

And perhaps THIS is why we lost. The album has some strong moments – many, in fact and they’re solid, too, showcasing a rare creativity, and an approach to composition that’s postmodernism turned up eleven… or thereabouts. I’m personally very much on the fence with this one, since it’s 50% mind-blowing and 50% Europop mediocrity. It certainly has its moments, and will likely to appeal to most, at least at some time.

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Harry Christelis – Preserving Fictions

Posted: 8 February 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Clonmell Jazz Social – 13th February 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

1984 has never felt more relevant. In the early chapters, Winston is shown rewriting history, in the form of news articles – something which has become a defining feature of the Trump Administration of late. The quotation ‘The Party told you to ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command’ has been all over social media in recent weeks. Because we live in a time when a woman in her car calmly saying ‘I’m not mad’, or a medic shielding a woman from assault, can be murdered by the state, the event filmed and broadcast from many angles, and reported as being ‘domestic terrorists’. When news reportage becomes outlandish fiction, there’s a problem of unspeakable proportion. And so it’s become the objective of the media wings of governments – those of America, if Israel, of ours here in England – to preserve fictions and mask facts for their own propagandist, gaslighting ends.

Harry Christelis – whose latest offering features Christos Stylianides (trumpet/effects), Andrea Di Biase (bass/synth) and Dave Storey (drums) – is not seeking to propagate propaganda here, but simply to explore sonic territories, with a album of ‘post-jazz, ambient and folk-inflected improv’, which ‘captures a deep collective instinct – reflective, spontaneous, and richly atmospheric…’ Christelis explains that “in the creative process — as in life — there is never true certainty, never a ‘right way.’ These are simply fictions we hold onto. This realisation inspired the title Preserving Fictions: a reminder to stay present with whatever comes, grateful for each lesson, knowing that something new may be just around the corner, waiting to turn that on its head.”

The album launches with the longest track, the nine-minute ‘Blues of the Birds’, which is, at heart, an ebb-and-flow ambient composition… but then there’s clattering percussion and waves and wisps flittering skywards, before, around the mid-point, it settles into a smooth, strolling, settled feel. Nice. And all that.

The spontaneous nature of the way this album was created is perhaps one of the reasons behind the broad spectrum of the pieces which it comprises, and it’s worth noting that Miles Davis and Talk Talk are cited as central influences, in that they become more apparent once you’re aware of this fact, which roots what is, on first hearing, a nebulous, meandering work. Not that it isn’t nebulous or meandering, or that these are bad things, but there is a solid contextual framework in which these pieces sit.

The title of ‘A Sense of Parrot’ is laced with absurdity, but the sonic actuality is a composition which drifts serenely, underpinned by a strolling bass and some nicely loose-wristed percussion, while ‘Wood Dalling’ (named after the Norfolk village in which it was

composed) has something of a post-rock feel, a sepia-tinted nostalgia augmented with gentle woodwind. The percussion-led ‘Djembe’ is fundamentally self-explanatory, and one of the album’s most explicitly jazz pieces.

‘How old are you?’ is a phrase I’ve often used to disparage people – usually in the workplace – over petty or otherwise juvenile or irritating behaviour. Christelis’ piece by the same title doesn’t convey anywhere near the same sense of frustration at human behaviour, but with bowed low notes scraping beneath ambient undulations, while chirps and chatters of wildlife are just audible in the background behind ringing guitar notes and vast reverberations.

The compositions on Preserving Fictions are sedate, and take their time in unfurling, and it’s a welcome alternative to much of the wilder, more frenetic jazz-leaning releases which have come my way of late. It’s not that I dislike them – far from it – but in stressful times, something gentler and somewhat transportive is most welcome. Preserving Fictions fits the bill nicely.

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PLQ MRX – UPSIDEYERHEAD

Posted: 5 February 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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16th February 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Holy fuck. Sometimes, you want a racket, because it blows away all the shit, the, the anxiety, the bewilderment, all the other messy crap that is life right now. And I do mean right now: not ‘the twenty-first century’, not the 2020s – although the last five years has been a relentless pummelling of awful, awful stuff – but this is the immediate present we’re looking at here. ‘Unprecedented’ is a word we hear a lot. But we really do live in times which are unprecedented. Waking up every morning wondering what fresh new hell has happened in the hours since you went to bed, wondering if the world still exists and if you have really woken up or if this is all a hellish nightmare is gruelling.

With UPSIDEYERHEAD, PLQ MRX deliver that racket. Their bio tells it that ‘From the depths of North Philadelphia’s underground comes PLQ MRX, a project operating at the intersection of abrasive noise rock, acid-soaked psychedelia, and warped funk’. Say what? We go on to learn that ‘Beyond the music itself, PLQ MRX cultivate an aesthetic steeped in excess, altered states, and grotesque carnival imagery. Their world is populated by surreal characters and exaggerated rituals, exploring pleasure, debauchery, and sensory overload. The band leans into both the highs and the ugly turns of the trip, embracing chaos as a core element of its identity’.

When we discover that PLQ MRX have emerged from ‘the remnants of the Philadelphia collective Plaque Marks, who first surfaced in 2017 with the EP Anxiety Driven Nervous Worship’ and that the current lineup features current and former members of Author & Punisher, UNSANE and SWANS (having been joined by Vinnie Signorelli for this release), it all makes sense.

And yes, it’s every bit as wild as the amalgamation of ‘abrasive noise rock, acid-soaked psychedelia, and warped funk’ would have you expect.

‘Us V. Them’ crashes in with some wild, frenetic jazz action before a thunderous riff crashes in, drums and bass to the fore, guitar a wah-wah laden blitzkrieg that calls to mind The Stooges. The vocals – half-spoken, half-spat, thick with distortion and swamped in reverb, sit almost on another plane, growling and snarling away amidst the maelstrom. Making out the lyrics isn’t easy, but feeling the vibe zaps straight to the very core instantaneously.

There’s a dirty, low-slung swaggering groove to ‘Gansta White Walls’, which locks into a heavy bass-led workout and grinds away, building layers of depth a couple of minutes or so in before hitting the ‘frenzied, motorik’ pedal, while the eight-and-a-half minute ‘Gentrify My Skull’ is a brawling, squalling sludgy stoner doom monster, littered with scrappy samples and as ugly as hell, with mangled-to-fuck vocals and a relentlessly gut-churning bass, and bursting into a full-throttle blast of black metal at the end.

The final track, ‘Hundred Dollar Hot Dog’ is the album’s shortest, but packs the most into a mere three and a half minutes. It really does seem to be a song about an expensive hot dog, and brings the rage in spades, with a lengthy refrain of ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you’ amidst a squall of guitar and an all-pervading dense murk.

It’s rare to hear a release that doesn’t sound like anything else, but with UPSIDEYERHEAD, PLQ MRX have done it. It’s crazed, outside the box racketmongering of the highest order. It might be genius, it might be madness, but it’s absolutely head-spinningly awesome.

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BirdLands / Cowgirl / Still/Moving – The Fulford Arms, York, 8th January 2026

Posted: 9 January 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

This is the first time I’ve felt so conspicuously old that I’ve felt the compulsion to lurk in the shadows and hope I’m invisible. The sensation is compounded by the fact I’ve done something to my back and it’s agony to transition between sitting and standing, and to pick up my pint from near my feet. It would have been so easy to declare turning out too much effort, but beer and live music usually proves to be the best medicine, and so it is once again tonight.

Still/Moving probably count as a rock band by contemporary standards, but they’re a blend of indie and emo and are, essentially, a pop band. They’re also very much a typical university band, finding their feet and padding out a limited number of original compositions with covers. They cover a song by 21 Pilots. They cover ‘Alley Rose’ by Conan Gray. The singer hasn’t quite figured out her moves or what to do when she’s not singing, but they sound solid, with some nice fluid, rolling drumming. Whether this is their limit and they’ll peter out by the time of their finals, or they’ll evolve , only time will tell.

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Still/Moving

Every time I see Cowgirl I hear something different, even with the same or similar setlists. There are some new songs making their debut here, and the US alt-rock of Pavement with a light dash of country and some West Coast breeziness which define their sound are all present as ever, but now I’m hearing a bit of Dinosaur Jr, too. Tonight is their first time out in a while, but if they’re remotely rusty, it’s not evident out front. And just as was the case when I caught them back in September, they crank it up and rock out, the twin guitars and dual vocals of Danny Barton and San Coates switching back and forth. The contrasting styles work so well. Sam’s breaks, like his stage presence, is contained, displaying a certain precision and constraint, whereas Danny is far more flamboyant, at times going full Neil Young in his feedback-laden fretwork, fully wigging out. Again, the set concludes with an immense, climactic finale with a devastating wall of sound. This is how to warm things up on a cold January night.

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Cowgirl

BirdLands (not to be confused with late 80s / early 90s indie act Birdland – the additional ‘s’ in conjunction with the mid-name capitalisation suggesting perhaps the enactment of a verb rather than some geographical location) have been going a few years now, performing their first gig in 2022, and released their debut album in 2024. And yet somehow, they’ve bypassed me – perhaps on account of their live outings being comparatively rare, with their last performance being in July last year. Small wonder this hometown crowd is pleased to see them.

From the moment they take the stage, it’s clear that this is a band with both confidence and ability, and confidence in their ability, too. With two guitars, keyboard, sax, and trumpet, there’s considerable scope for arrangements, and for a band who describe themselves as ‘Post-Punk-Art-Rock’ a significant amount of jazz and funk happens, quite often simultaneously. The bassist is tight and versatile, nailing down some solid grooves and occasionally slipping in some slap action, and in conjunction with the drummer, they make for one strong rhythm section. There’s a lot going on here, with Arctic Monkeys being one of the more obvious touchstones, and not just on account of the wordplay and the unabashed northernness they exude. The lead singer certainly channels Alex Turner in his inflection at times, but then there are dashes of Brett Anderson here and there, and with the incorporation of yelps and whoops, Mark E. Smith as interpreted via James Smith (of Post war Glamour Girls / Yard Act).

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BirdLands

And while most of the stylings are nineties / noughties, some of the interplay between the sax and buoyant bass action is straight out of the Eighties. It’s not just that there’s a lot going on: it’s a lot to process. But there is absolutely no denying their quality. The songs are masterfully composed and arranged, they’re tight, they’re together, they perform rather than simply play. Now they need to expand their horizons beyond York.

Zu – Ferrum Sidereum

Posted: 23 December 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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House Of Mythology – 9th January 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Zu just keep on defying genre and creating music that lands from a different angle every time, even after the best part of thirty years. While postmodernism – which emerged in the 1950s and became the defining mode of art and culture from the 1980s – fundamentally revelled in endless recycling, embracing the notion that anything original has already been done, and that the future of creativity lies in how creatively one may appropriate and hybridize the past, Zu have spent their career bucking that trend with relentless creative innovation.

After a six-year lull, Ferrum Sidereum is their second release of 2025, following the wildly eclectic Jazzisdead under the moniker of RuinsZu in April, a live document of a collaboration between Zu bassist Massimo Pupillo and saxophonist Luca T. Mai, with drummer Yoshida Tatsuya, founder of the Japanese band Ruins.

Ferrum Sidereum – Latin for ‘cosmic iron’ finds the core trio back in the studio, and drawing inspiration ‘from the mythological significance of meteoritic iron, found in artefacts like ancient Egyptian ritual objects, Tibenta ‘Phurpa’ blades, and the celestial sword of Archangel St Michael. This elemental force,’ they write, ‘imbues every moment of the album’s apocalyptic sound.’ On a purely personal level, I’m drawn immediately by the idea of an ‘apocalyptic sound’. We live in what feels like apocalyptic times, after all. I am surely not alone in feeling that since the arrival of the pandemic, we’re racing towards the end of days, and if anything, the exponential rise of AI only seems to be accelerating that race.

Zu are staunchly anti-AI when it comes to their own approach to art – a topic they touch on with single cut ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ – and explain, “We are very spiritually-oriented people,” says Massimo. “Machines and AI do not have spirituality. So they can mimic and they can assemble existing things, but they cannot create. That spirit is probably the most important thing that our music carries.”

Recent AI releases by the howlingly abysmal artificially-generated retro-rock act The Velvet Sundown and even more cringe-inducingly gash country wank of Breaking Rust may show how far the technology has come, but simultaneously reveals just how it’s absolutely no substitute for real, human-made art. This derivative, soulless wank is beyond derivative: that is to say, it’s precisely what you’d expect from melting down the entirety of a genre and regurgitating the lowest common denominator output. It also demonstrates precisely why Zu could never be recreated by any kind of digital modelling. They are completely off the wall in every direction all at once, and on Ferrum Sidereum, ‘The music combines the complexity of progressive rock, the grit of industrial music, the precision of metal, the spirit and energy of punk, and the freedom of jazz. The result is a sonic journey that is as cerebral as it is visceral, defying easy categorisation while remaining unmistakably Zu.’

‘Charagma’ makes for a forceful opener. It’s a full-on sonic blast, at first harsh noise, then pounding industrial riffery, which lunges into sprawling jazz-infused metal, then lurches back to the riffery but with an expansive, proggy twist. It’s a big seven minutes – which is different from a long seven minutes. It doesn’t drag, but what it does do it leave you with whiplash. ‘Golgotha’ whips out all the brass and woodwind at once, and this provides the backdrop to some highly-detailed math-rock which goes all-out crazed around the three-minute mark. And it turns out they’re just warming up.

There’s some hefty chug and churn going on here. There’s also a whole load of manic horns blasting away. Recent single ‘Kether’ is representative, but at the same time not, in that it’s a seven-and-a-half-minute beast of a piece that lurches and lumbers all over, but there’s no way anything can be truly representative of an album that covers so much ground, and is so wildly unpredictable. ‘Kether’ reflects the heavier end of the album… and also the more twisty, melodic side, too – which essentially makes my point. Any thirty second snippet of the album would present a different story. The aforementioned ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ is spasmodic, jazzy, mathy, frenetic, intense, six songs in one.

‘La Donna Vestita De Sole’, the first of the album’s megalithic cornerstones cocking in at nearly ten minutes stands, towering, in the centre. Initially it’s soothing, smoothing, restful, ambient, but of course built to tumultuous towers of monumentally powerful prog, and they lay down some seriously solid grooves. ‘Hymn of the Pearl’ – clocking in at just over nine and half minutes again starts out easy in a haze of slow-building bass and electronic, a bass groove building until it eventually erupts – and when it does, it does, massively.

Arriving at the title track and finale, amidst a whirlwind of noise and all kinds of otherness, there’s something of a post-punk vibe in the build-up… not to mention bass to make you shit your pants. But then it’s got desert rock vibes and elements of Krautrock as it pushes forward, and they still find time for an explosive post-rock crescendo around a third of the way in. The finale is devastating. It’s too much to keep up with – and at the same time, it’s perfection. Zu do zu, as they say. Alright, not, but close enough. The bottom line is that this is a uniquely crafted work, to which AI could never get close. Not remotely.

Ferrum Sidereum is simply huge in every respect: scope, scale, ambition, sound, production. It’s heavy, it’s inspired, and it’s an album to lose yourself in.

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Listen: ‘The Call’ by Bellbird

Posted: 30 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Constellation welcomes Montréal-based jazz ensemble Bellbird to the label.

Meanwhile Bellbird celebrates with new track ‘The Call’ and will kick off 2026 playing a half-dozen shows on a winter tour of Western Canada in January.

Bellbird features tenor saxophonist Claire Devlin, alto saxophonist and bass clarinetist Allison Burik, bassist Eli Davidovici, and drummer Mili Hong. The players hail from various countries and backgrounds: rooted in modern jazz, Bellbird’s music also channels influences from the players’ wide range of influences steeped in Montréal’s genre-mashing experimental undergrounds, including punk/rock, drone/minimalism, electroacoustics and more. (Constellation has previously worked with Hong via her terrific drumming on The Obsession With Her Voice by Erika Angell and for Angell’s smouldering live shows).

Bellbird’s first album Root In Tandem was self-released in 2023, garnering some well-deserved critical accolades, and acclaimed live appearances on the Avant/Jazz circuits in Canada ever since.

Hear ‘The Call’ here:

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BELLBIRD LIVE

January 2026 • Canada

January 15 – The Esplanade (Medicine Hat)
January 16 – Yardbird Suite (Edmonton)
January 17 – Buckingjam Palace (Calgary)
January 18 – ArtsPlace (Canmore)
January 23 – Alliances Français (Vancouver)
January 24 – The Bassment (Saskatoon)

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Bellbird

Bellbird photo by Marc Etienne Mongrain

The Azimuth Tilt – Alignment

Posted: 21 November 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Sinners Music – 1st October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Sinners Music – the label established by electronic music maestro and one-time music shop owner, Ian J Cole, continues to offer up new music that’s interesting and unusual. There are some context where ‘interesting’ is somewhat dismissive, diminishing, and people of a certain age will remember snooker legend Steve Davis being given the nickname of Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis ironically… although the double irony emerged that he was genuinely interesting, as his work with The Utopia Strong abundantly attests. Here, my use of ‘interesting’ is neither ironic nor dismissive: it’s meant sincerely, as there is no specific ‘house’ style or overt genre specificity evident. This is one of the reasons why boutique microlabels can be worth following – you never know quite what you’re going to get from them, but you can guarantee if won’t be ordinary. And this release by no means ordinary.

As for The Azimuth Tilt, their bio informs us that this is the work of ‘a solo ambient electronic project exploring the liminal spaces between sound, memory, and landscape. With a name drawn from the alignment of a real to reel tape head, the project orients itself toward the unseen—subtle shifts in perception, emotional resonance, and the hidden geometries of the natural world… Blending atmospheric textures, glacial rhythms, and immersive sound design.’ There are no clues as to who this is the project of, but it matters not, and in fact, the less we know, the better. This is the joy of abstract ambient works: all you need is the sound, and all you need from the sound is to let it drift, to carry you away. And this is what Alignment does.

On a certain level, it does very little. On another, it is a quintessential deep ambient album. Alignment features just six compositions, but has a running time of some fifty-seven minutes. The soundscapes which define it are sonically rich, with soft, drifting, cloudlike contrails merging with lower drones and contrails. In combination, filling the entire sonic spectrum, Alignment does a lot.

From nowhere, halfway through ‘An Unqualified Person’, a raucous sax breaks out.

And the layers build. Against scrawling spacious drift, it’s quite a contrast. And then there’s some subtle piano intervention, and from hereon in, the piano and sax alternate in leading. It’s nice… and not in a turtle-neck top kind of way. It’s nice but… a little strange. But ‘The Exquisite Space’ crackles and swirls abstractedly, with some supple motifs rippling and intertwining with a mellow mood exploration which arrives at more sax. Always more sax.

This seems to be a dictum The Azimuth Tilt are happy to follow, although it’s melted into the echo-soaked atmospherics of the final track, ‘And the Band Played On’. Alignment is not a dark album, but it’s one which feels unsettled, uncomfortable, unsure of its destination – and whatever it may be, the journey is worth the exploration.

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Watch: ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ by Zu

Posted: 19 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Legendary Italian experimental trio Zu recently announced their return with Ferrum Sidereum (produced by Marc Urselli), a big and bold double album arriving on House of Mythology on the 9th January.

The music combines the complexity of progressive rock, the grit of industrial music, the precision of metal, the spirit and energy of punk, and the freedom of jazz. The result is a sonic journey that is as cerebral as it is visceral, defying easy categorisation while remaining unmistakably Zu.

Today they share the new single and video for ‘A.I. Hive Mind’ – about which the band comments, “Smart cities, brain computer interfaces, internet of things, singularity. This particular track addresses all of these things as well as questioning the loss of self, the idea of single consciousness and collective predictable behaviour. Perhaps the most burning question for us is: What does it mean to be human in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, simulated realities, and technological control?”

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Zu have also shared live dates in support of the new album – dates and details below.

2026 LIVE DATES

10/01/26 – Bologna, TPO – Italy
21/01/26 – Caserta, Lizard Club – Italy
23/01/26 – Palermo, Candelai – Italy
24/01/26 – Catania, Zo Culture Contemporanee – Italy
28/01/26 – Milano, Santeria – Italy
29/01/26 – Verona, Colorificio Kroen – Italy
30/01/26 – Zagreb, Mocvara – Croatia
31/01/26 – Nova Gorica, Mostovna – Slovenia
01/02/26 – Bratislava, Žalár – Slovakia
02/02/26 – Prague, Palac Akropolis – Czech Republic
05/02/26 – Berlin, Neue Zukunft – Germany
06/02/26 – Copenhagen, ALICE – Denmark
07/02/26 – Malmo, Inkonst – Sweden
09/02/26 – Bruxelles, Magasin 4 – Belgium
10/02/26 – Eeklo, N9 – Belgium
11/02/26 – Amsterdam, OCCII – Netherlands
12/02/26 – Paris, Le Chinois – France
13/02/26 – Bulle, Ebullition – Switzerland
14/02/26 – Torino, Magazzino sul Po´ – Italy

Ferrum Sidereum – Latin for ‘cosmic iron’ – draws inspiration from the mythological significance of meteoritic iron, found in artefacts like ancient Egyptian ritual objects, Tibenta ‘Phurpa’ blades, and the celestial sword of Archangel St Michael. This elemental force imbues every moment of the album’s apocalyptic sound. Whilst heavy in tone and subject matter, bassist Massimo Pupillo comments that their music also aims to "raise good energy… people would come up to us after the show and tell us that they felt alive."

The trio – Paolo Mongardi (drums, percussion), Luca T Mai (baritone saxophone, synth, keyboards) and Massimo Pupillo (electric bass, 12-string acoustic guitar) – spent a year refining this sprawling 80-minute epic through relentless rehearsals and live studio recordings in Bologna. Produced and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Marc Urselli, known for his work with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, and Mike Patton, the album balances raw intensity with refined production tweaks and textures.

“We are very spiritually-oriented people,” says Massimo. “Machines and AI do not have spirituality. So they can mimic and they can assemble existing things, but they cannot create. That spirit is probably the most important thing that our music carries.”

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Photo credit: Marco Franzoni

Watch: ‘Stars In Heaven’ by Gong

Posted: 5 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Legendary psych outfit Gong are back today with their new single ‘Stars In Heaven’ alongside a brand new music video created by Drain Hope. The band have also teased the release of their new album which fans will see in 2026 and shared the album’s name – Bright Spirit.

“It’s such an eclectic record,” says singer and guitarist Kavus Torabi. “This is the most colourful and kaleidoscopic album so far from this incarnation of the band. There are Eastern-infused epics, long instrumental jazz-inspired sections, meditative and cosmic detours and blistering, incendiary psychedelic rock. When picking the first song to be released, it has felt as if there’s an extra weight on the choice, as if the song somehow has to represent the whole album.”

Lyrically it expands on the idea that the world is as you are. “If you are a cynical, defensive or suspicious person, then that’s the world you’ll inhabit,” continues Kavus. “You’ll see mean-spirited behaviour and selfishness all around you but it’s always a choice. I think perhaps some people forget that. That’s not the world I live in, nor would I want to. It’s a sad old world for sure but it’s also a beautiful one bursting with hope, possibility, wonder and magic in every single moment.”

‘Stars In Heaven’ is the first single to be released from the new album Bright Spirit which will be released in 2026 on Kscope. Bright Spirit continues the legendary Gong catalogue – an extensive and acclaimed collection of releases that has seen Gong produce over 30 studio albums during a career spanning more than 50 years, since the band was founded in 1970 by the late Daevid Allen.

Gong continue to carry the torch ignited by Daevid Allen with their UK tour alongside fellow psych legends HENGE currently underway -  

UK TOUR DATES 2025/26

GONG – UK

Nov 08 – Bedford Esquires, Bedford

Nov 14 – Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis

Nov 15 – The Boileroom, Guildford

Nov 16 – The Piper, St Leonards

Nov 25 – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich

Nov 29 – Club 85, Hitchin

GONG & HENGE – UK

Nov 05 – The 1865, Southampton

Nov 06 – Trinity Centre, Bristol

Nov 07 – Dreamland, Margate

Nov 09 – Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester

Nov 11 – The Globe, Cardiff

Nov 12 – Exeter Phoenix, Exeter

Nov 13 – Princess Pavilion, Falmouth

Nov 19 – Crookes Social Club, Sheffield

Nov 20 – The Leeds Irish Centre Leeds

Nov 21 – Northumbria Students’ Union, Newcastle

Nov 22 – Kanteena, Lancaster

Nov 23 – St Luke’s Glasgow, Glasgow

Nov 26 – Cambridge Junction, Cambridge

Nov 27 – The Robin, Bilston

Nov 28 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Nov 30 – Earth Hall, London

Mar 19 – Chalk, Brighton

Mar 20 – Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury

Mar 21 – Hangar 18, Swansea

Mar 26 – The Drill, Lincoln

Mar 27 – New Century Hall, Manchester

Mar 28 – Hangar 34, Liverpool

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Watch: ‘Fish-Like Things’ by Suspicious Liquid

Posted: 30 October 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Relative newcomers Suspicious Liquid have crashed the York scene in a big way with some powerful live shows, and now, with an album in the offing, they’ve gifted us with a video for ‘Fish-Like Things’.

It’s the perfect introduction to the band – melding elements of stoner / doom, prog, psychedelia and even a hint of jazz, and driving them home with some big riffage, ‘Fish-Like Things’ encapsulates the weird and wonderful sound of Suspicious Liquid. The accompanying video is suitably dark and twisted, and locals have the added bonus of being able to play ‘identify the location’.

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