Danimal Cannon – ‘Lunaria’ [Review]

And now for something completely different.

Completely different.

Danimal Cannon’s Lunaria is a mostly instrumental industrial-prog album, composed on a 1989 Nintendo Game Boy and loosely based around a conceptual story inspired by the Giant Impact Hypothesis.

Whether you’re new to the chiptune world or a die-hard veteran, you’re unlikely to have heard something this relentlessly left of centre before.

Acclimatising to Lunaria’s claustrophobic, digitised-to-the-nth-degree universe is challenging, to say the least. But once you get past the initial sense of sonic culture shock, its true nature as Read more…

Posted on 16 February 2016

Toska – ‘Ode To The Author’ [Review]

Progressive metal is often dismissed for being too something. Self-indulgent. Flat. Soulless. Etc.

Sometimes, the criticism is justified; at other times, it isn’t.

In Toska’s case, none of the above apply. This is progressive metal with heart, soul, and spirit – not to mention the kind of forward-thinking intelligence that defines the best the genre has to Read more…

Posted on 11 February 2016

Sithu Aye – ‘Senpai EP’ [Review]

Since I travelled to Paris to see THE END, an opera starring Japanese virtual pop idol Hatsune Miku, Japanese-culture-related music has been thin on the ground here at TMMP. Enter Sithu Aye and an EP that began as a joke, but wound up becoming seriously awesome.

Senpai (in English, someone who will never notice you) is one of the Read more…

Posted on 18 January 2016

Dan Sugarman – ‘Centersun’ [Review]

2016 seems set to be an eventful year for lovers of instrumental guitarists. Dan Sugarman (six-string slinger for uncompromising metal band As Blood Runs Black) is the latest to step up and speak his mind without words – and on Centersun, he has a lot to say.

The story behind Centersun is best told in Dan’s own words:

“This album is a bit of a departure from my typical writing process, in the sense that all 6 songs were improvised on the fly in a 7 day period. The reason? I had just come home from a 1.5 month long headlining tour with As Blood Runs Black with the plan of coming home to start writing and recording my album, when I received the news the day I got home that my mother’s brain tumor had returned. I was absolutely devastated…so I took a day to myself to kind of figure out my next move, and then I locked myself in the studio for a week straight. Read more…

Posted on 14 January 2016

Pomegranate Tiger – ‘Boundless’ [Review]

Listening to Boundless, you’d never guess that Pomegranate Tiger is a one-man band. The fact that it is is fucking mind-blowing; Pomegranate Tiger head honcho Martin Andres not only wrote all the music you can hear via Bandcamp below, but also laid down all the drums, guitars, and piano you’ll hear down there as well. Respect is definitely due.

Above all else, Boundless is brutal. Technically, it’s bang on the money; Andres’s playing is super clean, super tight, and relentlessly intense. Album centrepiece Paper Hammers showcases Andres’s softer side, as Read more…

Posted on 05 January 2016

Sean Ashe – ‘Flux’ [Review]

If you love getting lost in oceans of warm, seductive notes, Flux should be top of your 2016 wish list. Sean Ashe is a sublime guitarist, and with this collection of gorgeous instrumental tunes, he hits the sweetest of sweet spots.

A sense of pure, unadulterated joy permeates opener Imagine (deep-pocketed grooves, sensual tones, a graceful piano solo) and Memory Lane, the latter of which skips playfully from slinky licks to what sounds like Read more…

Posted on 03 January 2016

Steven Wilson – ‘4 1/2’ [Review]

Hand. Cannot. Erase. – Steven Wilson’s fourth solo album – was deservingly listed as one of TMMP’s Top Albums Of 2015. 4 1/2, intended as an interim release pending the unveiling of Wilson’s fifth proper studio album, is already a shoe-in for next year’s list, despite the fact that 2016 hasn’t even started yet.

4 1/2 comprises four tracks cut during the sessions for Hand. Cannot. Erase.; one from the sessions for Wilson’s third album The Raven That Refused To Sing; and one overdubbed live version of Read more…

Posted on 13 December 2015