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Fusion music is a style that’s often fraught with risk. The blending of two or more musical styles can either produce something quite extraordinary or crash and burn spectacularly. When one of the base genres is itself a fusion derivative of other genres, then it is clear that a masterful hand is required to make the resulting music a success. One band who has managed to achieve this and carve out for themselves a somewhat unique sound are the instrumental project, Collapse Under The Empire. Their folding of electronica into post-rock is subtle and delicate, intelligent and skilful,…

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Those who know me know that I’m not a great fan of the majority of music produced by my fellow Kiwis — call it my guilty displeasure. So it was with some reservations that I started to listen to a debut album by Birds of Passage, whom I’d not heard of before, but had come personally recommended to me by Sophie from the UK’s Her Name Is Calla. To my surprise, Without The World was a New Zealand album that provided a chillingly beautiful listening experience, and broke the mould of beige local music for me.

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Traffic flowing through busy city intersections, the light of day’s end diffusing through the haze of smog… these are some of the images created in the mind when listening to the new album from Austrian rockers, Our Ceasing Voice. Blending post-rock music with ambient, When The Headline Hit Home creates a listening experience that is more than an aural soundscape; it is the soundtrack of a city and the fragility of its people.

Click through to the full review on Guerrilla Geek.

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When a band has been going successfully for over fifteen years, it is easy to see why they would want to shake it up a bit. Not that Mogwai could ever be classed as boring or formulaic, but they have developed a certain air of dependability about them over the years. For their seventh studio album released this week, the Glaswegian rockers have stepped beyond their usual boundaries and produced a daring work that will surely reinvigorate their fans.

Click through to the full review on Guerrilla Geek.

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It has become somewhat of a cliché in music reviews to refer to an album as defying categorisation – I’ve even been guilty of it myself. Listening to The Quiet Lamb, I realise how quick I’ve been to use this convention in the past; the new album from Her Name Is Calla does not fit into any clear genre pigeonhole and may even be an early entry from a new generation of music. An album of contrasts, its closest relation would likely be post-rock, yet it refuses to be bound by the musical structure of that genre. Coming…

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When I first heard last year that Glaswegian band Mogwai were going to release a live album, I could barely contain my excitement. For one, they are a dominating force in the world of post-rock (or however you like to classify their music). They are also reputed for putting on a fantastic live show and this would be the first live album in their 15-year career, so that only added to the anticipation for this release. During shows of their 2008/2009 American tour, Mogwai recorded a number of tracks over three performances at The Music Hall of Williamsburg in…

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There’s something delightfully zen about listening to a minimalist album. The reduction of a musical form down to its bare basics provides a sound that entertains yet relaxes the listener. Recording under the name Careful, Eric Lindley is a proponent of such a musical approach, and one of the new breed of “bedroom” indie recording artists. Lindley’s sophomore full-length album Oh, Light was recorded and mixed over the course of a month in a New York closet, and is a enjoyable album to chill out to.

Click through to the full review on Guerrilla Geek.

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Every now and then, a listener just wants to plug into some music that’s unashamed fun, and American space-rock band Elsinore may just be an ideal band to help the listener achieve that. With the upcoming release of their second studio album, Yes Yes Yes, Elsinore present the results of two years and over a thousand studio hours; a textured and dynamic album of vivacious yet personal songs that joyfully soundtrack the simplistic bliss of life in the Midwest.

Click through to the full review on Battlemouth.

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Son of the Sun was formed in early 2007 from opposite sides of the United States. At the time, Joseph Stocker lived in New York and Zak Ward lived in California, and the two friends and former band-mates experimented with their reflective, lush musical tastes over the internet, swapping files which eventually brought about their first EP in 2008. After Ward moved back to New York, the duo went on to add Jeremy Franklin, Steve Matthews, and Brandon Delmont, and the band were soon tagged as a band to watch in the upstate New York music scene. Son of…

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Elk City is a small Oklahoma city with a heritage in oil, agriculture, and transport, as well as being part of the history of Route 66. It is somewhat of a mystery then as to why a band from New York would name themselves after this small city, especially when the band’s music itself is full of the urban sophistication of their home city. Whatever the case may be, the band Elk City have been making a name for themselves with their foray into 1970s radio pop-style music, and have recently released their sophomore album, House of Tongues.…