Exposé Online » Reviews of releases for 2018

Aria Primitiva - Work in Progress

Since leaving Art Zoyd at the end of the 90s, bassist and cellist Thierry Zaboitzeff as been busy with his own solo work, as well as writing scores for theater and dance, many of which have been...

Danny Fox Trio - The Great Nostalgist

In listening to pianist Danny Fox’s album, it occurs to me that while “nostalgia” indicates a fondness or longing for the past, built within the concept is the realization that...

Hillmen - The Whiskey Mountain Sessions Vol. II

It’s been about seven years since the first Hillmen release, which was The Whiskey Mountain Sessions, Vol.I. I guess one might suspect that the musicians involved just treat this as...

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin - Ninety-Nine Years

By now, if you have kept up with our reviews of Ms.Fujii’s recent output, you will know that she turns sixty years old this year, and for the occasion she’s going all out, releasing a...

Colin Edwin / Robert Jürjendal - Another World

Ex-Porcupine Tree bassist extraordinaire Colin Edwin has been involved in a wide variety of musical ventures. His latest is a collaboration with Estonian guitarist Robert Jürjendal,...

Jamie Saft - Solo a Genova

One thing you can count on from Jamie Saft is that each new recording has a good chance of sounding unlike what you’ve heard him do before. I’ve heard him in a variety of settings, from...

Dominique Vantomme - Vegir

Dominique Vantomme is a new name to me — he has done some work with European pop singers, and has a band called Root that I’ve never heard. But here he is on a session recorded with...

Howlin' Sun - Howlin' Sun

For anyone who’s grown up on rock music, no matter how sophisticated taste may grow, it’s likely there’s a fondness that survives for a heavy guitar riff based on the blues. The...

Kristoffer Bolander - What Never Was Will Always Be

German label Tapete Records / Bureau B releases a variety of music, but mostly electronic, so I did not know what to expect from this new release by Swedish singer-songwriter Kristoffer Bolander....

Dobbeltgjenger - Limbohead

There are definitely multiple ways to approach Limbohead. If you’re coming at it from an indie-rock perspective, it’s a super-tight example of clever melodic rock akin to...

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - I Left My Heart in Uncanny Valley

The Soft Bodies Bleed Out compilation was my first encounter with the enigmatic and intriguingly named Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin. Just the artist’s name is more than enough to...

Sonar with David Torn - Vortex

A musical world filled with complex mathematical rhythms, odd angles and planes, sharp corners and geometric surfaces, these Swiss practitioners have created their own place in multi-dimensional...

Traffic - Where the Poppies Grow - Historic Radio Sessions 1967

For those of you who do not know Traffic's history, the band was formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood after leaving the Spencer Davis Group, along with Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood, and Dave Mason. The...

Mildlife - Phase

Mildlife, for all intents and purposes, is a dance club band. Their new album Phase is a set of seven mostly instrumental dance groove tunes. They made a judgement error in sending this...

Beautify Junkyards - The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards

For their third album, Lisbon’s Beautify Junyards takes you into their secret garden of delicate acid folk songs, The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards. Led by João Branco...

Green Seagull - Scarlet Fever

Do you know how sometimes you hear a song lyric and because of the way it is sung your mind makes strange connections to other words that sort of make sense? Consider this lyric from the fourth...

The Dead Centuries - Race against Time

The Dead Centuries is an instrumental prog metal band from Ottawa. Canada consisting of Adam Tremblett (guitars, bass, and programming) and Bryant McNamara (drums) and when they play live, Jacob...

Dustin Behm - The Beyond

Metal guitar shredder Dustin Behm has been honing his skills since the age of 13 as lead guitarist for Portland’s instrumental progressive metal band Increate. When Portland was snowed in a...

Mist of Flying Elbow - Substitute Songs of Heights, Vol. II

There is nothing wrong with your CD player. I hadn't heard of this band in a long while, it seems that on Substitute Songs of Heights, Vol. II they are as over-the-top eclectic as the...

Mist of Flying Elbow - Substitute Songs of Heights, Vol. II

This has got to be one of the saddest and most outré releases since cavemen made music by banging two rocks together. How many of you enjoy listening to the Singing Dogs’...

Mist of Flying Elbow - Substitute Songs of Heights, Vol. II

This is one that arrived out of the blue. I’d never heard of Mist of Flying Elbow before this CD came in the mail, and even after listening a dozen times or so to these eight tracks,...

The Monochrome Set - Maisieworld

As a companion to their recent boxed set of early material, Tapete has just released a brand new Monochrome Set album, Maisieworld. Over three decades later The Monochrome Set continues to...

The Monochrome Set - 1979-1985 - Complete Recordings

The Monochrome Set is a band that I had heard the name of but never encountered their music. I believe that I first read about them through Archie Patterson’s early efforts with Paradox Music...

Gong Expresso - Decadence

Expectations can be dangerous things. When I first heard Gazeuse!, it was instantly one of my favorite albums. Sure I knew it wasn’t really Gong, since that name first...

Kaze - Atody Man

This is disc #2 in Satoko Fujii’s CD-of-the-month releases commemorating the year of her 60th birthday, so this one is to be released on February 23rd, which is a couple weeks from the date...

Peter Garland - Moon Viewing Music (Inscrutable Stillness Studies #1)

We reviewed Garland’s Cold Blue release String Quartets (2009) and his contribution...

John Luther Adams - Everything That Rises

Adams is an American classical composer, born in Mississippi, who studied music at Cal Arts in the 70s, and who spent over 35 years of his adult life living in Alaska, during which time he...

Dušan Jevtović - Live at Home

Dušan Jevtović is a masterful guitarist, and this live set was recorded in December 2016 in Jevtović’s home town of Kragujevac in Serbia, at the Dečije Pojorište with the...

Martin Gordon - Thanks for All the Fish

Martin Gordon has had a long musical career dating back to Sparks and Radio Stars in the 70s and starting his solo career in 2003. Now 15 years later he has developed into what sounds like a bitter...

Slivovitz - Liver

If you thought that Slivovitz’ two previous albums Bani Ahead (2011) and All You Can Eat (2016) couldn’t be topped, well, think again. LiveR showcases this...

Forrest Fang - Scenes from a Ghost Train

The thing I notice most about Forrest Fang’s music is that his sounds create a world of their own, seemingly existing within an infinite space of possible sounds, all of which are distinctly...

Forrest Fang - Scenes from a Ghost Train

From the blackboard jungle to the waning crescent and beyond, visionary composer Forrest Fang has been honing and perfecting his craft since the early 80s, and if I’m not mistaken Scenes...

Satoko Fujii - Solo

So 2018 is the year that Satoko Fujii turns 60 years old (although not until October 9th) and to celebrate, she will be releasing one album every month of the year, which will include releases by...

Kevin Kastning & Sándor Szabó - Ethereal I

With their arsenal of exotic guitars, Kastning and Szabó masterfully create a mysterious world of sweeping textures, emotional shadows, colorful points of light and shimmering angular...

The Pretty Things - The Same Sun

Fruits de Mer continues to release The Pretty Things on vinyl — label owner Keith Jones is a big fan of the band. For this first 7-inch of the new year we have four songs, two from The Pretty...

Sendelica - Cromlech Chronicles II

If you have been following our coverage of Sendelica over the years, you will no doubt be familiar with their space rock / krautrock / psychedelic output. Their latest release on Fruits de Mer is a...

Jaguwar - Ringthing

Jaguwar is the Berlin trio of Lemmy Fischer, Oyèmi Noize, and Chris Krenkel, who play energetic shimmering shoe-gazer updated New Wave. So far they’ve released two EPs and played live...