Articles by Jake Murray

It’s clear from the very brief amount of time this 4-track EP covers that 1) this band must be truly awesome live, and 2) if they make a full-length album it’ll be made up of about a hundred songs. – By Jake Murray

In Rolling Waves is a truly excellent record and an impressive step up from the band’s debut. It’s also so vast that, to cover everything, this review would have to be twice as long… at least. – By Jake Murray

The band immediately asserts, once again, the difference between Grails and every other instrumental big-boy: it’s that jammy groove that just doesn’t exist with the same sincerity anymore. – By Jake Murray

So there we have it: a group that disappeared as quickly as they emerged, only to come back from secret cocoon better than before, bigger, brighter, bolder and with a lot more balls. – By Jake Murray

For those who attend a recital in person, they can look forward to a guaranteed one-off unique experience but for those who don’t: you have here a documented, beautifully recorded, excellently performed imprint of a piece of music that will never be performed again in the same way… and that’s pretty neat. BY Jake Murray

There’s literally something for everyone: you can sing along at the front as your body crushed into the barrier, get lost in a mosh-pit in the middle, or just sit in the stalls and have a great time enjoying the whole experience. By Jake Murray

in violet create both soft haunting and boisterously noisy music. The album is engaging and complex, it requires extended exposure to be properly digested. An impressive debut that illustrates the cleaver and creative musical mind of Jake Murray. By Dave Guzda

Experiencing Far West is a little like visiting an ancient shrine, or standing atop a mountain at sunrise; wonderful, inspirational and totally emotionally gratifying. – By Jake Murray

All in all, ‘Weapon’ is a welcome return with some powerful and gripping moments. Not always as tense and direct on the mark of the subject matter, but never dull and always engaging. By Jake Murray

Date Palms revolves around the core duo of Gregg Kowalsky (keyboards, electronics) and Marielle Jakobsons (violin, flute, electronics). They employ traditional rock instrumentation to create music informed by Indian classical music, country, minimalism, and spiritual jazz, arriving at a style that is wholly their own. They have just released their third album, The Dusted Sessions, so we sent Jake Murray to find out more.

A Quiet Darkness is a truly pleasant listen for those who enjoy the likes of Efterklang or Múm; soft, thoughtful, deep music carrying an underlying message that you do or do not have to tune in to. By Jake Murray

The hypnotic waves of sound flow into every crack and crevice, into the pores of the listener’s skin and vibrate the walls with resonance. Date Palms are not the only group in the world to have taken the stamp of the desert and put it into their music; Grails and Six Organs of Admittance have also done it (and done it well) but never quite to this extent. By Jake Murray

Having caught our attention a couple of years ago with their first two EPs, in violet have returned with an incredible new album in the pipeline. Ahead of the release of the first single from the record tomorrow (10th May) we talked to main man Jake Murray. By Dan Salter

The Wristbreaker e.p. is really a case of 2 out of 3 are very, very good and the third ain’t (particularly) bad, just not as good. By Geoff Topley

Kranky have long ruled as the primary designators of space in sound. For what seems like a millennia the label has delivered some of the finest performers of the long and weird from Stars of The Lid, to Lichens, Windy & Carl, Atlas Sound and many many more. To continue the list would be like writing the lineup for arguably the greatest night on valium the world has ever known. Today, Kranky continue their mission at the helm of their misty ship to bring the world the greatest in fuzz and fog – which brings us nicely to Implodes’s second album, Recurring Dream. By Jake Murray

New Heavy Sounds has done it once again by doing what a good label should: they’ve found an emerging talent and used themselves and their already fine roster as a platform for showcasing the world another rabble of riffmonsters with a huge amount of potential. – By Jake Murray.

This collaboration between two dance music legends, Andrew Weatherall & Timothy Fairplay, delivers on it’s potential in spades.
Industrial music has always been, and probably always will be a loose term often misused by people who hear something dissonant and clangy. Equally, it tends to be an umbrella keeping all the gothy electronic kids dry from the rain they love so much (b …