More albums, there are always more albums, such a mountain, cut one’s head off and another five mountains of albums grow and put on boots all made for walking all over the time needed to deal with it all. This really is a rich time for music, so many good albums, music, more more, more and over there we’re trying to take in as much of Frieze week and who are all the what? Hungry? horse jumpers of what…

Horse Jumper of Love – Disaster Trick (Run For Cover Records) – There’s a beautifully heartfelt looseness to the way Horse Jumper Of Love play, it isn’t a slacker thing, it really is just an easy thing, an all the time in the world thing. Positively languid, lines of lyrics you want to listen to, exquisite guitar sound that kind of hints at a Neil Young/Pavement kind of thing without ever needing to get that aggressive or to hit the strings too hard. They kind of sound like a three piece band from Boston, Massachusetts should, I have no idea why I say that but they do. They’re sanguine, almost melancholic and this is a very likeable very comfortable very warm album, there’s something just right about the way it all flows. There are edgy moments, there are times when that guitar take your ears on a little more, most of the time it is very much a less is more thing (a good thing), they do feel patiently uncompromising. Dimitri Giannopoulos’ almost but not quite spoken lyrical story telling, his scenario painting, their scenario painting along with those arrangements and yes they do sound like a throwback, they sound like one of those great bands from back there in the best days of US indie-almost-grunge 90s, this new album is a lot more than that though, there’s something more about Horse Jumper of Love, something worth taking a moment or two more over, you might find it rewarding…   Bandcamp

All India Radio – The Unified Field – from Hobart, Australia with some kind of dreamy coming together of a floaty Flaming Lips, an easier rather less challenging Mogwai, maybe a fluffier cotton wool wrapped Pink Floyd that takes the easy route, the scenic route when all is beautifully easy and nothing is ever done in a rush. Are they a little too ‘nice’, a touch too ‘polite’? They don’t really sound like they need to go anywhere, they don’t sound like they don’t have too many worries, which, with all that’s going on all over the globe. They kind of make Boards of Canada sound like Slayer in a food blender by comparison, it is ultimately all a little too nice and polite, a little too floaty fluffy post-rock instrumental nicey nice for these ears but hey, it might work for you…  Bandcamp

Cougars – Cougs (Expert Works Records) – The return of Chicago’s Cougars, and yes, you are right, we wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the return of Drill For Absentee taking us to look at what else the label releasing their new album might have to offer. What Chicago’s Expert Works Records has to offer is a rather interesting catalogue of American alt.noise including this recently released third album from Cougars. Now a five piece band (no more keyboards or horn section). Cougs, is more of what the label say is “that raw and energetic rock music with that unmistakable Chicago sound”. Was there a Chicago sound? Is there? A lot of this sounds like Red Eye Express or Scissormen or Anorak Lovechild or Homage Freaks down the Bull and Gate or over at the Camden Falcon in the early 90s. I guess wherever it come from it is a damn fine sound and yes, there might have been a million bands doing it both back then and right now but right here on this new album re-reased a couple of months ago Cougars, without really adding too much of their own, are doing it as well as anyone. “For fans of The Jesus Lizard, Big’n, Rocket From The Crypt, etc.” say the label. Cougars are a Chicago-based rock band previously signed to the New York-based label Go-Kart Records. In 2023 they signed to Expert Work Records. This is their first new record since 2006.  Bandcamp

Psychonaut – World Maker (Pelagic Records) – When they’re not using a sledgehammer to bludgeon a walnut Belgium’s Psychonaut are rather wonderful in several of those epic post rock meets prog metal kinds of ways. When they really take it out there and touch the sky like they’re doing now at the end of a rather beautiful …Everything Else is Just the Weather and indeed as they gently ease the next piece of music in, a rather beautifully hopeful piece of music called And You Came with Searing Light but then. There are moments when they go for the throat ripping growling option, it isn’t quite cookie monster territory, it doesn’t impose on the powerful dynamic too much, it doesn’t have me reaching for the off ramp this time and yes, to quote (steal from) the press release as we try to catch up with everything here, they are indeed “operating at the forefront of forward-thinking, contemporary heavy music”. Psychonaut certainly don’t sound like a three piece, they sound like there’s probably six or seven of them and yes they are colourfully good enough to allow a KayoDot mention (yes that good! Take the name drop as high praise from us). 

Yes, this is full of beauty, at times World Maker is a joyous affair, uplifting, alive, deliciously so, and that rather experimentally deliciously ambitious remix or Orgins at the end, a track that also appears in the middle of the album, is a perfect way to close the whole thing – “A record born of insurmountable joy and simultaneous profound loss; World Maker marks a time of great change for Psychonaut, both personally and musically, as the band burn away the philosophical narrative complexities of previous offerings with a searing, panoramic clarity that implores us to savour the beauty of the now as a means of leaving a legacy for the future” – if they’re talking about personal legacy as artists, as a band, as three people, then yes, if they’re talking about our collective human legacy then yes as well. This is gloriously uplifting album, a powerful album, at times a deliciously original piece of work (and yes World Maker is demanding the use of the word delicious rather too much), it is at times soaring highs and now and again, lows that almost touch on desolate. it is ultimately hopeful, it does glow, it is a deliciously beautiful album, a rather recommended thing… (sw)

The band have lots of European dates happening right now, only one UK date though, 8th November, here in London, at the Lexington     

Bandcamp / Other links / Facebook  

Chimehours – Underneath the Earth (Cold Spring) – And I did annoyingly manage to delete the first review I wrote of this album, left it out in the rain or something like that (and no, I’ll never have that recipe again). What did I say? We shall never know, it was a good review, annoying to lose it and this is such a delightful album (as well). “Exploring hauntological soundscapes, the UK-based duo of Beck Goldsmith and Jon Dix are happy to present their debut work getting the listeners back to the inner-connection with the natural world”

It is an almost impossible task to keep up with all the running up the hill in terms of the good music that is coming our way right now, we can’t see the wood for the trees as we run through the branches trying to keep our eyes shut. it is witchy, otherly, earth-real, ethereal, spiritual, delicately strong, very strong, Underneath the Earth is full of earthly treasure, it glows, it is a walk in the woods, calming, captivating, gloriously alive. a lazy list? Well think Kate Bush, think Cocteau Twins, think Oroonies, think deep ecology Webcore and that Captain’s Table, with that feeling, that spirit, that deep in the woods thing. Think leaves in trees, falling from trees, things glimpsed through them, yes thing folk music, pagan wealth and the woods alive with the smell of her coming. Think Dark folk, think dream-pop, think experimental slow-moving warmth, think look for her over there, deep in the forest or the undergrowth, look for her, look for her, look for her…  This is yet another beautifully album, there are almost too many, this is delicious, this is tantalising, those signs to find to guide you, an elegance, beautiful, they could like their name… 

Bandcamp / Cold Spring

Previously –

ORGAN THING: Without Wind/Without Air, Roger Eno’s third release for the rather prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label is a beautifully quiet crafted album that…

ORGAN: A Cardiacs piece in three parts. Part Two, exploring the album…

ORGAN: A Cardiacs piece in three parts. Part One, exploring the album…

ORGAN THING: U.S Post Hardcore Math Rock legends Drill For Absentee are back with a challenging new album, hear the whole thing exclusively here ahead of release…

ORGAN: Albums, albums, albums – Japanese headpecking duo Moja, Ger Eaton’s Season Changes. Meanwhile, from Ukraine we have Vøvk, from Norway we have Sturle Dagsland and from Stourbridge, new Pop Will Eat Itself…

And seeing as we referenced them in that Chimehours piece, here’s Webcore’s classic tape album that helped fuel the early days of Organ…

And more of that early Organ fuel….