More albums, a little more of that catching up with things things, more catching up with things, more staying ahead of things, more cherry picking through the mountain of albums before the year end, more picking of the cherries, picking off the cherries, the never ending pile of demanding cherries that find their way here on a daily basis (or sometimes don’t). You surely know the policy by now? We do, on the whole, only feature the albums and things we feel positive about. We really don’t have time to clutter up these already overloaded pages with negative coverage of things that do nothing for us, there isn’t the time or space, there isn’t any need, although some times there probably is. Here’s another five or so and we clear the decks at the end of the year and get ready for the next onslaught and Organ’s 40th year of whatever this is now….

Swans – Birthing – (Young God) – The ritual that is (or should that be the rituals that are) Swans and a seventeenth studio album. Birthing, a brooding album that came out back at the end of May this year. Another album from 2025 that we previewed and featured tracks from during the year, another album we really have to properly acknowledge before 2025 finally does end.

Even by Swans standards Birthing sounds and feels big (and we’re not talking about the format; Birthing was released on triple vinyl in a brown chipboard sleeve, double CD (in a brown chipboard digipack), and digitally. Initial pressings of the 3LP and 2CD editions did also come with a bonus DVD featuring Swans Live 2024 (Rope) The Beggar, a live concert film directed by Marco Porsia from the last Swans US tour, plus Christopher Nicholson’s documentary from Michael Gira’s solo tour in 2022 entitled I Wonder If I’m Singing What You’re Thinking Me To Sing. No, this feels massive in terms of the actual music – 

“The material contained in this album was largely developed over the course a yearlong Swans tour, during 2023 – 2024 (The Healers, I Am a Tower, Birthing, Guardian Spirit, Rope and Away), then recorded and further orchestrated and rearranged in the studio. Two pieces were created and performed in the studio (Red Yellow, The Merge). In all cases the material began with Michael Gira sitting in my office with an acoustic guitar, singing and dreaming about what would become of these skeletal songs. “I’m blessed to have such a stellar group of musicians to work with live, and through improvisation, endless revisions and an intensity of focus in performance (not to mention endurance), over the course of time the music morphed into what you generally hear on this collection. This album, coupled with the recent live release, Live Rope, constitutes my final foray (as producer / impresario) into the all-consuming sound worlds that have been my obsession for years. We’ll do a final tour in this mode towards the end of 2025, then that’s it. After that, Swans will continue, so long as I’m able, but in a significantly pared down form. Hints of that direction can be found in a few moments on the current album. In the meantime, my hope is that the music provides a positive and fertile atmosphere in which to dream.” – Michael Gira / Swans

Birthing is a brooding album, as dark as you’d expect, but then again, maybe not quite as dark as you might expect? There’s slightly different colours under the surface, under those layers you need to peel back to find the essence of it all, to find the soul, the depth that awaits. To some extent we know what to expect, that big sound, those committed drones, and those almost preacher-like vocals that are at times, heading towards Jim Morrison territory (and yes, that isn’t said lightly). It is far more than another set of drones, more than just a serge, and yes, some of it is about endurance, almost Intimidating, a challenge, almost daring you to go all the way with them, defying you, is it intentional? it is a Gira-like thing to do, deliberate. The sombre ambience, the depth. Birthing isn’t an album you’re going to want to be with every single time you turn to it, but on the days it does catch you and pull you in then…  Bandcamp

Univers Zero – Live at the Triton 2009 (Sub Rosa) – In 2009, Univers Zero celebrated their 35th anniversary with two sold-out Summer shows at the Triton club, Paris and back in late October of 2025 they released a live album from the recordings made at those shows.  The two sold out shows were a celebration of one of the leading bands of the Rock In Opposition movement, two full-bodied concerts that, to quote the band’s own website; “highlighted a radical and unique style of music, at the crossroads of new music and chamber rock, skilfully blending acoustic and electric instruments…” – There is no one else like this long-standing band from Belgium, actually are they even a band? Or are they a chamber orchestra? Where does one thing end and the other start? 

For this live album the line up was the core three of Daniel Denis (drums), Michel Berckmans (oboe, English Horn, bassoon) and Andy Kirk (Guitar, Percussion, Keyboards, Saxophone), the core was joined by four more players; Dimitri Evers on Bass, Pierre Chevalier on Keyboards, Martin Lauwers on Violin and Kurt Budé on Bass Clarinet, Clarinet and Tenor Saxophone – the seven together offered, on the evidence of this live album, an intense energetic live performance although, even though these recordings are full of electricity, alive with energy, even though they are a testament to the moment, just how much a Univers Zero live album is needed is kind of up for question?

Their studio recordings are vital things, brilliantly intense (maximalist) adventures and that feeling that (always) comes with Univers Zero of drama being just around the corner, that something bad is just about to happen thing, that perpetual on the edge feeling that’s always there in the darkness of their compositions. Too real to just be film music but they do paint pictures, too big to just be chamber music and certainly something beyond a rock band, no doubt it was brilliant to be there, to be in the room and there in the moment, to be part of it, but they surely are really about those epic studio projects, the art of the composition, the sheer audacity of it all and this live album is probably just for the already committed?  If anything then Univers Zero make full-bodied full-blooded orchestral classical music, great big instrumental pieces that come with rock undertones, they really should be part of the Proms (and not one of the dumb it down gimmicky nights), they should be there sharing a proper Prom bill alongside a performance of a Stravinsky piece and maybe a short experimental piece from someone like Errollyn Wallen. Actually yes, we do need these live versions, we do need the immediacy of it all, the boldness of it all, yes, we do need these live recordings from the always rewarding excess of Univers Zero, this is an excellent live album…              Bandcamp

There was also re-issue of the 1984 Univers Zero classic (all their albums are classics!) Uzed this year, both this album and the live album open with the massive thing that is Présage, the two versions are an interesting comparison. Find the re-issued album and more details on the Sub Rosa Bandcamp page..

Gloyw – My Father was a Tree (Dark Companion Records) – Gloyw are a new band featuring French guitarist and composer Olivier Mellano alongside drummer Régïs Boulard, the two have already been performing as a duo under the name of No&Rd and this is the duo teamed with the great welsh (but long time now Parisian) bass player and composer John Greaves, best known as an original member of Henry Cow as well as National Health of course. What we have here is an album that came out back in February as once again we are playing catch up before the end of the year; an album of music half composed and half improvised and that is an unpredictable and rather excellent version of Lennon’s Working Class Hero. There’s all kinds of flavours, there’s a lot of Beefheart here, that’s nothing to complain about when things are done this well and really the three of them are sounding like no one else. Lot of spoken word, some of it French, some of it English, some of it not suitable for work, well the bits I can understand anyway     

As innovative as you’d expect, an original sound, something to hold, to catch, something that exists only for you, these are words to explore, everything here is to explore, they might only be words and notes and sequences, they might be only for you and yes, of course Kew Rhone is Real and can heel like a dog at your feet? More of those surreal lyrics that you eat, more of that complex jazz/rock fusion, more of that intricate wordplay kidnapped, (anagrams, palindromes), like a spider’s web, broken, unspoken, like a Peter Blegvad painting? Like mating calls? Heaven? Sin? And well, worth the price of admission for Kew Rhone alone and look the sky is blue like… This is an album rooted in some kind of real world reality, but it’s a tangible so we’re told, another piece of experimental celebration and I see him but he didn’t see me, it was only when we were checking what we might have missed. There’s some beautiful interaction here, in the playing, in the flow, in the wordplay, there really do sound like a trio that needed to make an album together. Just drums, bass and guitar: “as simple as that one may think”. Take heed, pay close attention, what is he on about? lawsuits? The three of them making sounds and words really work…. Don’t miss it now, and that is one hell of a version of Working Class Hero, worth it for that alone, worth it for Kew Rhone is Real alone, you need the whole thing though this is a proper album, a proper body of work…        Bandcamp

Actually Dark Companion Records looks like it needs lots of exploring, the Italian label is new to us, rather like this Alireza Mortazavi album La Fille du Soleil that came out back in August 2025, but we’re running out of time here…

“The aim of Dark Companion is to gather together musical excellences from the most various fields, from all the countries and release artifacts both records and cds, entirely handmade and individually numbered. From Songwriting to folk, from contemporary classics to real jazz, from experimental to classical music from both western and eastern cultures”.  

Meanwhile, somewhere in England an album that probably should have been covered sometime back in March ahead of that April Fool’s Day release date but then again, things can only be reviewed in time for a release date when the label or band feel like sending it in, no one is obliged to but it does sometimes feel like an excerise in shooting yourself in your own foot on their part…

Lost Crowns – The Heart Is In The Body (Believer’s Roast) – Says here that Lost Crowns are “a supergroup loosely affiliated with the Cardiacs family”. The band features Richard Larcombe (lead vocal, guitar, harmonium, harp, tin whistle, violin, cello, concertina, English border bagpipe, dulcimer) alongside Nicola Baigent (clarinet), Charlie Cawood (bass), Josh Perl (keys), Rhodri Marsden (keys), Sharron Fortnam (vocals) and Keepsie (drums). The album, their second, also features vocals from Mark Cawthra, Susannah Henry and Sarah Nash as well as James Larcombe hurdy gurdy.  The whole thing is written and arranged by Richard Larcombe and produced and recorded by Richard Larcombe and Rhodri Marsden. 

Lost Crowns are at times very very (very) English, sometimes a touch annoying, mostly they are delightful, sometimes rather powerful. In terms of the music, in terms of the constant changing of key and time, it is all very maximalist, you night even say super maximalist, it sound easy though, I mean this is seriously hard-boiled difficult composition, a lot of plain song, church song influences, banners flying, carefully balanced and oh what are we to do? O Alexander but the do give the impression it all comes so easily to them. It has a feel of Mr and Mrs Smith and especially Mr Drake, it doesn’t quite have the warmth of the Larcombe brothers previous band Stars in Battledress.

There goes a touch of Gentle Giant, a bit of Hatfield and his cow called Henry, they are kind of different though, you can’t really say Lost Crowns sound like anyone. Space maybe a tiny bit of a problem after a while, the fact that the instruments don’t very often give each other any space, that maybe just now and again less might just be a little bit more. It is rather dense, very dense, a very dense rich fruit cake that you really have to chew on, nothing wrong with a dense fruit cake, nothing wrong with going back for another lump, this is maybe like eating the whole cake at once, you might be happy in the eating of it all but you might not feel the need to return for a while and then at some point you will go back to those ten thousands bits of light and worth and eat it all at once again…  (sw)   Bandcamp

There was also a new North Sea Radio Orchestra album on the same label as the Lost Crowns, a release that happened back in the middle of the warmth of Summer but as it says up there….

North Sea Radio Orchestra – Special Powers (Believer’s Roast) – Another rather delightful blend of the almost quirky and the almost classical, once again all very English, timelessly so, or maybe they are of a very specific time and place; Vaughn Williams, John Betjeman, green fields, Strawberry Jam (and all the different varieties), of closing your eyes and falling asleep for a week and everything seeming okay and it isn’t for us to speculate… Bandcamp

Revolutionary Snake Ensemble – Serpentine (Cuneiform) – “Poised to gracefully undulate into their fifth decade, the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble’s fifth album, Serpentine, is a joyously uproarious live session recorded in 2024 at the Regattabar as part of the group’s 35th anniversary run” so it says here. it is a stomping jazz album, not sure why the Welsh national anthem is in the middle of it all? I like it, not sure what esle we need to say? Great cover, love the artwork.

“Decked out in feathered and metallic finery that evokes Sun Ra’s Arkestra as much as the Mardi Gras Indians, the RSE has always honoured the essential role of New Orleans brass bands in providing succor and uplift to mourners accompanying loved ones for burial (while also fulfilling the celebratory imperative for the promenade back from the cemetery)”.  Bandcamp