Monolith Cocktail Blog

A world of sonic/musical discoveries reviewed by Dominic Valvona. All entries in alphabetical order.

Le Grand Couturier ‘S-T’
(Un Je-ne-sais-quoi) 7^th November 2025

The hula limbo swinging hoop of French-Polynesia is both languidly and more wildly reimagined, transported and pulled in various directions by the Le Grand Couturier trio of Rachel Langlais (keyboards and vocals), Jean-François Riffaud (composition, steel guitar and sharing vocals) and Clément Vercelletto (drums, synths).

Newly formed for the explorative Un Je-ne-sais-quoi label, with two of that group already familiar names to Monolith Cocktail readers – I reviewed Rachel’s solo avant-garde, textural and tactile prepared piano suites album Dothe for the same label back in 2021, and Clément’s nightjar imbued experimental L’ engoulevant album for the label at the start of this year -, this ensemble of widely diverse experiences draws upon a rich soundscape of tradition and the psychedelic to weave a sort of part-beckoning and part-chaotic Hawaiian homage. Cross-referencing a multitude of sources, some form their own projects, the trio’s debut album is an altogether more mirage and hallucinatory vision of Island life, drawn into a modern world of electrical-charged, felt-like rippled interreferences and coarser transmissions. Whilst sauntering and swaying to a familiar Hawaiian rhythm and melody and the sound of the steel guitar, there’s a constant funnelling and layering of what sounds at times like scraps from CAN’s ‘Unfinished’ and ‘E.F.S.’ series, The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour funfair organ and psych trippy reversals, and musique concrete.

If you loved Pete Fowler’s Monsterism Island curated compilations then you will easily pick out traces of Les Baxter, White Noise, The United States of America (especially Rachels’s ether emergent distant voice on ‘Maneki Neko’, a reference to the lucky “beckoning cat” figurine), The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and Martin Denny. But maybe surprised to hear the delightful South Seas motions and lilt of Makoto Kubota & The Sunset Gang and the wavey bendy sounds of bluegrass and country: reimagined by Moebius & Plank, Charlie Megira and Bailey’s Nervous Kats. But what’s this approaching from the sea, paddling through the waves on an outrigger canoe of old, but Dick Dale and The Bel-Airs thumbing a lift in the company of Sonido Galle Negro.

A sanctuary come portal to other worlds, this tropical magical hideaway proves fertile ground for musical and sonic manipulation, repurpose. Hawaiian phrases – ‘I Ku’u Wa Li’i Li’i’ or “my childhood days” for example – and typography, the vibe of the place, its blues and more fragrant wilts, marooned lethargy is not so much guarded or restored as woven into something beguiling, strange, serenading, sometimes distorted and often swimmingly lunar. There’s undoubtedly some layer of post-colonial revisionism, of ownership and the anthesis of European lens ethnography, but the trio’s debut album is just a very lovely, magical thing of Polynesia fantasy. It will be interesting to hear more.

Imperial Motors ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’
Released 21^st October 2025

States/countries that claim to have adopted the Marxist doctrine have, historically, usually enforced it with a totalitarian fist, forcing its artists to propagate the authoritarian propaganda of its own choosing. We can forgive the exuberance and contemporary rage of the young, possibly knowing that they will have less, pay more, and lose many of their freedoms in the process: making them a doomed generation depending on your pessimism scale. Marxism has its utopian promises: a fairness of distribution, power to the proletarian and all that – and I’m sure Marx, to paraphrase, said that the worker can never be happy working for someone else: though self-employment is no picnic. But like every idea, in reality fails to grasp our innate individualism, our differences. But as I already opened with, artists in such climates have usually been just as threatened, locked up and sent to Siberia for daring to stray from the one-party line.

Anyway, I’m only banging on about this because the latest agit-post-punk-disco-indie band to emerge from the Brooklyn scene, Imperial Motors, have mentioned it in their email to me. Or at least, as an influence (and damn fine one to have) they cite the Gang Of Four’s version of sonic Marxist rhetoric and fire. Whilst also, it must be stated, they use the term satirical, they wish to employ their political polemics and protestations via music, rather than throw real Molotov’s from the barricades. And yet, despite the rightful outrage, disillusion and riled injustices of our present times the quartet’s debut EP is actually very melodic, tuneful, disarming in parts and full of DFA Records and post-punk disco synth lines and beats: think early LCD Sound System and the anarchic energy and maximalist approach of such contemporary groups as Crack Cloud and Squid matched by Martin Dupont, the Pop Group and Boots For Dancing. And that’s only half the story.

But let’s introduce the band first. We have Liam O’Toole on vocals and guitar, Josh Cukier on drums and also vocals, Ben Biber on synth/keys, and again, sharing vocals, and Andrew Graces on guitar. This core has expanded for the proposes of the EP’s second half pairing of tracks, ‘Sonya’ and ‘Infinite Money Glitch’, bringing in the climatic ariel bending intensity of violists Ryan Anderson and Jarrod Ajhar and violinist Lila Lifton on the latter, and the accompanying vocals of Hely Morales on the former.

Referencing, so it says in the email, a level from Call of Duty but obviously a cultural throwback to Sandinista era The Clash via its original immortal line in Apocalypse Now – spoken by Robert Duvall’s character, Lieutenant Colonel William “Bill” Kilgore -, Charlie Can’t Surf is twisted by the toxins in the waters. Each track is a battle between holding it together and falling apart in a world torn asunder, starting with the brilliant opener ‘Bartender’, which pits our protagonist bar fly spiralling into a pit of doubt and reactionary disillusion by the transactional culture that leave us all numbed, isolated and without any sincerity. Lurching like a derailed David Byrne or even Scary Monsters period Bowie, and even an Eno, between eyeing up the unrequited bartender and spinning into bar stool bursts of preachy frustration; a statement on the poisoned waters and our inability to fish without contamination and erosion of our closeness to nature. It sounds like a slice of Scottish 80s post-punk via XTC and has a great chorus that stays with you.

‘Freeloader’ sees a slight change in direction; still riled-up, and almost unhinged in places, but now evoking signs of ‘Helicopter’ era Bloc Party and The Futureheads. The band attempt to find the tangible, connective in a world of synthetic vacuous exchanges; turning on neighbours like a passionately agitated Talking Heads in suburbia. The EP’s most surprising turn is ‘Sonya’, a damaged love song, about to be squashed by the collapse of the Artic shelf. Their most synth-pop-orientated track is disarming with its subject: climate change apocalypse. The lovelorn glaciologists at the centre of this sorry doomed love explosion of euphoric crescendo art-pop contemplate a sort of Romeo & Juliet suicide in the shadow of ecological destruction.

No one could put it better in trying to explain the finale, ‘Infinite Money Glitch’ than the band themselves: I would have missed most of this contextualised layering.  The “uncanny valley is inverted: it’s not machines imitating humans, but humans running on cold, mechanical instinct. Screeching guitar, off-kilter drums, and an asymmetrical bass groove lay the black midi-like foundation as various speakers retell colonial anecdotes through glib, filtered vocals as if automated by their own apathy. “Mortgage rates [are] saved on the mass graves,” sings a real estate agent. “Seafront plots if you can spot some, never mind the bones, the flotsam.” The various narrators then become united by the refrain “help us make a difference / help us make them different, combining into one single voice, one single organism — the US colonial project of subjugation, domination, and profit. In the name of corporate growth, annihilation is just collateral.” You all got that? Good. It’s a very nice closer actually, heavenly gilded with drama and showing signs of all the influences I’ve already mentioned plus Faith No More, PONS and Black Medi. Capitalism is a bitch. Apathy the curse. And yet there is a certain fantastical element, and the sense of something rising up out of the gloom.

An impressive EP that offers much hope and anticipation for the album; a burgeoning band with much potential, caught between dancing and riling at the system.

Shoko Nagai ‘Forbidden Flowers’
(Infrequent Seams) 14^th November 2025

Revealing a both playful and more stirring emotional tumult of memories, chapters from the multi-instrumentalist and experimental musician Shoko Nagai’s life encapsulate a musical conjuncture of the wild, the avant-garde and more plaintively classical on a most extraordinary album.

At the head of a new quartet, and in a “semi-autobiographical” mode, Nagai draws upon a lifetime it seems of eclectic influences and experiences; at any one time, and often in the same composition, combining Japanese salon music, free form jazz, klezmer and Eastern European classical tragedy with spine-tingling and haunted tension soundtracks and the manic.

But before we go any further, a little information is needed: some background if you like. For those unaware of Nagai’s reputation and prowess, the keys specialist – I say keys, as on this record, she plays an assortment of such instruments, from the piano to the Farfisa and Fender Rhodes, but is credited for electronics and the most unusual of sound devices, the Nintendo DS – made her way from Japan to the USA, where she studied at the prestigious hot house of Berklee. Career wise, Nagai has rightfully received a number of nominations and awards, and worked with such luminaries as Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Satoshi Takeishi, and Yiddish singers. Joining her on this latest album under the newly assembled quartet are the Brooklyn-based drummer and percussionist Kate Gentile, active on the NYC jazz scene since 2011; the Grammy Award-winning recording artist and composer, and on this album violinist, Pauline Kim Harris; and trumpet/flugelhorn player and composer Pamela Fleming. All three have extensive, admirable CVS, and plenty of experience in their chosen fields. And bring an almost infinite scope of musical and sonic possibilities to the album.

If led is the right word, this ensemble matches and stretches the ideas, sentimental prompts and both bluesy and more poetic fluid language of Nagai’s playing and compositional set-ups. I haven’t any info on how this record was made, so no idea how planned or improvised it is, but it sounds like the perfect balance of both; there’s room for exploration, room for passages and break outs of energy, tension and release, and yet there is something always tangible, a melody, a direction and compositional device to make a return. For every more instantaneous Art Ensemble of Chicago burst or more manic, quick-stepped Bad Plus moment there’s a moment of reflective musical haiku. And for every leap into the jazz-fusion of the Weather Report, or the more fluid quickened piano works of Ryo Fukui and Cecil Taylor, there’s echoes of Cosmic Coltrane, Annie Gosfield and Alex Roth’s Cut the Sky project.

The action is constantly on the move between splashing waves and near cartoon retro gaming music, between deep classical poignancy and the more sinister and troubling. For example, ‘Whispering to the Bubbling Wall’ could be Phillip Glass in troubling, near haunted and ghoulish circumstances, whilst ‘Hello Universe’ sounds like a burbled synth and twinkled keyed and cartoon skidding and skirting of Ethio-jazz and Shigeo Sekito. But then you get pieces that are more like the music of Toru Takemitu, the Jewish diaspora in Eastern Europe, the Don Cherry Quintet and La Monte Young.

Every instrument is put through its paces, stretched but also played with near grace at times, or melodically holding an emotion and reference to a particular piece of Nagai’s story and expressions. And whilst a switchboard of calculations, quirky effects and near shrills and heralded trumpets blast or staccato across kooky flighty spells of quickness, the electrifyingly hectic and whistled, there’s a real weight to each poetically entitled episode in this story. Forbidden Flowers is simultaneously a whirlwind, contemplation, observation and incredible creative outpour of musicianship; the sources and influences proving surprising and dynamically playful in equal measures.

Silver Nun ‘Tabula Rasa’
(The Crystal Cabinet) Release 31^st October 2025

Driven up into a ringing and resonating performance of the mystically ritualistic and expressively rallying, the international Silver Nun duo of Lucy Valentine and Simo Laihonen proves that both distance and time are no barriers to a congruous union of creative disciplines. Demarcated to a point, though running near seamlessly into each other, Tabula Rasa is one long complete work set in motion by Valentine and recorded during the Pandemic: born into a very different world to now. On that day, in the venerable, or not, setting of a “deconsecrated” church – shorn of its original afflatus purpose for secular inclusion or as an idiosyncratic venue -, the County Durham silversmith, film maker, label founder (this album is being released through Valentine’s own The Crystal Cabinet imprint, an electroacoustic label that focuses, I believe, on cassettes) and multi-instrumentalist strummed, blazed and whipped up a resounding invocation and rallying concentration on the guitar. This was in 2021. At a later date in 2023, drumming and percussionist foil, Laihonen added his own rhythms, cymbal splashes and crashes and hoof-like gallops. It sounds however like the collaborative partners were both in the same space together, not two years apart, with one in the North of England the other in Finland.

Going much deeper, this nebulous offering and invocation evokes the melodic circled spins and dervish religious music of Iran, of atavistic Persia, the Levant and amorphous echoes of various Gothic folk styles, of doom music and the Biblical. It’s akin at times to dropping Death In June or Ash Ra Tempel in the Middle East of the Sufi. And then again, the stamps and danced steps in places reminded me of Islamic Spain. But then the temenos set ‘Underneath the Hypaethral Sky’ segment sent me into an incense smoked trance-like recall of the Hellenistic. And the guitar at times reminded me of Steve Gunn, and at others, like the music of Wovenhand, the mood describing a more esoteric vision of the old American West.

There’s a lot going on reference wise to be sure: even the title of the album is borrowed from the Latin, “the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences”: or to put it simply, “a clean slate”. And yet “rasa” is also used in Indian culture and religion, describing the aesthetic flavour of any literary, visual or musical work that evokes an indescribable feeling in the reader or listener. Channelled into one reverberating and beating, fluctuating momentum of rattled rhythmic strings, metallic and burnished elements, the spun and more elan, and frame drummed and more kit rolling bounds, both the daemonic and the spiritual collide to create an atmosphere that’s simultaneously refined yet strong. In years to come, generations will study this period of creativity very closely; the most bleak, restrictive and frightening period in most people’s living memory was a catalyst for a pouring of anxieties, stresses but deliverance too. The Silver Nun vehicle, its title reflecting Valentine’s silversmith craftsmanship and how it applies to and informs her musical processes, is ritualistic, a purging almost or letting go; the changes ringing out, sounding out into a suitably atmospheric environment. And yet travelling far, reaching across time and geography to take in near Byzantine and atavistic old evocations. A sound collaboration that proves distance is no barrier to a unifying experience like no other.

SML ‘How You Been’
(International Anthem) 7^th November 2025

The inter-connections and overlaps are strong on this one, with the enviable might and scope of influences stretching across a multitude of scenes, styles, decades and geography.

Based in L.A. but from a multi-national and even international cast, the often abbreviated Small Medium Large includes the Aussie-born artist, bassist and composer Anne Butterss (last year’s solo headed, but featuring many SML band mates, Mighty Vertebrate album was included in our choice list of 2024), “synthesist” Jeremiah Chiu (another favourite from 2024, Chiu’s team up with the violist Marta Sofia Horner and luminary of new age trance Ariel Kalma, The Closest Thing To Silence, another highlight of 2024), saxophonist Josh Johnson (back in March Johnson collaborated with fellow SML member Gregory Uhlmann and Sam Wilkes for the Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes triumvirate), drummer Booker Stardrum (this is the first time that the all-round percussionist and drummer, educator and composer, who’s worked with Weyes Blood and Lee Ranaldo, has appeared on this site I believe) and the guitarist Uhlmann. In some ways this combo could be called the International Anthem house band, or the label’s super group of a sort, as near enough each member has released of featured on an album or two on that Chicago institution – celebrating a modest birthday anniversary recently, the label has managed in a quick time to establish itself as one of the most critically favoured experimental imprints; a hub for all things jazz and beyond, and just the other month, the chosen platform for Tortoise’s first album in years – a group who’s imprint can be heard and felt on this SML album.

For the ensemble’s second album together, and following a similar process, methodology to their debut, the rhetorical How You Been features an “extensive post-production of recordings from a handful of shows” pulled together to make a whole – you can hear the audience’s appreciation at one point. Flexing and honing their improvisations and more locked-in work outs, they’ve managed to surprise and take a few quirky, kooky and often funky turns to create a kinetic fusion of post-rock, post-jazz, no wave, agit-dance music body movements, fourth world musics, environmental ambience and vague ethnographic percussion. On one hand its Ariel Kalma and Tortoise meet with Jan Jelinek and Kirk Barley, and on the other, like Kraftwerk deciding to move to downtown NYC in the early 80s. But then again, I’m hearing Eno & Byrne, Golden Teacher, Heroes Side Two Bowie, Kriedler and Carl Stone too. For between the longer future-post-punk-funk and jazz-fusion (if rewired by the Chicago hothouse of stars) numbers there’s shorter passages of the tubular, fluttered, new age and liquid: a lot of water passing through, from deep dives to the ocean bed to water side tranquillity gazing.

Titles merely set out amorphous prompts, steps and references, as a “Moving Walkway” is musically represented more by a Greg Foat-esque walking milky way traverse. And “Blood Board SHROOM” shapes up to be an atmospheric passage of crystallised light forming. But generally, you never know exactly where the SML group are going to take you. Essentially though, this is an outfit with groove and rhythm and confidence in extending an already loose jazz core into new fields and orbits. If no one has put this proposal forward already, they’d be great touring partners with Tortoise.

Snorkel ‘Past Still Present Tense’
(Slowfoot & Archaeon) 14^th November 2025

Tortoise with a groove and rhythm as manipulated and effected by Lee Scratch Perry. The Mosquitos meets Populäre Mechanik at the workshop of Walter Smetak. Just as couple of reference point combinations I’m throwing out there to describe this evolving and revolving South London based ensemble’s sound and scope of influences. And yet, it barely scratches the surface, as the fixed – at that moment of time when recording this loose collection come both retrospective and future teasing survey – lineup modulate, discombobulate, stutter, flex, warp, transform, oscillate and reverberate ideas as eclectic as gamelan, industrial funk, krautrock/kosmische, post-rock, jazz, d ‘n’ b, no wave, post-punk, cult library music, the fourth world “musics” of Hassell, Byrne and Eno, and of course dub.

But let’s pull back a moment before ploughing into this generous double-album spread – the group’s third studio album proper I believe, following on from 2007’s Glass Darkly and 2012’s Stop Machine -, and share a little information about this incarnation of Snorkel. Original instigator, drummer-percussionist, performer with This Is Not This Heat, Daniel Sullivan and the Lifetones, and producer for such acts as Gong, Charles Hayward and Vibration Black Fringe, Frank Byng is joined by Ben Cowen (another connection to Vibration Black Fringe, Cowen was also formerly a member of 7-Hurtz and has collaborated with Morcheeba) on keys and synths, Tom Marriott (a member of Pest) on trombone and effects, Roberto Sassi (formerly of the Vole Trio and Cardosanto, and a current member of Heckle Chamber and Charles Hayward’s Abstract Concrete project) on guitar, Ralph Cumbers (releases music under the Bass Clef moniker) on modular synth and samplers, trombone and bass, Charles Stuart (currently the music director for Grace Jones’ live band, but also the driving force behind The Fish Police; Stuart also goes under the “clandestine” cloak of 129 when producing and gets a separate credit under both on this album) on various electronic apparatus, percussion, melodica, vocals, keys and guitar, and, popping up on two tracks on the D-Side of this double-album, Nick Doyne-Ditmas (credits include Pinski Zoo, Monkey Puzzle Trio and Crackle) on bass duties. You’ll probably not going to get the chance to listen to this particular septet configuration again, so enjoy the moments captured, improvisation style, during the time it took to lay all nineteen tracks down in the studio environment. I imagine that whatever happens next, the set-up will again have changed: another varied lineup of connected players from the scene, orbiting around the mainstays.

Past Still Present Tense mixes not only time but combines elements of sci-fi, global rhythms, the near clandestine, Giallo spooks and something more alien into an often-post-punk-funk of the kooky, mystical, esoteric, futuristic and galactic. The foundation, the base, or I should say, the main influence that permeates throughout is dub (more On-U Sound, Lee Scratch Perry and World of Echo); transmogrified and liquified to vibrate and resonate off an electrical wave of zapped electronica and jilted, skewered, wavy metallic dance music. And yet somehow, they’ve managed to run it through the same processors, the same gait metric as Dunkelziffer, Conrad Schnitzler, Der Plan and Klaus Kruger to give it a Germanic bent.

Hand drums, various ethnic percussion and instruments (the Ghanian Gyil is mentioned in the accompanying press notes) are interwoven and merged with electronica, the yells and hysterics and riles of post-punk (the vocals pitched somewhere between the Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire and Damo Suzuki) and the subversive. There are traces of everything from tubular concrete musique to the ambient, from Bill Laswell to Jeff Parker, Krononaut and Holy Fuck; from Roni Size to Finis Africae, Moebius, The Missing Brazilians, Gary Numan and Irmin Schmidt. The organic and machine in a loose rhythm cross multiple borders to create both a post-no wave dance and more mysterious, sometimes creeping and dystopian sci-fi (the nod to Iain Banks ‘The Wasp Factory’ couldn’t escape anyone’s notice). There’s much to discover and absorb with each play that I can imagine this collection will keep listeners very busy – a lifetime of work in some band’s cases.

Suntou Susso ‘Jaliya Silokang: The Path Of A Griot’
7^th November 2025

“Some people are born into a family of kings
Some people are born into a family of farmers
Some people are born into a family of scholars
God has created me to be a Griot.”

Right from the outset the Gambian Griot, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and filmmaker (you could claim a true polymath) Suntou Susso sets out his afflatus legacy with the chorus on this album’s title track and opener ‘Jaliya’. Born into a service, the divine anointed position of “cultural guardian”, of “storyteller”, of “praise singer” (all terms used to describe the ancient role that stretches back over 700 years), Suntou like his father before him continues in the grand tradition, yet always looks to pastures new, working with and pushing those roots forward.

Roughly explained as a musician or entertainer from Western Africa whose performances include tribal histories and geologies, the Griot’s instrument of choice is the 21 or 22-string (Suntou favours the later), a long-necked lute crafted out of half a gourd and covered with cow skin. Suntou is just one such brethren from the extended family to play this harp-like sounding instrument; his half-brother is none other than the equally celebrated Seckou Keita (no stranger to this blog over the years), and his father, the legendary Mamudou Susso. Just in the last year or so, Suntou toured the great Griot songbook with his father: an intergenerational experiment you could say. That musical heritage continues through his sister, the applauded vocalist Binto Suso. Binto makes an appearance on the serious kora spilling and, starting off with, near solemn attentive piano backed track ‘Jula Jekereh’; a reimagining of an ancient Griot song, the protagonist of which was a well-known wealthy flamboyant trader called Jekereh Bayo who decided to celebrate the age-old traditional Muslim festival of Tobaski ten days later than usual, co-opting the regions kings and all the right movers with his riches. Close to her brothers lead vocal, Binto carries a beautiful echo of Miriam Makeba – the kora actually reminds me of Suntou’s half-brother Seckou. As the song progresses this voice starts to soar and cover the heights, beautifully sung, like all the songs, in the ancestral Mandinka mother tongue – a community and dialect found predominantly in the Senegambia region, but also in Southern Mali and Eastern Guinea, the Mandinka are said to be descended from the atavistic Mali Empire.

Binto appears alongside a number of special guest stars and an extended company of musicians (twenty in all). For this is nothing if not an ambitious record, recorded both in the UK and Senegal with an expanded ensemble of gifted players; from strings to brass, drums, guitars and of course a host of backing vocalists. Perhaps one of the most iconic names to have contributed to the album is that of the Malian guitar legend Vieux Farka Touré, son of the rightly venerated late icon Ali Farka Touré. He brings a more tamed version of his sustained fuzz desert rock style and Bamako club movers’ shoe-shuffle to ‘Joulou Fula’, a song that entwines both sets of guitar and kora strings together in an electrified bluesy union across the sand dune contours of the land. Another “super” star, the Ghanian performer, vocalist, percussionist, arranger, bandleader and art director Kweku Sackey, otherwise known professionally as K.O.G., makes an appearance and leaves an impression on the Afro-rock fusion ‘Lannaya’. In celebration, the values of trust, integrity, love and mutual respect are given a funky ride, as Kweku both toasts and vocalises with a positive energy: if there was a camera in on the session, I’m sure he’d be very animated and dancing about in the vocal booth.

With a production of both fluidity and softened punches, elliptical and staccato rhythms merging effortlessly with the smooth, Jaliya Silokang: The Path Of A Griot’s amorphously crosses porous borders culturally and musically. With both golden and rustic threads, the spindled and cascading, and a kora sound that is simultaneously harp-like and woven as if making a tapestry, it’s a most pleasant, beautiful, soul-searching, yearned, reflective and gracefully transportive listening experience. And with the addition of strings and serenaded and more drifty saxophones, there’s both subtle evocations of the classical and jazz genres to enrich the overall sound.

All of this fits together very nicely, extending the musical family geographically, and embracing modern sounds and the old in another successful intergenerational project that looks back whilst facing current strife and the topics of immigration. But at the heart of this album is a joy and need to embrace heritage, and to celebrate the Griot: a role that bookends the album, firstly at the very beginning with a song about the family’s traditional roots, and at the end with a ruminating panoramic display of rolling and expressive kora playing that articulates the eternal Griot traveller’s journey from destination to destination, storytelling and musically sharing the stories and bonds of that calling. This is a most ambitious and sprawling album that uses its many threads brilliantly and evocatively and will do much to cement Suntou Susso’s reputation as a burgeoning star and virtuoso of the Griot form and the kora.

Tana Delle Pigri ‘Wunderkammer’
Released 3^rd October 2025

Five EPs into a newish project from the very excellent K. Board & The Skreens’ Jacopo and friends Guido and Pioppo, and the Monolith Cocktail is introduced to a languid amorphous sound world of post-punk-jazz, post-punk-funk, krautrock, psychedelia, post-hardcore and vague Ethnic destinations. A play on words that only really works in Italian, Tana Delle Pigri or “Den of the Lazy” repurposes Den of Tigers, is an illusion/hallucination of almost organic and relaxed influences, cast adrift, dangled or hovered, almost as if improvised or in a live setting.

From the mirage like shadows cast across arid plains on the opener to spells in which the atmosphere of finger cymbals and percussion evoke the Middle East and the Far East and the Byzantine, or when the woody breathed and chuffed lazy flute points towards fourth world sketches of the Amazon or Egypt, there’s both a balance of prods and flexed wanders across familiar turned unfamiliar terrains. All the while that trebly bass provokes echoes of post-punk mixed with Fugazi, but also CAN, Dunkelziffer and Embryo. But the vibes change on nearly every track, moving between the Killing Joke and The Untied Knot, Isotope 217, Mosquitoes, The Cosmic Range (for sure on the lovely finale ‘Musica Maestro’) and Slint. There’s even an organ serenade of Ethio-jazz at one point, and a sort of Red Hot Chilli Peppers if warped by Introvoid bit on ‘Felpa Grigia’ (“grey sweatshirt”). Touches on every instrument seem near indolent at times, relaxed, as they manifest pictures, scenes and landscapes both earthly and on the astral planes. But overall, there’s some intriguing and brilliant ideas taking shape from such indolent qualities. A fascinating project from the Italians.

Yalla Miku ‘2’
(Bongo Joe Records) 7^th November 2025

Cornering the market in musical Cyril’s it seems, the Swiss-based loose collective of Yalla Miku features both the Cyril Cyril partnership of Bongo Joe label honcho Cyril Yeterian and drummer/percussionist Cyril Bondi, plus a revolving lineup of congruous foils plucked from the canton’s diverse assembly of globally imbued and post-punk groups and projects. The mainstay in this case, and co-founding instigator and Ethiopian and Eretria pentatonic scale Krar lute player come vocalist, Samuel Ades Tesfagergsh brings the roots and connections of his homeland to an already busy and seamlessly blended fecund of sounds and influences. A refugee starting life anew in Switzerland, Tesfagergsh came to the attention of Yeterian through the Bongo Joe shop and hub; the record store and label founder’s own upbringing and roots traverse the Middle East, with the PR notes referencing Lebanon, Syria and pre-Türkiye, Anatolia. 

This combination, the spheres of influence and backgrounds makes for some surprising and edgy fusions.

Marking a shift in personal after the departures of Simon Aubert, Annouar Baouna, Vincent Bertholet and Ali Bouchaki, the simply entitled new album, 2, features Boxing Noise’s Emma Souharce on machines, synths and vocals and Louis Knobil, who goes under the Knobil signature, on electric bass and vocals. Apart from slimming down to a quintet, the main changes have been vocally, with now every member of the group providing singing, narrating or talking duties. But the merger of the Swiss post-punk underground and the international sounds of the Middle East, North Africa, but Arabian world at large, remains the focus; it’s to what degree that signature is loosened and widened. 

Thematic wise, this album is imbued with references to Tesfagergsh’s former Eritrean home, his culture too. His village of Embeyto is immortalised via the vibes of an East African PiL lurking in a dubby reverberated soundscape of metallic hand drums and creaky opening doors, and a ghostly taste of The Specials. Common throughout the album’s ten tracks, between the authentic trills, hollers, cries of the Arab world, the post-punk jutted, elliptical and spikiness of The Pop Group and the Dead Kennedys (see ‘Post-Aventures’), the resonated dub exotics, otherworldliness and wavey bass lines of The Mosquitos and Jah Wobble, and the Anatolian and Egyptian dance pop disco of Altin Gun, there’s a sound that mimics the organ of both Ethio-jazz and fun house spooks garage music: a ghost train merger of Hailu Mergia, ? And the Mysterians and Baba Zulu. Seemingly more pliable, more crypt frights and hauntology than general dark arts and paranormal, the veils of the esoteric add a layer or mist of mystery and creeping disquiet to the themes being aired: the use of religion as a tool to wield power, the geopolitical and status of disposed, and traditions of marriage. Embeyto could be just a lovely nostalgic admiration of home, but its location within the Tigray region can’t help but draw attention to the recent, and much forgotten, conflict there.

To be honest, it’s far beyond my own knowledge and scope of specialism, the conflict fought in the Tigray region (the most northern state within the borders of Ethiopia) is convoluted and has a long history stretching back generations. But to be brief, this two-year conflict pitted forces allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF had previously been a dominant force politically in Ethiopia before conflict with its neighbours, unrest within the country, and disputes over leadership spilled out into horrific violence. But during this particular and most recent chapter, between the 3 November 2020 and 3 November 2022, it is estimated that two million people were displaced from the region, and 600,000 killed. Tigray was itself left in ruins; its capital turned over to the federal government. Reports began to emerge in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing and war crimes. And the situation is no more stable now, a few years along, with conflict once more looming within Eritrea. If you were interested in Tigray musical culture, and liked the sound of the Krar, then you should check out Ian Brennan’s recent raw and uncloyed production project, Tigray Tears ‘The World Stood By’. There’s even a reference, title wise, on the hoof galloping, gangly post-punk North African dance ‘Alemuya’ to the song and album by the Eritrean singer Dehab Faytinga. Mixed in with the Tigrayan/Eritrean thread are references to the Arabian world, its language and even religion; the diverse region’s music effortlessly fused with a myriad of influences from across the diaspora, from Europe and beyond. One minute its quite chic Swiss French, the next authentically North African. It’s Bloc Party, Stereolab, Dunkelziffer, the Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp and Snapped Ankles meets Bongo Joe’s own Maghreb K7 Club survey and Cyril Cyril in an electrified new wave punk and no wave confederation. I can’t think of a better album with which to encapsulate the Bongo Joe sound, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. A highly recommended album.

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