Blog: Isaac Ashe's Sound Advice

○○○○○ FOLK, especially English folk, doesn't get a fair outing. Bands like Shooglenifty, alongside peers including Seth Lakeman, Lau, Jim Moray, Patrick Wolf - all of these oft-ignored folksters deserve plaudits beyond plaudits. Folk fusion band Shooglenifty are an instrumental act playing traditional reels and whirls and suchlike, but they add to this on Venus In Tweeds a dance element, making a sort of post trad folk. It may not be traditional folk, but the Scottish band are what folk music is all about - it's accessible, upbeat, entertaining and you can work up [...]

○○○○○ ALTHOUGH I'm a month behind the release of Emancipator's Safe In The Steep Cliffs , I'm bursting to blog about it. The DJ came to the fore supporting Bonobo recently after a steady ascent to fame, and you can see how he landed the job - with similarities between this LP and Bonobo's brilliant Black Sands . Equally chilled out and possessing the same head-nodding beats, the LP is an abundance of warm, string-soaked, orchestral cinematic electronica, and deserves an equal amount of plaudits.

○○○○● THE sun-soaked climate of Los Angeles normally reflects in the sunny output of its bands - but not in Autolux's case. The group's second album, Transit Transit, is a downbeat collection of slow, shoegazing rock more in line with Radiohead than The Beach Boys. Not that this is a bad thing, and while it takes the listener a while to tune down to its rhythms, Transit Transit reveals itself to be a moving piece of work when you do so.

○○○○○ WHAT do you get if you mix dub reggae and heavy metal? Dreadbangers? No, the offspring of that unholy union is Dub Trio's third album, Another Sound Is Dying . The album, which is instrumental apart from the standout No Flag featuring Mike Patton of Faith No More on vocal duties, fuses heavy metal riffs fuller than Rik Waller leaving an all you can eat buffet with ponderous Mogwai style space rock and skanking Lee "Scratch" Perry dub sections. On paper this [...]

○○○●● TRANSATLANTIC RPM , the new album from Incognito, packs in more energy than a jet engine. Having invited along a guest list including Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender, icon Chaka Khan, spoken word goddess Ursula Rucker, Motown legend Leon Ware and more, the tracks here are all slick as they come. Sure, a lot of it is very cheesy, but you can't help get caught up in the sheer exuberance of it all.

LOUGHBOROUGH knob-twiddler Kelpe is releasing a new EP in September. The Margins EP will be put out by Bristol label Black Acre on vinyl and as a download. Kelpe said: "I've grown pretty fond of a lot of Black Acre's material recently, having released artists such as Loops Haunt, Blue Daisy, Tokimonsta, Fantastic Mr Fox, Brokenchord and a load more." As an appetite whetter, Kelpe has also uploaded a taster of some of the EP tracks, which you can hear below -

○○○○● CERULEAN , the debut album from Baths, is worth dipping into. Showering the listener with subtle beats and awash with delicate, acoustic-based samples, if you want to gauge Baths' temperature imagine an ever-so-slightly more tubthumping version of Daedalus. Glitchy productions akin to impossibly 'now' acts like Toro Y Moi and Junk Culture over echoey hints of indie rock a la Broken Social Scene, Baths deserves to tap into some of these more established acts fanbases.

○○○○● FASTEN your seatbelts and prepare for a ride back in time... on board Analog Africa's Afro-beat Airways . A musical black-box of previously lost recordings from 1970s Ghana and Togo, the names may not be jetset - the likes of Orchestre Abass, Ebo Taylor And The Sweet Beans, De Frank Professionals and Apagya Show Band all feature - but these were all high-flyers in their time. The result is a mixture of afro-funk, synth disco, afro-beat, boogie, and anything else energetic and afro-centre you can think of. So if you're looking for a departure from your [...]

THE 12 album shortlist for the Mercury Prize 2009 has been revealed. Contesting the competition this year are - ● Biffy Clyro – ' Only Revolutions' ● Corinne Bailey Rae – 'The Sea' ● Dizzee Rascal – 'Tongue N' Cheek' ● Kit Downes Trio – 'Golden' ● Foals – 'Total Life Forever' ● I Am Kloot – 'Sky At Night' ● Laura Marling – 'I Speak Because I Can' ● Mumford And Sons – 'Sigh No More' ● [...]

○○○○● NORMALLY if the thought of a grizzled old Welshman excites you, you'd probably be a grizzled old Welshwoman. But everyone should make an exception for Tom Jones - who for the hundredth-odd time has come back with the cool once again with new album Praise And Blame . A tour through a collection of spiritual American standards from Johnny Cash-esque confessionals like What Good Am I? to the pumped up numbers like Don't Knock , Jones strips back his art to its most exposed, raw sound yet - Sex Bomb this [...]

○○●●● ATTENTION Owl City fans - sort it out. Oh, and you'd probably like to know there's some new material coming out from Adam "Owl City" Young, under a new pseudonym, Sky Sailing. The idea behind the name change is that An Airplane Carried Me To Bed is more acoustic and traditional than Owl City's more emopop computerised leanings - but fear not. Young's vocal without the swathe of effects is still very much as annoying as before, and the music is a mushy and wet as ever. In fact, you do well to [...]

○○○○○ MUSICAL experimentalists Art Of Noise's retrospective Influence should probably have been pluralised to Influences . Because since forming in the 1980s the studio-dwelling group have fraternised with synthpop, hip hop, dance, jazz, rock, and seemingly anything else to hand they could sample and put to their home-made beats. And this 39-track collection of hits, collaborations, fan favourites, movie and TV themes, remixes, B-sides and unreleased material is more than enough to sate the appetite of even the most avid fan. Standouts for me are Rakim-collaboration Metaforce , Dragnet and The [...]

○○○○○ CONTEMPORARY classical composer Max Richter's new album Infra is so good it makes me want to do a little dance. Adapted from his score for a ballet, the album once again sees Richter's sublime slow-burning string and piano work fused to his delicate electronic studio tampering. With almost a minimal amount of sounds, Richter draws emotion from the listener to create a compelling ebb and flow throughout the album.. Infra is simply mesmerising, an eerie, atmospheric sound as timeless as it is futuristic.

WYMESWOLD'S The Wave Pictures have carried out a Q&A ahead of their appearance at this year's Summer Sundae festival in Leicester - Q) Summer Sundae Weekender kicks off in August. What's your favourite thing about summer festivals? A) Getting to see loads of your favourite bands for freeeee! Q) What can we expect from your show? A) Lots of sweat, a little bit of dancing and at least one check shirt. Q) Summer Sundae is renowned for showcasing emerging talent. Which new band are you most looking forward to catching? A) Looking forward to seeing Fool's Gold. I've [...]

○○○●● LIKE compatriots Turzi (see yesterday ) French act Emilie Simon knows her way around a computer - and sometimes even inside of one. Live Emilie has an experimental side - playing with a gadget known as "the arm" which locks onto her limb allowing her to tinker with her sounds. However the established singer-songwriter's fourth album The Big Machine - inspired by her time living in New York - sees her aiming at the mainstream, embracing the poppier elements of her electronic sound and singing in English. And the results of her latest studio [...]

○○○○● FRENCH band, Scottish vocalist, American subject matter, English influences - if Turzi can recreate this form across an album he'll have the world at his feet. Gallic knob-twiddler Roman Turzi and friend's Baltimore EP - inspired by rioting in the city in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King - features the vocals of Bobby Gillespie and a sound which fuses acid house beats and a Manchesteresque swagger. The track, which has a definite touch of the Swastika Eyes about it, then gets a generous helping of hit-and-miss remix for the rest [...]

○○○○○ THEIR first release A Lesson In Crime , although undeniably brilliant, could be seen as naive, approaching the EP with so much gusto that tracks were saturated with ideas, over before they begun, and the whole effort finished in a quarter of an hour. Tokyo Police Club's second, the LP Elephant Shell , took on these flaws with the Canadians taking a little more time - but you could hear they were still growing. And now the triumphant Champ is their most measured, mature effort to date. Insidiously catchy, [...]

○○○○● VETERAN band The Innocence Mission release their latest LP My Room In The Trees tomorrow. And Eight albums in, the American act have grown from a dream pop sapling into a blossoming band, perfecting their gorgeous, rich sound. However with folky guitars swathed in sweeping strings, My Room In The Trees is so perfect, for better or worse it passes so seamlessly it barely registers with the listener, like a breeze though leaves.

○○○○○ AN ACT in its infancy, if Kid Adrift's Oxytocin EP is anything to go by - and I hope it is - he could grow into something special. The Scottish musician crafts forceful rock pop songs laced with subtle hooks and brimming with character. But rather like Mr Fogg's alt-pop Moving Parts earlier this year and Album of the Year Stateless from 2008, these are then pumped full of atmospheric production, electro beats and other studio jiggery-pokery. A few listens [...]

○○○○○ BOMBAY Bicycle Club's new album Flaws is an acoustic effort which was recorded in tandem with their debut I Had The Blues But Shook Them Loose . But despite the self-depreciating name, Flaws can have very few criticisms made of it. Even more impressive than their indie rock introduction, the band show a real emotive side to their subtle sound when stripped-back, which should be appealing to fans of Mumford And Sons and Laura Marling. In a way, it'll be a shame if they plug back in - [...]