#postrock

NMR Indie Playlist

Andy Wors

Feb 3, 2020
3 min

'Orochen' - 'Mechanical Eyes' (EP)

We've never hesitated in delving into some of the darker Nordic releases, which probably started with our review of The Janitors in the very early days (or did it all start with attending a Fields of the Nephalim gig when I was 18...?), and Swedish band 'Orochen' have made a good impression with their latest EP release entitled 'Mechanical Eyes', a sprawling and dense 4 tracks of gleefully dark mutterings which fuse together post rock ambition and alternative rock and gothic

'Cats of Transnistria' - 'Aligning' (album)

Andy Wors

Dec 7, 2019
2 min

'Cats of Transnistria' - 'Aligning' (album)

We have a list of about a dozen albums we want to write about before we wrap up for the Festivities (if we were clever, I guess we'd work out a special '12 Albums of Christmas' thing), so we'll continue with the approach of trying to keep things fairly brief. First up is 'Cats of Transnistria', a band we've written about a few times, but I still never quite think we've given them the time they really deserve. Since their debut EP 'Away' was released back in 2015, the duo base

'Mantaray' - new single 'On the Back of Your Hand'

Andy Wors

Dec 3, 2019
1 min

'Mantaray' - new single 'On the Back of Your Hand'

As regular readers know we'd be happy to feature a Post Rock band every day, and we're delighted to come back to Finnish band 'Mantaray', whom we first write about back in 2018 when they released their excellent album 'No More Sirens'. It was the 2nd album from the Jyväskylä based 6 piece outfit, following on from debut 'Atlantic' in 2016, and the good news is that a new album is due early 2020, and from it there is a new single - entitled 'On the Back of Your Hand'. 'Mantar

Andy Wors

Nov 29, 2019
1 min

'CeaseTone' - new single 'Egotopia'

So it's our official 5th birthday today, and it's therefore pretty appropriate that we start with one of our favourite bands, a huge welcome back to the amazing 'CeaseTone', a project we first wrote back in our first few months of existence when we came across some 2014 experimentation by the bands founder Hafsteinn Þráinsson. Since then the band has received widespread praise for the exceptional 'Two Strangers' album, still an absolute favourite of ours, had nice words writ

Andy Wors

Nov 26, 2019
1 min

'ilt' - new track 'Sleepwalking'

After featuring Finnish band 'Mantaray' yesterday, I'm hoping we can write about a different Post Rock band each day this week - although whether that's successful probably depends on whether I finally finish that long outstanding 'Oh Hiroshima' review. Today's offering comes from Denmark, and none other than 'ilt', whom we featured back in 2018 courtesy of their tracks 'Monochromatic Fields and 'Astral'. Since then the Copenhagen 3 piece have been busy writing material for t

Andy Wors

Sep 24, 2019
1 min

'Luca Bluefire' - new single 'Signs'

We featured Icelandic instrumental post rock band Náttfari last week, and we received a positive response to our recommendation, so we'll start this week with Danish project 'Luca Bluefire', with a release which is very much in a similar style. Behind the name is musician and multi-instrumentalist Luca Giancotti, who has spent most of his musical career playing for and touring with other acts (such as Indie/folk band White Ocean), but more recently worked on his own projects

In Short: 'Náttfari' - 'D-Sessions' (album)

Andy Wors

Sep 20, 2019
2 min

In Short: 'Náttfari' - 'D-Sessions' (album)

Sometimes it takes a little longer to develop an emotional connection to an album, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, because whilst albums like 'Beezewax' are an obviously attractive Indie Pop album full of melodies, maybe it lacks the real depth and substance to make it an album I'll keep going back to week on week. But thankfully there are other albums that grow beautifully on me over time, and the new(ish) album from 'Náttfari' does exactly that - 36 minutes of atmos

'Belle Sonder' - 'Melancholy Love' (single) + Manchester Psych appearance

Andy Wors

Jul 9, 2019
1 min

'Belle Sonder' - 'Melancholy Love' (single) + Manchester Psych appearance

Just one short introduction today, and it's for an Anglo-Nordic duo we really should have come across previously, given they've been around for a few years and were formed in Liverpool - I'm going to make an educated guess at LIPA, see previous features on 'I See Rivers', Oyvind Weiseth, Kalandra, Nils Martin and more. 'Belle Sonder' have released a few tracks since 2014 including a 4 track self-titled EP released last year, and it's a heady mix of swirling electronica, indie

In Brief: 'Star of Heaven' - 'Kino' (single)

Andy Wors

Jul 1, 2019
1 min

In Brief: 'Star of Heaven' - 'Kino' (single)

Hopefully July will be a better month than June. So we'll try and catch up with 'In Brief' mentions to as many bands as possible, and we'll start with 'Star of Heaven', a Swedish instrumental band that we featured back in 2016 when they released their post rock / progressive influenced album 'Vinter 2015'. Anyway they're back with a new single called 'Kino', and the good news is that it's the first from a new album which is due to be released in Autumn - which will be called

'Ghosts on TV' - new single 'End All States' (In Brief)

Andy Wors

Jun 18, 2019
1 min

'Ghosts on TV' - new single 'End All States' (In Brief)

It's been a while since we featured a good Post Rock band, so here's a pretty cool track from Finnish outfit 'Ghosts on TV'. They've released a few tracks previously (check out their single 'Silo' from last year'), but they've returned now with the brooding and dark 'End All States'. It's a typically atmospheric track, almost entirely instrumental, and I think that's probably the set up that suits them best, and there's a great mix of intense guitar work (from the 3 guitaris

'Novocaine' - new track 'In Another World'

Andy Wors

Nov 7, 2018
1 min

'Novocaine' - new track 'In Another World'

Hopefully, if we get our act together, we have 2 short album reviews to being you today (if not, there's always tomorrow...), but in the meantime we're delighted to bring you an update on a band we featured around this time last year, 'Novocaine', from Norway. Now hopefully there will be some people out there familiar with the name, either from our previous musings or because they've made a real impression in Norway with their releases and gigs since they returned from a long

'The Entrepreneurs' - new single 'Heroine' (live video)

Andy Wors

Oct 26, 2018
2 min

'The Entrepreneurs' - new single 'Heroine' (live video)

It's extremely remiss of us never to have covered Danish band 'The Entrepreneurs' before, because they've been making such an impression on the Danish music scene for a while, but we'll correct that now with a live performance of their new single 'Heroine', straight from the forthcoming debut album entitled 'Noise and Romance', which will be released on the excellent Tambourhinoceros label. The 3 piece band from Copenhagen were formed back in 2014, released their highly prais

Introducing...'Abist' with track 'Apathy'

Andy Wors

Oct 15, 2018
2 min

Introducing...'Abist' with track 'Apathy'

Normally we do try to 'mix things up' slightly by not consecutively featuring too many releases of the same genre, but we're going to follow up writing about 'Klangriket's' new EP on Friday, with 2 classically influenced compositions today, simply because I think they all compliment each other really well. The first is from 'the backlog' (it's similar to the archives, only bigger...) and it's written by young Norwegian composer 'Abist', who has been self-releasing tracks over

Andy Wors

Oct 12, 2018
1 min

'JUNODEF' with new single 'Heights'

Swedish band 'JUNODEF' have actually been around since 2015, so it's typically remiss of us to have somehow missed them over the last 3 years, despite favourable coverage in 2 of our favourite independent music websites, 'For The Rabbits' and the ever excellent 'Revue'. Originally formed by Tyra Örnberg and Karin Grönkvist, they were later joined by drummer Norea Persson and pianist Rode Grönkvist and they've now based themselves in London - which probably shows how intent t

Introducing.... 'ilt' with track 'Monochromatic Fields'

Andy Wors

Aug 29, 2018
2 min

Introducing.... 'ilt' with track 'Monochromatic Fields'

It's always a struggle to get moving after summer vacation, it seems to trigger 'writers block' and general inertia, but we have to get moving or the backlog will just be totally absurd. So maybe the best way to kickstart things is to return to the genre of music I'm most comfortable and familiar with, and a brief introduction to a band who have been sitting on my new music playlist for the last few months. 'ilt' are from Denmark, and they are sit bang right in the middle of

Andy Wors

Jul 22, 2018
1 min

Sunday Non Nordic Indie: 'World's End Girlfriend - video 'Plein Soleil'

Every Sunday I try and quickly throw in a selection from somewhere else on our planet, and today we head to Japan. The name ‘World End’s Girlfriend’ has appeared a few times when I've read about music from Japan, so maybe a few of you have come across this project before, but to me it's still relatively new. Behind 'World End’s Girlfriend’ is the Japanese musician 'Katsuhiko Madea', and I love this because it fuses together classical, rock and maybe some Japanese influences t

'Star of Heaven' - new track 'Evigt Minne'

Andy Wors

May 31, 2018
1 min

'Star of Heaven' - new track 'Evigt Minne'

I've spent way too much time recently apologising for the lack of content, but normal service will be resumed shortly, whatever 'normal' is. Maybe it's time for a rethink too, who knows. Anyway the one promise I did make at the start of the year was that we'd feature more post rock in 2018, and 'Star of Heaven' are a band we featured back in 2016 when they released their debut album 'Vinter'. The good news is that they're back, and they have a weighty new song for us to list

Andy Wors

Mar 5, 2018
3 min

Mantaray - 'No More Sirens'

We promised that we would feature far more post rock music this year, and one item on my huge list of untouched tasks is to spend a few hours exploring the interweb trying to identify as many slightly less well known Nordic post rock bands for future features. So maybe a review of the new album 'No More Sirens' by Finnish band 'Mantaray' will help point is in direction of some great new music, and result in a surge of Finnish music submissions too - we can only hope. So 'Mant

The Spring This Autumn - 'Soak' (from EP 'What Remains')

Andy Wors

Jan 16, 2018
2 min

The Spring This Autumn - 'Soak' (from EP 'What Remains')

One of our many New Years resolutions is to try and feature more bands with a post rock influence, I hugely enjoyed getting to know the TELLER' album at the end of last year, and look forward to discovering far more Nordic bands in this style. 'The Spring This Autumn' are also from Sweden, and whilst it is true to say that their EP from 2017 'What Remains' is undoubtedly more in a post metal style that I don't quite engage with as much, their instrumental track 'Soak' is pret

Andy Wors

Jan 9, 2018
2 min

Orochen - 'Orochen' EP

Sometimes it takes us a while to find our feet in the New Year, but we have a wealth of new music to feature, and (inevitably) some catching up to do from 2017 - the year in which we started with a backlog, finished with a backlog, and maintained a backlog during the middle bits too. We'll start 2018 with 'Orochen' and their 4 track digital self titled release which came out just 8 days before Christmas itself. The Orochen people are one of the oldest ethnic groups in China.