No artist credited

Style¹: Avant-prog, art pop, neo-psychedelia (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cardiacs, Gentle Giant, Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: April Fools, 2025

Excuse my language, but what the fuck is this? Prog rock might have gotten stale with all the competent yet unimaginative 70s worship groups out there², but some bands take the concept of innovation to levels where you start wondering whether they even set out to create an enjoyable experience in the first place. In such a tradition do we find vaguely Cardiacs-adjacent³ British avant-prog ensemble Lost Crowns. Ensemble groups in prog aren’t exactly new—Meer has seen great underground success as of late—but Lost Crowns are a wholly different breed, and their latest offering The Heart Is in the Body is—ironically—possibly one of the purest intellectual constructs in music I’ve heard to date. Let’s dissect this bad boy, shall we?

How many different things can you play at once while keeping a coherent arrangement? If Lost Crowns are to be believed, the answer to that question is yes. Vocal harmonies, ever-shifting polyrhythmic drumming, percussive and melodic guitar lines, keyboards in sync with only the kick drum on the lower end while in counterpoint with the rhythm guitar on the higher end, wind instruments playing atonal melodies, often all at the same time define much of The Heart Is in the Body. If you get dizzy reading that, deciphering all the madness while listening is bound to make your brain explode. Lost Crowns bring nearly every Western European instrument under the sun into this album as well: saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, harmonium, flute, violin, bagpipe, dulcimer, and a whole lot more you can read in the credits below. These instruments are brought together in a crystal clear, cosy mix with just enough reverb to evoke a chamber feeling, meaning not a single note is Lost in Crown’s quest to overstimulate the listener.

“Try not to think, you need to feel the music!” my mom would often say while I was growing up, but jeez, Lost Crowns do not go for any easily recognizable feeling either. With how choppy and angular not just the rhythm section but also the vocal melodies and lead instruments are, listening to The Heart Is in the Body becomes rather akin to a solfège exercise than an emotional journey of any kind. “The Same Without”, for example, starts with a melancholic, serene atmosphere consisting of nothing but vocals, harmonium, and some strings. Chaos erupts when guitars, drums, and keyboard come in, and so little of the opening mood remains that we might as well have been in a different song. After that, only the chorus (?) provides some sense of recognizable catharsis; everything else is an overly well-designed labyrinth. Even though Lost Crowns usually maintain a sense of narrative in their songs, they also pull out the rug from under you at any given time with rhythmic switch-ups and unpleasant atonal melodies. It’s hard to care about where a song will go next if it switches things up fifteen times in the time it takes to form that thought. All the variety in instrumentation and layering cannot save The Heart Is in the Body from the monotony of its chaos. 

The two major exceptions to the maximalist style on The Heart Is in the Body are “O Alexander” and closing epic “A Sailor and His True Love”, which are overwhelmingly atmospheric tracks. The former is a disorienting psychedelic piece while the latter ventures into folk territory, somewhat bringing Comus to mind in its estranging yet somehow cosy mix of genres. Both tracks lose themselves to off-kilter indulgence at points, but on the whole stand out for their relatively simple arrangements. Merely allowing some breathing room for the instruments instead of cramming in a dozen at once does wonders for the emotional connection that was lacking otherwise. These songs still aren’t easy to follow by any means, but considering how hard the rest of the album is to listen to, they are a blessing. 

Safe to say, The Heart Is in the Body is an utterly bewildering album. At its best, you’ll find some of the most interesting, challenging music you’ll hear all year; at its worst, you’ll also find some of the most interesting, challenging music you’ll hear all year, but this time in a bewildering manner with a level of chaos that makes Between the Buried and Me seem tame in comparison. For the majority of the album’s duration, I fell in the latter camp; however, I do expect that our analytically inclined readers will have a field day with this album’s intense attention to detail and frighteningly complex narrative structure. Do proceed with caution, however, because The Heart Is in the Body is not for the faint of heart, nor the faint of body.

Recommended tracks: She Didn’t Want Me, A Sailor and His True Love
You may also like: Good NightOwl, Comus, Stars in Battledress, Eunuchs, Cime
Final verdict: 4/10

1. Alternatively, according to my colleague Tim: Canterbury prog on crack. ︎
2.  We’re actually severely lacking in classic prog rock specialists on our staff so if you’re into that and like to write about music, please consider applying! ︎
3.  Main man Richard Larcombe and his brother James were in Stars and Battledress who have played shows with Cardiacs. James also mixed The Garage Concerts. ︎

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Rate Your Music

Label: Independent

Lost Crowns is:
– Nicola Baigent (clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, recorder, flute)
– Charlie Cawood (bass guitar, double bass, handbells, sitar)
– Sharron Fortnam (vocals)
– Keepsie (drums, handbells)
– Richard Larcombe (lead vocal, guitar, harmonium, harp, tin whistle, violin, cello, concertina, English border bagpipe, dulcimer)
– Rhodri Marsden (piano, keyboards, bassoon, saw, recorder, tremelo guitar, percussion, theremin, vocals)
– Josh Perl (keyboards, vocals)

With guests:
– Mark Cawthra (vocals on 2, 5 and 6)
– Susannah Henry (vocals on 3)
– James Larcombe (hurdy gurdy on 8)
– Sarah Nash (vocals on 3 and 7)

The post Review: Lost Crowns – The Heart Is in the Body appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: post-punk, baroque pop (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Beatles, Black Midi, Keller Williams, Steve Reich, Love, The Beach Boys, The Smile
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 4 April 2025

Black Country, New Road’s last studio album Ants from Up There was something of a musical epiphany for me. After years of my music taste trending towards the obscure and impenetrable, I found myself a staunch death metal elitist. Draped in my camo cargo shorts and faded band tees, I’d turn my nose up at any album that didn’t have, by my estimation, the proper amount of blast beats, breakdowns, and harsh vocals. It didn’t matter how well composed or beautiful a piece of music was; all that mattered was whether the music fit into the increasingly narrow definition that I needed it to so as to appease my elitist nature. In all honesty, I think it was a sense of elitism that drove me to write here at The Progressive Subway in the first place, but there’s no quicker way to kill a metal elitist attitude than to expose it to truly great non-metal music. In talking to my fellow writers, I was quickly shown just how wrong I was about metal’s place on the musical throne. Slowly but surely, melody and levity crept their way back into my music taste, and it was then that I found Black Country, New Road.

I discovered Ants from Up There a few months after its release, and I was immediately enraptured by its delicacy. Isaac Wood’s vulnerable timbre, the two-pronged chamber folk/pop attack of violin and saxophone, and the post-punk laden guitar and bass riffs created a mixture entirely foreign to me, and I quaffed it down like a desert-bound traveler in an oasis. While tracks like “Concorde” and “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” merely got stuck in my head, longer cuts “Snow Globes” and “Basketball Shoes” imprinted themselves upon my musical DNA, like drops of blood in water, once released, inextricable. I was a fanatic, and like a fanatic, I researched the source of my fascination. As any BCNR fan now knows, I learned of how Isaac Wood left the band mere days before the album’s release, and thus my worshipping only grew more devout; after all, the best way to make something seem legendary is to ensure it can never be recreated.

Having never toured in support of their newest album, BCNR announced that they would not be looking for a new vocalist, and that vocal duties would instead be split amongst the band’s six other members. I was skeptical of this approach—after all, Isaac Wood, at least in my estimation, was the beating and bleeding heart that made Ants from Up There so visceral. But I’ll be the first to admit that BCNR truly surprised me with 2023’s Live at Bush Hall. Despite coming across more like a playlist than a cohesive album, with each track’s vocals being taken by a different member of the band, Live at Bush Hall showed that Black Country, New Road could in fact exist, at least in some form, without Isaac as frontman. Since then, two years have passed, and BCNR has been hard at work. This time a bona fide studio album was the result; its name is Forever Howlong.

Vocal and songwriting duties have been split between the band’s three female members Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery, and May Kershaw, and immediately Forever Howlong distinguishes itself from its forerunners. Where Ants from Up There featured a distinctly masculine perspective, not just in the sense of Isaac’s vocals but in his choice of lyrical content, and where Live at Bush Hall seemed to thrive on the juxtaposition between the masculine and feminine perspectives, Forever Howlong narrows in on the feminine. In tracks like “Mary” and “Nancy Tries to Take the Night,” we see our heroines struggle against the trappings of domesticity and rebel when the opportunities arise. But in tracks like “Two Horses” and “For the Cold Country,” we see our same¹ heroines, struggling to get by on their own. This fuzziness of conviction can be found everywhere on the album, from the lyrics and instrumentals to the album’s overall flow.

Instrumentally, Forever Howlong continues to chart the depths of post-punky baroque pop that BCNR has plumbed across its discography. However, Forever Howlong differs from its predecessors primarily in its lack of set piece instrumental sections. The closest we ever get to such a moment is the drone work on “For the Cold Country” and the ostinato work on “Nancy Tries to Take the Night,” but even those moments feel as though they are in service to the vocals. In fact, Forever Howlong is more vocally driven than any other BCNR release. Tracks like “Socks” rely exclusively on vocals as propellant and slide dangerously close to stagnant as the vocals slip tastefully in and out of tune, while other cuts like the title track follow the vocals more literally with bits of diegetic silence. 

Such a strong focus on driving vocals can only succeed when the production is top-notch, and Forever Howlong has that department more than covered. BCNR has never had any production issues, but this new album blows their previous output out of the water. Layers come and go like tissue paper and gossamer, yet in conjunction they become full and succulent. Even as the vocals come in at barely a whisper, there can be heard tinkling piano, noodling sax, and tasteful tom fills, each adding their own frisson-inducing texture. Like any great art pop, this is an album best enjoyed with your fullest attention as each note rings out crystal clear.

The only hangup I have with Forever Howlong is its flow. Each track leading up to the double whammy of “For the Cold Country” and “Nancy Tries to Take the Night” feels like a piece in a carefully constructed staircase of intensity that ultimately climaxes in glorious splendor, and then there’s two tracks that come after. On their own, the title track and “Goodbye (Don’t Tell Me)” are perfectly fine, both continuing the trend of tasteful and delicate art pop that defined the album’s front half, but when viewing them as part of Forever Howlong I can’t help but see them as outliers of an otherwise well defined rising trendline. The real issue here is that I don’t think a simple rearrangement of tracks would have fixed this; had the final two tracks instead been somewhere in the album’s front half, I’d probably instead be complaining that the album was a bit samey with the only major impacts occurring in its final few tracks, and simply removing tracks never feels like a satisfying solution in an already lean album. I understand that not all albums need to climax on their final track, but it is far and away my preference when it comes to album flow. At the end of the day though, this is a minor gripe, and maybe I’ll come to enjoy the two closing tracks with time.

The more I sit and listen to Forever Howlong, and the more I try to compare it to Ants from Up There, the more I realize what a fruitless endeavor that is. Where Live from Bush Hall seemed to be defined by the absence of Isaac Wood, Forever Howlong is its own invention, and in its delicate nooks and crannies, it forges a new identity for Black Country, New Road. As someone who once shut out entire genres in favor of brutality and extremity, it’s albums like these that make me glad I’ve changed my ways. While Forever Howlong may not reach the same mythical heights as Ants from Up There, it carves a new space entirely—one softer, stranger, and equally beautiful.

Recommended tracks: Two Horses, For the Cold Country, Nancy Tries to Take the Night
You may also like: Eunuchs, The Orchestra (For Now), Maruja
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Ninja Tune – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Black Country, New Road is:
– Tyler Hyde (bass, lead vocals)
– Lewis Evans (saxophone, flute, backing vocals)
– Georgia Ellery (violin, mandolin, guitars, backing and lead vocals)
– May Kershaw (keyboards, piano, accordion, backing and lead vocals)
– Charlie Wayne (drums, percussion, banjo, backing vocals)
– Luke Mark (guitars, backing vocals)

1. It’s unclear whether this album is conceptual. BCNR has always toed that line. ︎

The post Review: Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Art pop, post-industrial (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Radiohead/Thom Yorke, Anathema, Einar Solberg, Lunatic Soul
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 12 July 2024

Anathema is easily one of, if not the, most emotional bands in prog I know of. While on the simpler end of the spectrum in terms of instrumental complexity, they had a special knack for getting the absolute maximum emotional impact out of their arrangements, lyrics, and vocal delivery. Sadly, however, the band had gone into indefinite hiatus for unclear reasons well before I got into their music. They played an immense part in processing the grief for the loss of my father two years ago, as well as providing an emotional outlet for a failed relationship—I can only imagine how cathartic it would have been to catch them live. Oh well, all things must pass, they say. Fortunately for me though, their frontman Vincent Cavanagh carried on the band’s spirit in his solo project The Radicant, whose debut EP We Ascend is also the subject of today’s review.

It should bring fellow Anathema fans some comfort that We Ascend is very much in line with the electronic direction the band had been pursuing on Distant Satellites and The Optimist. However, without the fellow tearjerker vocals of Lee Douglas and the instrumentation of the rest of the band, The Radicant is a far less emotionally explosive project, aiming instead for ethereal beauty, the fleeting emotions felt when watching the sunset. We Ascend is carried by dreamy synth layers, sparse piano usage, and electronic percussion; similarly, Vincent goes all in on the soft, ethereal vocals while leaving his rock mode at home. 

The title track opener best exemplifies this, building the texture from light piano keys and rustling synths that fall upon my ears like rays of sunshine to a full body experience sonic cushion of warmth and light up above the clouds—meanwhile Vincent goes for a vulnerable approach at first and guest singer Sarah Derat focuses on texture, but later they come together to harmonize “ascend” as the ethereal synth layers explode. The song’s one-word chorus makes for a very effective opener, and its crescendo structure is of course deeply familiar for Anathema fans. Similarly, the closer “Stowaway” sets out to let you cozily drift off into the sunset on waves of increasingly enveloping lush synths—still adhering to the familiar post-rock structure but less explosive and more contemplative in nature. 

But not all is lush and fluffy—the middle tracks provide some more bite to the EP. “Zero Blue (NSS Mix)” is centered around drum and bass style percussion by Daniel Cardoso, giving it a more active character that strongly recalls tracks like “Leaving it Behind” or “Can’t Let Go” from The Optimist, while “Anchor” starts quietly but explodes with another hard backbeat and ominous industrial synths. “Wide Steppe” gives us more lush crescendo-core—something which admittedly is a tad overdone on this EP—but the anxious synths that start to underpin the track halfway through bring back tension and its psychedelic sound design keeps it fresh. 

While, compared to late Anathema, The Radicant isn’t on the same level of explosive emotional potency, I do think We Ascend shows a lot of promise and creative growth in its approach to  textural electronic songwriting. Vincent Cavanagh still clearly knows how to wring a tear from his  listeners, he’s just more subdued with it this time. I’ll be looking forward to an eventual full length release with this project; after all, it’s been far too long without my favorite melancholy dealer around. 

Recommended tracks: We Ascend, Stowaway
You may also like: Midas Fall, Alora Crucible, Silent Skies, i Häxa
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RYM page

Label: KScope Music – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

The Radicant is:
– Vincent Cavanagh (vocals, instruments, programming, artwork & design)

With other staff and guests:
– Ténèbre (instruments, programming, mixing)
– Sam John (mastering)
– Sarah Derat (vocals on “We Ascend” and “Stowaway”)
– Amy Wood (vocals on “Wide Steppe”)
– Daniel Cardoso (drums on “Zero Blue (NSS Mix)”)

The post Review: The Radicant – We Ascend appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: post-rock, art pop, shoegaze, indie folk, noise, post-metal, indie rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Parannoul, Turquoisedeath, Toninho Horta, Mount Eerie, Godspeed! You Black Emperor
Country: Brazil
Release date: 8 March 2024

The internet is a magical place where everybody has a voice; the sacristy of anonymity, a platform for self-promotion. Unfortunately, as with most good things, the hipsters have taken it over, and the inability to dox them for their stupid-ass opinions is a shame. The music world has always had a propensity for pretension (myself included), but Rateyourmusic is a true cesspool for it—though I admit it is an excellent tool for finding music if you can ignore its users’ frequent foolishness. In these weird internet echo-chambers, unexpected styles surf the zeitgeist—the chart for this year currently ranges the gamut from neotraditional country to wildly vitriolic dissonant black metal to sick industrial hip-hop from Brazil—far afield from what you’d naturally find unless you’re another one of those terminally online freaks. While some of the most popular music of all time nary makes an appearance on the RYM charts, a strange conglomerate of hipster-y mixes of indie folk, post-rock, and shoegaze consistently seem to soar high: acts like Parannoul, Turquoisedeath, Boris, and Mount Eerie don’t maintain much mass appeal, but if you only trawled the music interwebs, you’d probably think they’re bigger than Queen and Aerosmith combined (they’re not).

Samlrc is born of this movement, and I’d have never found her music had the weird nerds not pushed her to number one on their chart of the best albums of the year for a week. At just nineteen years old, Sam shows artistic maturity, ability, and vision across A Lonely Sinner, and for once I’m thankful for the RYM people being able to vote for their hipster nonsense! Besides cues from all sorts of RYM-core music—from Björk to Merzbow to the Silent Hill 2 OST to being a furry—how did Samlrc climb to the top of the chart?

A Lonely Sinner tugs at the heartstrings with simple lyrics about the nature of love, swirling synths, dreamy guitars, and post-rock crescendos galore. Sam’s sincerity in the performance comes through, and the production is extremely intimate. Tracks like “Philautia”—which progresses from minimalist folk to cheeky electronica to an indie folk strumming section that’s supremely pleasant all the way up to a massive buildup—and “Storge”—working with breakbeat drums, metal heft, and spoken word—are explorative yet unified, raw yet beautiful. With the exception of “Sheep Theme” which leans into a bland indie rock pattern for far too long, the songwriting throughout A Lonely Sinner consistently impresses, constantly evolving trying to wring all the emotion out of you it can. Sam’s lilting voice and the gentle acoustic sections can be rather gorgeous, and the sections with fuller percussion and grand movements toward powerful crescendos are sublime. The absolute highlight of the album, though, has to be the final climax of “For M.” with a heart-wrenching violin solo—utterly stunning writing and performance redolent of Bruit ≤. Finally, despite not being a furry, the story is cutesy and easy to follow for those of you into such things, and the music matches the relative lyrical intensity well, matching the peaks and valleys of the story. 

Although I praised Sam’s singing, it is the weakest chain in the album, taking a similarly depressed indie folk tone as Phil Elverum, and although it fits the style to a tee, it’s not my preferred mode and feels unrefined (noticeably so when compared to her songwriting and instrumental ability). Occasionally, the instrumental tones also sound meek, particularly in slower indie folk sections and the aforementioned indie rock track. These things can be forgiven given the bedroom recording, but they do detract from A Lonely Sinner overall. Finally, the metal section of “Storge” sounds like if somebody who didn’t know metal except via RYM’s weirdly blind-spotted taste in the genre tried to write metal, and it’s not very convincing to somebody more in tune with the genre’s pulse. I appreciate the attempt at a heavier section as a contrast to the lighter folk and shoegaze, but while the obvious passion and knowledge Sam has for the other genres comes through in the songwriting—she’s clearly a passionate student and lover of music—I think a bit more polish on the heavier aspects of A Lonely Sinner would go a long way as the riffs and tones are bland. 

I’m glad a young artist like this has exploded in popularity even if it’s in a niche community because Sam is incredibly skilled, passionate, and has a bright future composing. With a bit more refinement, the formula of A Lonely Sinner could produce a stunning indie folk album for the ages. Regardless, I’m very impressed by Samlrc and am glad I still check RYM religiously despite my reservations about the internet. Maybe I am a hipster after all… (just kidding, this was never in doubt).

Recommended tracks: Philautia, Flowerfields, For M.
You may also like: Bruit ≤, Yo, An Elephant Sitting Still (OST)
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Label: independent

Samlrc is:
– Sam (everything)

The post Review: Samlrc – A Lonely Sinner appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Contemporary classical, baroque pop, chamber jazz (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Roomful of Teeth, Vienna Teng, Laufey, Bjork
Review by: Ian
Country: Canada
Release date: 17 November, 2013

I have been informed by my Subway superiors that my habit of waxing rhapsodical in thousand-plus-word reviews is unsustainable, and that brevity is the soul of wit, as it were. While I do prefer to err on the side of verbosity and detail in describing an album, part of me does see their point. Not every album needs a full college essay’s worth of prose describing its every nook and cranny—sometimes it just isn’t that deep, bro. Album good, album bad, album mid. Why say many word when few word do trick? Now let’s see what I’ve got next… a through-composed, tonally dense, sixty-eight-minute opus incorporating a thirteen-piece orchestra, choirs, improvisational elements, spoken-word collages, and lyrics influenced by magical realism and Chinese mythology.

Fuck.

As that summary above indicated, star, star is an album with a lot to say. The brainchild of Toronto-based (at the time of recording anyway) vocalist and composer Mingjia Chen, it is technically her debut full-length, though this descriptor belies the sheer amount of musical projects she has joined or appeared alongside over the past five-plus years. And with one listen, it is immediately apparent that this album is the sound of a seasoned creative mind being let fully off its leash, with opener “Sane // the Dancer” dancing and reveling in breathless exultation amidst disparate musical threads, each presenting its own delightful surprise for the listener.

Sonically this album is a lush, kaleidoscopic cocktail of sounds that overall fits into the “contemporary classical” / “art music” umbrella, yet it makes numerous detours outside even that broad scope. With jazzy sax and clarinet solos (“moon II: dusk, dawn”), atonal interludes (“Sane // the Dancer”), passages of synths and electric guitar (“Losing // the Dancer II”), and some lovely guzheng playing courtesy of Chen herself (“moon 1: time is but a sound”), to say that there’s never a dull moment here is an understatement. The sheer number of musicians involved here means I can’t do my usual mention of everyone’s performance in turn, but the Tortoiseshell Orchestra all turn in impeccable performances, with Naomi McCarrell-Butler’s woodwinds, Ben Heard’s upright bass, and guest vocalist Việt being particular highlights. 

Within all of this, though, there is a solid singer-songwriter core, particularly within the more accessible tracks like “**-*” and “Everything Looks Prettier from Afar”, which recall elements of the eclectic, yearning chamber-pop sound of Vienna Teng and the retro mid-century stylings of Laufey. Yet Chen is never content to make just a pop song, and soon, even the softer, more intimate moments are swept up in grandiose flights of melodic and compositional fancy that often flex her jaw-dropping high soprano range. She’s an incredible vocalist in general, with an astoundingly agile, lovely tone perfect for conveying the complex melange of emotions that run throughout the album.

Speaking of complex emotions, I could write a whole thesis on this album’s lyrics alone. They cast a dizzying arc from the sweeping and cosmic to the small and searingly personal, ranging from a distinctly uncomfortable age-gap romance in “**-*” to a gorgeously abstract painting of a relationship’s rise and fall in the four-part “moon” suite. It’s an album about love, sure, but also the contradictions, flaws, and uncertainties that run through every ugly and holy human being. It’s about the many little distances we put between ourselves and the searing joy and pain of existence, whether through metaphor, religion, storytelling, or the simple passage of time. 

So far as storytelling goes, though, we need to address the spoken word sections throughout, which form my only gripe with Star, Star. While some are welcome additions to the soundscape and lyricism alike, particularly the harrowing, sung-spoken monologue buried in the climax of “moon IV”, having them take center stage in “& Then” feels like a bit of a misstep. Though the underlying layers of strings and winds are playfully complex enough to keep things interesting, hearing various voices ramble on about things like there only being “three stars in the universe”, for me, tips the balance of the album’s concept from “fascinating” to “pretentious” for a brief moment and saps its pacing.

Minor quibble aside, Star, Star is an incredibly beautiful album in every dimension, and my favorite Subway-eligible release of the year. At once fiendishly complex and strangely accessible, deeply personal yet somehow universal, this album blends its contradictions with shocking ease. Like an Escher painting, it pulls off feats of melodic geometry that should, in reality, be impossible, yet in its dreamlike story realm, everything seems to just make sense, and from a distance, the picture comes together to something bewildering yet pleasant. Everything does look prettier from afar, after all.

Recommended tracks: Sane // The Dancer, Losing // The Dancer II, Saint, moon IV: the birds could not sit still
You may also like: iamthemorning, James Fernando, Exploring Birdsong, Gleb Kolyadin
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Instagram

Mingjia is:
– Mingjia Chen (vocals, guzheng, electronics)

The Tortoiseshell Orchestra is:
Tom Upjohn (conductor)
Anh Phung (flute)
Jeff Larochelle (clarinet, flute)
Naomi Brigid Mccarroll-Butler (bass clarinet, alto flute, alto saxophone)
Aaron Paris (violin)
Meghan Cheng (violin)
Clara Nguyen-Tran (viola)
Jill Sauerteig (cello on tracks 1-2, 4-11)
Evan Lamberton (cello on tracks 3 & 12)
Ben Heard (upright bass)
Ewen Farncombe (piano, synth)
Jillana Nickel (vibraphone, glockenspiel)
Mark Ritter (electric, nylon string, & acoustic guitars)

The post Review: Mingjia – star, star appeared first on The Progressive Subway.