Steel & Oil

Fredrik Kinbom’s second album Oil is expressive and cinematic. Andrew Darley talks to him about his creative process and how a drunken encounter on a bus in Brighton brought him to the instrument that has shaped his music since.

“I find it much more expressive than a normal guitar. The fact that there are no frets, its sensitivity to touch, turns it into it a more direct expressive instrument … like the human voice.”

Music 2013.

From lo-fi to hi-fi, piano to punk rock, this is a selection of Polari Magazine’s Favourite Music of 2013.

[rating=4]
Released May 27, 2013
Upon Ayr by Fletcher. Marcus Reeves is impressed by Ben Fletcher’s debut album, which has great sensitivity, feeling and authenticity. .

“If this is what Fletcher can produce by polishing up his ‘demos’, it would be interesting to see what he might do with a big budget, but it is perhaps the limitations imposed on the recordings and his ‘one man band’ aesthetic that has made the album such an impressive and focused collection..”

[rating=5]
Released April 8, 2013
Sarah Blasko’s fourth album explores the joys and struggles involved in finding oneself, and is her best yet.

“I Awake is Sarah Blasko’s most fully-realised and compelling offering to date. The album is expansive in its approach, the music and the sentiments she devolves through it. Her writing has reached a place where it holds a mirror up to herself and her audience.”

[rating=4]
Released April 2, 2012

Debut release from Autralian supergroup Seeker Lover Keeper.

“This collection of songs contains some beautiful, heart wrenching and interesting material.”