REVIEWS – The Shonk

Adonis Blues, The new album by Ta Malaka Matia

Adonis Blues is the latest release from Newport’s avant-garde duo Ta Malaka Matia. It’s a jaunty journey through the mind of Steven George Jones, built on a foundation of idiosyncratic drums laid down by dyspraxic-cripple […]

Winter Parade in an Empire of Forgetting – LMOTM

Jacob Richards-Powell

Do you believe in prophecy? In songs that write the future before you live it? Maybe that’s what it is. It’s not a memory. It’s a blueprint. It’s called Winter Parade in an Empire […]

Aldous Harding, The Beacon Bristol

Jacob Richards-Powell

As the Beacon filled, Aldous Harding wanders onstage and took her place at the centre of a neat semicircleof musicians, all facing her with quiet reverence. The return of the punk rock stare and cowboy […]

No Wave Bliss, Chef’s Kiss Sensor Ghost Irritation on Demand

Jacob Richards-Powell

Hooked by the playful guffaw of the title track, Irritation on Demand I sought the album. Between September and Christmas it shot its way up the list of ‘most listened albums of 2025’ here at […]

Egg Spectrum’s Stinky Sketchbook 2025

Jacob Richards-Powell

Responding to someone’s request on Facebook to ‘review their latest album’ can be dangerous territory. I vowed never to do it again, since most of the stuff I hear, I can’t articulate words for, holistic […]

His Name is Jim E. Brown and the name of this article is ‘Jim E Brown might be this generation’s Gerard Hoffnung

Jacob Richards-Powell

Rising to the surface like a fart in the bathtub, ‘Beans on Toast’ by Jim E Brown started playing on one of the weekly playlists we cycle through – I remember exactly where I was, […]

LC Pumpkin & The Joy of Diegesis

Jacob Richards-Powell

I’m at the 2025 Skynet LAN event and due to requiring an update the software that I use that strips ads from my Facebook feed isn’t working properly. As a result, certain adverts are creeping […]

POP DONE RIGHT BUT WITH A WINKY FACE – THE VANITY PROJECT

dukeofearl

Once in a blue moon we stumble across an album that makes us sit up right, pay attention and think ‘fuck this is how it should be done’ – a flawless collection of hits that […]

PERIPHERAL OBSERVATIONS OF A FRESHLY-SHAVEN CYNIC

Department Of Input

One of the many things the scribe gets off on when attending a ‘cultural event’ is watching from the side lines the secondary features outside of the reason he payed a lot of money to […]

EXPLORING NEW NEWPORT’S NEW MARKET

Jacob Richards-Powell

Following a soft opening, Newport Market officially re-opened on 19 March 2022. Boasting a full occupancy, new businesses, eateries as well as a total overhaul on the building costing between five and six million pounds. […]

The Shonk 2026