NTTR - No Time to Review

With Cabin in the Sky , De La Soul return after nearly a decade of silence with a record shaped by memory, loss, and continuity. The album carries the imprint of Trugoy the Dove’s passing, yet it refuses to fold into mourning. Instead, it balances commemoration with movement, reflection with vitality, and reverence with creative curiosity. It feels like a document built to honor the past without being trapped by it. Across its generous runtime, Cabin in the Sky deploys a wide constellation of producers and guests—Nas, Q-Tip, Common, Killer Mike, Black Thought—ensuring that each track sits at a slightly different angle to the group’s core aesthetic. The beats oscillate between warm soul, crisp boom-bap, jazz-inflected loops, and brighter, celebratory backdrops. This breadth gives the album momentum but also makes it function less as a singular narrative and more as a curated anthology of moods, ideas, and voices. Moments featuring Trugoy’s posthumous contributions are among the most ...

With Touch , Tortoise return to the studio with a refinement that feels both inevitable and quietly radical. The Chicago ensemble has always operated at the intersection of post-rock, jazz, and experimental minimalism; here, those vectors align into some of their most intricate and spatially aware compositions in years. The album opens with tension carved from rhythm. Bass pulses, interlocking percussion, and geometric synth patterns establish a mood that is neither aggressive nor relaxed, but analytical, almost architectural. As the record expands, Tortoise explore a spectrum that moves from subtle ambient shading to full-bodied jazz-fusion interplay. The precision of the arrangements stands out: each layer is deliberate, each motif carefully balanced, each silence purposeful. What distinguishes Touch from the band’s earlier landmarks is its focus on atmosphere over catharsis. The crescendos are understated, the emotional arcs implied rather than declared. Synth tones linger like l...

Strawberries finds Robert Forster moving through familiar terrain with renewed ease: warm guitars, measured tempos, storytelling rooted in everyday observations — but with a band whose presence adds quiet weight and occasional sweep. The record opens with “Tell It Back To Me”, a jangly pop-rock number sprinkled with harmonica and gentle guitar interplay that echoes the breezy charm of his past. The tone is amiable, easygoing — an entry point that invites attention without demanding immersion. Tracks such as “Good To Cry” and “All Of The Time” continue in that vein, blending rock, folk and roots-tinged instrumentation with Forster’s dry but evocative lyricism. Yet the centerpiece is “Breakfast On The Train”: an almost eight-minute narrative that unfolds slowly, acoustic guitar first, then subtle band additions — piano, keys, gentle rhythm — pushing the track toward a quietly cinematic climax. Its story — a night of connection, fleeting romance — becomes vivid in Forster’s voice, grou...