“While listening to this, and contemplating the automobile artwork, you sit with ears and senses open, waiting for some guitar hook or divine melody to capture you and force you to hit repeat. It doesn’t come. See, it sounds like a pop release, but that’s the trick! Once you realise this you can begin appreciating Unknown Knowns for the interweaving guitars and all the space used by the drawn out arrangements as the mini-album/extended EP sublimely unfolds.”

Drum Media

Excerpt: “While the material Oxfordshire-born Anthony Saggers has thus far released has been modest in amount, there is still enough that a Stray Ghost ‘sound’ has come into focus. The two full-lengths he’s issued, 2008’s Losthilde on Highpointlowlife Records and 2009’s An Avalanche of Swollen Tongues on Dead Pilot, opt for an uncompromising dark ambient style that can make the listener feel as if he/she has been spirited away on a one-way tour through Hell—memorable recordings, for sure, but not what you’d call calm-inducing. All of which makes Each Paradise is a Lost Paradise, Saggers’ first Stray Ghost release (and digital-only release) for Hidden Shoal, such a pleasant surprise: in diametric contrast to the nightmarish ambiance of the album releases, the EP’s three settings are becalmed and beatific. In contrast to a downward trajectory, the direction is now upwards, with some heavenly paradise the implied destination.”

Textura

Excerpt: “Now the Loam Arcane EP has finally arrived. And it gives even more than the sparkling single said. Loam Arcane EP opens brutally with the disturbed ‘FanFin’, with it’s whipping cold beats and almost frantic vocal, that still manages to be joyously vivid… Even though none of the other tracks are as sunny-winter-day-sparkling as ‘Rainbirds’, the Loam Arcane EP is still the sound of this dark and cold season. In the absolute best, and harmonic terms of understanding it.”

Luna Kafe

Excerpt: “What elevates City Of Satellites’ dream pop above others’ takes on the style is the urgency driving the nine songs on Machine Is My Animal, the group’s follow-up to its debut EP The Spook… Though the group includes only two members, Adelaide resident Jarrod Manuel (vocals, guitars, synthesizers) and Sydney-based Thomas Diakomichalis (drums, synthesizers, programming), Machine Is My Animal nevertheless comes off sounding like songs played by a live band… Listening to the album, it quickly becomes clear that shoegaze is an obvious wellspring for the group, but one also hears traces of both ’80s synth-pop (OMD, for example) and New Wave in City Of Satellites’ pristine, analogue sound.”

Textura