ALBUM REVIEW: BLUE STATES – WORLD CONTACT DAY
Music has had a long relationship with space, dating back to Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’ through pop music’s early dabbling, such as The Tornados’ ‘Telstar’ and David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, all the way through to Hannah Peel’s ‘Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia’. Because space conjures ideas of mystery, connection, imagination, infinity and the intangible, it makes for a natural bedfellow with music. ‘World Contact Day’ refers to 15th March, the... Read More
Silent Radio – 15/03/2022 – Freebie Jeebies
Another hour of pay-what-you-like gems picked and introduced by Ian Burke. As always, listen, enjoy, and show whatever love you have available to the artists making music you like. Cover star this week is Julia-Sophie TRACK LISTING Julia-Sophie – Dial Your Number / Chris Farren – Death Don’t Wait (Main Title) / Good Morning – Country / Candy – Challenger Deep / New Goo – Afraid Again / HAAI – Bodies of Water / Persica... Read More
FEATURE: CERAMIC ANIMAL – NEW ALBUM PRODUCED BY DAN AUERBACH OF THE BLACK KEYS
Ceramic Animal play a blues inspired rock that caught the ear of Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, who liked them so much he signed them to his own Easy Eye Sound label, and has produced their latest album ‘Sweet Unknown’. Hailing from Pennsylvania, the band create a lush densely melodic sound, somewhere between War On Drugs and Tame Impala yet with their own blues rock twist running throughout. The band were formed after brothers Chris (vocals, guitar) Erik (drums)... Read More
ALBUM REVIEW: THE MONOCHROME SET – ALLHALLOWTIDE
When you can count Iggy Pop, Johnny Marr, Jarvis Cocker as fans, you know you must be doing something right. After more than forty years of music making The Monochrome Set are back again with their sixteenth studio album. From the opening refrains of title track ‘Allhallowtide’ the chamber pop tone for the rest of the album has been set pretty high, with the baroque vocals of frontman Brid straddling the gap between Scott Walker and the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon.... Read More
LIVE REVIEW: THE CORAL – ALBERT HALLS
I can clearly remember where I was when I first heard The Coral, at home tuned into the radio in 2002, the magnificent ‘Skeleton Key’ blasted out with all its frantic rhythms and psychedelic induced melodies, and so began my musical love affair with the scouse musical magicians. They created the kind of melodies and rhythms that most wouldn’t come up with in a million years, yet they were still only teenagers when they wrote that and the rest of their debut album! Fast... Read More
ALBUM REVIEW: JOHNNY MARR – FEVER DREAMS PTS 1-4
Johnny Marr’s Crazy Face studio sounds like a great place, an old warehouse, somewhere in the Mancunian suburbs, its industrialist past now given way to a creative future. It’s where, during the last year, Marr’s album ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4’ has taken shape. Most of the song writing was done by just Marr on his own, although you can’t help thinking that the building itself and its concrete expansiveness has lent a hand, as there’s... Read More
Silent Radio – 09/03/2022 – Freebie Jeebies
An hour of Ian Burke’s picks from the myriad of music available in exchange for any amount of money or love you deem necessary. Cover stars this week are Home Counties. TRACK LISTING Home Counties – Village Spirit / TW Walsh – Daylight / Soralia – Pores / Sasami – Make it Right / This Heel – Baby War Helmet / Grupo Pisse y Las Hermanas Martinez – No Siento Nada / Valore – Communion at the Union / The Reds, Pinks... Read More
ALBUM REVIEW: METRONOMY – SMALL WORLD
In 2011, Metronomy released ‘The English Riviera’ which stands as one of the 21st Century’s landmark albums, blending Joseph Mount’s earlier creative dance music with sophisticated pop in a loose concept album that reenvisaged Torquay as an elegant resort. Like Magnetic Fields after ’69 Love Songs’ or Sufjan Stevens with ‘Illinois’, the problem becomes how to follow such an immense, career-defining album. While subsequent releases have been good in isolation and... Read More
LIVE: BIG THIEF – 24/02/2022
– Academy, Manchester – Big Thief Magical bands do not come along that often. To be a magical band, you have to have an alchemy that is almost undefinable, a mysterious quality that’s all but impossible to put your finger on, something that no other combination of people could achieve, something not even an infinite amount of monkeys given an infinite amount of guitars and drums could replicate. Big Thief, in case you haven’t already deduced, are absolutely one... Read More
Silent Radio – 01/03/2022 – Freebie Jeebies
Ian Burke selects another hour of pay-what-you-like music from around the world. Listen, enjoy, discover your new favourite. This week’s cover stars are Petite League. TRACK LISTING Petite League – Floating Blue / Alexis 744 – Robotic Hope (feat. Fvert) / Danz CM – Breaking Point / Cœur-joie – Dimi l’étoile / A Lesser Version – Sylvia / Hyche – Reversal / Wild Cat Strike – Satellite Towns / Natalie Evans... Read More
