INTERVIEW: MANCHESTER PSYCHFEST RETURNS – WE CATCH UP WITH PROMOTERS NOW WAVE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS YEAR’S EVENT

Now Wave have been a fixture on the Manchester music scene for over a decade, putting on gigs by a variety of bands, both the more established ones and taking a chance on the newer bands too. Inventing a festival dedicated to the best new and established psychedelic bands around, Manchester Psych Fest is now […]
Having started out in their secondary school days in Mayo, Ireland, with Kyle Thornton on guitar and his mate Adam on drums, Nerves are now on the brink of a second EP that sees them pushing their eclectic, quaking noise-rock sound even further. “We were quite obviously going to end up forming a band,” Kyle […]

INTERVIEW – NERVES

INTERVIEW: PEA SEA – NEW ALBUM ‘A PYKE OF PATINA SLATE’ FEATURES COLLABORATIONS WITH PETER BREWIS (FIELD MUSIC) AND TOM ENGLISH (MAXIMO PARK)

A musician who celebrates the natural world, alongside tales of lovelorn characters and the downtrodden, all wrapped up in a fuzzy melodic coating or a delicately beautiful acoustic guitar sheen, Pea Sea is back! The new album ‘A Pyke Of Patina Slate’ features collaborations with Peter Brewis from Field Music and Tom English from Maximo […]
Here is the second song from Alejandro Burbano’s feature on new Ecuadorian music. Track review, árbol */|/*, by Latorre (2025) árbol */|/* (tree */|/*) is the last single from Renata Nieto under the monicker of LaTorre. In árbol */|/*, the singing voice lifts to mate with all the elements it encounters: sun, water, flowers and […]

FEATURE – ECUADORIAN MUSIC: PART TWO

INTERVIEW – CORY HANSON

With his fourth album ‘I Love People’, Cory Hanson gives the clearest example yet of his songwriting abilities, offering a beautifully arranged tunes that recall the melodic peaks of 1970s singer-songwriters. His solo career runs parallel to the different approach taken by his band, Wand, best known for their psychedelic explorations. To celebrate the pending […]
The third album from Scottish smallpipes player, Brighde Chaimbeul, is released on 27 June 2025. ‘Sunwise’ is a collection of original and traditional compositions that display the emotional power of the pipes. An artist who is open to collaboration, she has again worked with the saxophonist Colin Stetson on the record while she has also […]

INTERVIEW – BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL

FEATURE: BC CAMPLIGHT – STUNNING NEW ALBUM ‘A SOBER CONVERSATION’ OUT 27th JUNE. PLAYING MANCHESTER APOLLO 14TH NOVEMBER

The smell of delicious fresh coffee greets my nostrils as we make ourselves comfy at the BC Camplight kitchen table. It’s been two years since we last met, before the release of the brilliant ‘Last Rotation Of Earth’, and although much has changed since then, one thing remains a reassuring constant – Brian ‘BC Camplight’ […]
One of our Manchester-based writers, Alejandro Burbano, hails from Ecuador and recently proposed a feature on music from his homeland via a series of individual track reviews. Here is the first featured song. Track 1: El poder #1 (me quitas todo) by Letelefono (2025) Letelefono is the musical project of the Ecuadorian artist Leo Espinoza. […]

FEATURE – ECUADORIAN MUSIC – PART 1

INTERVIEW – AMMAR 808

  The latest album from Sufyann Ben Youssef under the moniker AMMAR 808, ‘Club Tounsi’, is a fearless display of heavy electronic rhythms combined with traditional Tunisian sounds. Ben Youssef’s back catalogue illustrates his alchemist’s skill in fusing disparate elements. His 2018 debut, ‘Maghreb United’, combined deep electronic elements with traditional North African instrumentalists, vocalists […]
Sometimes, a group can be so shape shifting and in such a state of constant musical flux that it can be hard to initially get to grips with them. That can be the only explanation as to why it took me so long to appreciate Trupa Trupa. It has taken their latest and most dynamic […]

INTERVIEW – TRUPA TRUPA