ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 20 JUNE 2025

The Sick Man of Europe        The Sick Man of Europe        Their name connects the current post-Brexit landscape to the austerity of Thatcherite Britain and the social conditions that shaped the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division. These are touchstones for TSMOE, but the influence and discipline of Neu!, Suicide and Swans are just as intrinsic […]
When an artist has been in the public eye for nearly four decades like Kim Deal, her audience brings a bundle of memories to her shows. In my case, that includes a first encounter in spring 1988 when Pixies were touring with Throwing Muses. In hindsight, it seems unimaginable that such a dream double bill […]

LIVE REVIEW – KIM DEAL: NEW CENTURY HALL – 17/06/2025

ALBUM REVIEW – U.S. GIRLS: SCRATCH IT

“You gotta dance til you feel better.” So begins ‘Like James Said’, the James Brown quoting opener to Meg Remy’s latest album as U.S. Girls, ‘Scratch It’. While it might be more appropriate to categorise the nine tracks that comprise the record as hyper-emotional pop music, they also occasionally scratch the urge to dance. “Stretch […]
If you were a teenager in the early to mid-2010s you would have heard the song ‘She Looks so Perfect relentlessly throughout every radio station, and a repeat of this with “Youngblood.” However, now is the time for the band 5 Seconds of Summer, or 5sos, who created those songs to go their own separate […]

ALBUM REVIEW – CALUM HOOD: CHAOS ORDER CHAOS

LIVE REVIEW – SPELLLING: YES PINK ROOM – 10/06/2025

For Ingrid Blood in your pee? Contact your GP practice. NHS’s memento mori. Quick wee before the start of the gig.  From Canada, Debby Friday opened the night accompanied by her DJ. As @IngridKern338 commented on Debby Friday’s 1/17 Youtube video:  Catchy music, exuberant joyful singing, love those clouds rollin’ on by, and extremely cute […]
A singular phrase kept creeping its way into my head whilst listening to Mellowmaker, Black Market Karma’s latest album. A phrase that I feel embodies the ethos and feeling of the LP. That phrase was “beauty in it’s imperfections”. Mellowmaker is an album that is aware it can’t be perfect, but revels in its differences, […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BLACK MARKET KARMA: MELLOWMAKER

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 13 JUNE 2025

Joe Armon-Jones        All The Quiet (part II)               Second of two distinct but conceptually linked albums find the London-based keyboardist, producer, songwriter and bandleader expanding his sound into new musical and sonic realms, assisted by a wealth of special guests including Nubya Garcia, Asheber, Greentea Peng, Wu Lu, Hak Baker […]
As someone born in the mid-2000s, I feel like I’m endlessly attempting to catch up with all the music that has gone before. This is where artists such as Van Morrison don’t help the situation with an excessive amount of musical output for the world to delve into. I don’t know whether to applaud this […]

ALBUM REVIEW – VAN MORRISON: REMEMBERING NOW

ALBUM REVIEW – LITTLE SIMZ: LOTUS

Little Simz’s genre-bending musical ability finds comfort on Lotus, a revenge-driven collection of angsty ballads that radiate fervently with an innovative sleekness. Lotus is a metaphor for betrayal, a message to the producer and childhood friend of Little Simz, Inflo, who has allegedly failed to repay her £1.7m in loans. Though their story is unfinished, […]
‘Long Pond Lily,’ the opening track to Hayden Pedigo’s latest album, ‘I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away,’ is a mesmerising piece of music. The Amarillo-born musician is no stranger to ‘mesmerising,’ that said: with each new project, Pedigo has honed his sound – exquisite acoustic guitar melodies plucked atop spacious, transportive sonics – and […]

ALBUM REVIEW – HAYDEN PEDIGO: I’LL BE WAVING AS YOU DRIVE AWAY