INTERVIEW – BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL

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 […]
When I was growing up in England, bagpipes were often subjected to ridicule. Whilst this could in part have been due to their tonal contrast with conventional pop music of the time, there may have also been the unthinking residue of anti-Scottish prejudice that led to the instrument’s widespread mockery. Fortunately, in recent months, Glitterbeat […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL: SUNWISE

LIVE REVIEW – SPARKS: MANCHESTER APOLLO – 22/06/2025

David Bowie’s 1972 appearance on Top of the Pops with ‘Starman’ is usually cited as the ultimate transformative performance on the show. As someone who was a couple of years too young for Bowie, Sparks’ debut with ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ seemed similarly iconic. Whilst the seven-year-old me might not […]
There is always unadulterated glee running through Silent Radio’s suite of luxury offices when a new BC Camplight album is announced. His most recent classic, ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’, was our album of 2023 and the culmination of a run of four records dating back to 2014’s ‘How To Die in the North’ that […]

ALBUM REVIEW – BC CAMPLIGHT: A SOBER CONVERSATION

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