Album Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Live From KCRW

Live albums are an acquired taste. What you usually get is a collection of your favourite songs jumbled together and performed inferiorly to their originals. Furthermore, a live album isn’t live per say, you have to be there for it to be live, and if you’re not it’s a bit like reading a live review […]
With the expensive Italian suits, perfectly trimmed beard and collection of exotic girlfriends (and even more exotic cars), it’s perhaps easy to fall into a trap, forgetting that Clapton was once one extremely cool bluesman.  As the graffiti put it: ‘Clapton is God’.  For a while it seemed the celestial one had indeed returned, and […]

Album Review: Eric Clapton – Give Me Strength

Album Review: Midlake – Antiphon

Having started in 1999 and already been through a roster of line up changes, Antiphon is the fourth album from Midlake. Arguably with the most important line up change to date, this album is the first without frontman Tim Smith. Unlike many bands who lose a front man, Midlake have not broken up and fallen […]
The first thing I heard about New Zealand’s Connan Mockasin was the fact that he listened to  his own music exclusively, the one exception from this habit being a Metronomy single given to him by his manager. This was then listened to at the wrong speed for a prolonged period of time due to the fact […]

Album Review: Connan Mockasin – Caramel

Album Review: The Wave Pictures – City Forgiveness

The infamous double album…there are not many other things in the music industry that tend to be so hit and miss. They normally come about after an extra special spark in creativity or are written in tribute to something close to the band. The Wave Pictures 5th long player is a mixture of both. Whilst […]
For those of you who don’t know, Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip (or dlsvsSP, as I will incorrectly refer to them) are a pair of lads from Essex, who collaborate to make some form of urban. The ignorance at the end of the last sentence is only partly feigned, though there is enough spoken […]

Album Review: Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip – Repent, Replenish, Repeat

Album Review: Anna Calvi – One Breath

I recall a pub conversation with a friend at Christmas time. I believe the year was 2011, and we were each naming our favourite gig of the year and attempting to explain what it was that we liked so much about it. I think I used the words “hands down” in declaring that Calvi’s gig […]
The three Californian sisters that seem to be everywhere right now have finally dropped their long awaited debut album Days Are Gone. They already have a string of hit singles, massive tours and a Glastonbury main stage set under their belt, and since their debut three-track EP, Forever, Haim has been the word on everyone’s […]

Album Review: Haim – Days Are Gone

Album Review: Cuushe – Butterfly Case

For a pianist to adopt a chillwave sound for her sophomore album, a form of music often associated with amateur bedroom musicians, would seem like a dumbed-down shot at accessibility, and ultimately this album follows that lead, with sprinklings of beautiful musicianship along the way, just increasing the frustration of what could have been. To put […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – After walking in Gorilla to find Samaris’ lead singer of just nineteen rushing through her homework, it was hard not to expect an uptight performance tonight, mirroring the Icelandic band’s young age, with the three-piece barely touching twenty. However, clarinet player, Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir, explained to me after the gig, how the […]

LIVE: SAMARIS – 24/09/2013