ALBUM: Officer Kicks – Citywide Curfew

Several things annoy me deeply about this album. Firstly there’s the typeface ripped off the Libertines. It suggests, correctly, a complete lack of originality, and worse still that we’re faced with yet another imitation landfill indie band. It was a depressing prospect two years ago, and now it’s reached suicidal levels. And then there’s the […]
Starkey raises the bar to new heights with this release. His second studio album to date “Ear Drums & Black Holes” is nothing short of perfect and reinforces why Starkey, the pioneer of his self coined “Street Bass” sound, is at the top of his game right now. The album shines through the saturated world of […]

ALBUM: Starkey – Ear Drums & Black Holes

ALBUM: Mr Fogg – Moving Parts

In Jules Verne’s famed novel Phileas Fogg is an isolated character, a man obsessed by routine and order who breaks from a lifetime of conformity to win a twenty thousand pound wager.  He is a cold character who rarely displays any emotion but full belief in his cause.  It is therefore appropriate that a man […]
I’ll never forget the first time I heard a Noisia track. I literally stopped mid sentence. I was so gripped by what I was hearing. The track stood out like a sore thumb and everything else I heard that night paled in comparison. It was so crisp, so precise, structured so perfectly. How do you […]

ALBUM: Noisia – Split the Atom

ALBUM: Michael Fakesch – Exchange

German based Michael Fakesch is one half of the now defunct duo Funkstörung (translated to Radio Interference) with ex-partner, Chris De Luca. Back in 1992 the pair invested in a Roland TR808 & Roland TB303 and set out to make some noise. Eighteen years on they’ve had a fruitful career with numerous releases on a […]
The Chameleons have long been relegated to the position of footnote in the history of Manchester music, despite being the greatest band to ever emerge from Middleton.  They have become the Gaugin to the Stone Roses Van Gough, the Salieri to the Smiths Mozart.  With this reissue of the seminal 1985 album ‘What Does Anything […]

ALBUM: The Chameleons – What Does Anything Mean? Basically

ALBUM: We Have Band – WHB

I’m still not too sure whether I want to be friends with We Have Band. He (she, whatever) is a little bit pretentious. He sings like a version of Guy Garvey who hasn’t spent his life drinking beer and eating cigarettes in The Temple or Big Hands. There are chasms of hidden depth, but there’s […]
North Atlantic Oscillation, sounds like the technical name for a cyclonic Inuit dance doesn’t it, when in fact it’s a climactic phenomenon that controls the strength and direction of westerly winds and storm tracks across the North Atlantic. In this case it’s also the name of a fascinating, experimental rock band from Scotland – not known […]

ALBUM: North Atlantic Oscillation – Grappling Hooks

ALBUM: Goldfrapp – Head First

Where Goldfrapp’s fourth album, “Seventh Tree”, marked a refreshing departure into ambient, acoustic territory, their fifth, Head First, finds the band travelling back in time to the 1980’s. This is no better exemplified than by “I Wanna Life”, forgettable synth pop cheese whose influences one could attribute to any of a number of low-rent 80s […]
Butler Williams sound like a couple of nice guys.  Their voices are soothing and mellow and their parts merge so peacefully that it is often impossible to distinguish where one starts and the other one finishes. This is their second release to date and for two guys who are known for performances which give a bit […]

ALBUM: Butler Williams – Save it for Someone Else EP