Album Review: Yann Tiersen – Skyline

Skyline is Yann Tiersen’s seventh album, so perhaps it’s uncharitable to kick off by saying he is still best remembered – especially on this side of La Manche – for his score of the movie Amelie. But Christ on a bike, what a soundtrack that was – one of the few soundtracks I have actually […]
The new Drums album is named after a 17th Century Italian word meaning a slide between two vocal pitches, an apt name for an album, which also slides from one mood to another. The first album, Summertime!, is a release the band describe as a concept album, that while visceral and fun, lacked depth. This […]

Album Review: The Drums – Portamento

Album Review: A Winged Victory For The Sullen – A Winged Victory For The Sullen

While primal guitar and catchy lyrics may be desired at a gig or during a night on the town, at home many people are more than partial to something delicate and enigmatic. Sometimes sad, sometimes uplifting, panoramic, but never anything less than beautiful, they will find A Winged Victory for the Sullen to be just […]
I used to go to music college with this guy: http://youtu.be/6eehugX2zOI *. I occasionally went to his house to listen to mind-bending music, look at his (insane) art and borrow books like Robert Sheckley’s ‘Dimension of Miracles’. He has an amazing collection of 60s garage and psychedelia as well as obscure gold, like The Residents’ […]

Album Review: Cranium Pie – Mechanisms Part 1

Album Review: Beirut – The Rip Tide

Beirut (aka Zack Condon) is quite the peculiarity.  His song writing technique is tantamount to musical colonialism (with all the positive and negative connotations involved) as he claims and manipulates great swathes of sovereign musical territory, and bedecks them with layers of semi-operatic baritone. On Gulag Orkestar he gobbled up much of Eastern Europe; on […]
Having followed DJ Shadow since the release of his seminal debut album ‘Endtroducing…’, I’ve yet to hear anything from the Californian producer that surpasses it. I still very much enjoy his work and follow his career, though nothing compares. ‘The Less You Know, The Better’ would appear to be an appropriate instruction, if I’m to […]

ALBUM: DJ SHADOW – THE LESS YOU KNOW, THE BETTER

ALBUM: I BREAK HORSES – HEARTS

‘Hearts’ is the product of 2 years of refining and experimenting from the Swedish duo. The sound, which now cascades from my speakers like a pure, hot spring, wastes no time in elevating you to a lofty vantage point. Waves of reverb emerses you and the Cathedral-esque organs inspire while the light guitar adds sparkle. […]
It’s quite a hard task, even for some of the experienced synthesiser generals present here, to remix well-known, established songs. Sometimes the concept evokes square-pegs-in-round-holes, as the remixer attempts to force the song in a direction it was never intended to go in – sometimes this is a good thing, often it is not. Sometimes […]

ALBUM: DEPECHE MODE – REMIXES 2 81-11

ALBUM: VANDAVEER – DIG DOWN DEEP

This is Washington based singer songwriter Mark Charles Heidinger’s 3rd album in 4 years. Clocking up an impressive 450+ gigs in the process, and a few EP’s, he would appear a busy man. But his music sounds anything but hectic and urgent. He’s like a confident and empowered Damien Rice… a vocally deeper version of […]
When the Manchester Evening News relaunched CityLife a few years back – not long before the axe was plunged through its privates – Neil Sowerby, the then editor, personally warned me not to request the Bon Iver gig because everyone wanted it (and presumably I was not CityLife´s star critic). Fine, I was completely unaware […]

Album Review: Bon Iver – Bon Iver