ALBUM: Broken Bells – Broken Bells

Too many collaborations sound like a match made in heaven, but end up in purgatory. They disappoint because the individual musician owes more to his band than he or she (or we) might think, and they have to compromise their own artistic vision to fit in with someone else’s leading to a product that is […]
Along with loss and love, unrequited love has long been one of the great themes of literature and music.  Unrequited love lacks any of the beauty or purity of real love. It is dark, obsessive and can destroy those who dwell in it.  In music, however, many songs about this love are often poignantly beautiful […]

ALBUM: Lemar – The Hits

ALBUM: New Young Pony Club – The Optimist

New Young Pony Club, who play Manchester’s Mojo Live on Saturday 20th March as part of a tour of several Euopean countries, have just released their second album – the optimistically-titled ‘The Optimist’. When you live in the middle of a recession in a United Kingdom whose Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have not spoken […]
For those of you that didn’t know, Seth Troxler started out DJing at 16 years old in Detroit (alongside working in a local record store) when he developed what he now likes to coin as, “A preternatural understanding of rave, and dance music history, that now allows him to conjures up mixes and tracks like […]

ALBUM: Boogybytes Vol. 5 – Mixed by Seth Troxler

ALBUM: The Smoking Hearts – Pride of Nowhere

This first full release by the Smoking Hearts is bad, it is very bad, and it is quite possibly the worst music I have ever heard. It is so bad it even fails to be laughable. Its only possible use is as an aide to interrogators of terror suspects, but it is most likely forbidden by […]
In the inlay, Kris Drever thanks, ‘All the people I play with in my day job’. And it’s true – despite the critical acclaim heaped on Kris Drever’s first album, Black Water – mainstream audiences will know Kris as the quieter one who plays with Idlewild’s frontman in their acoustic project, Drever McCusker Woomble, and the folkies will be more acquainted with Lau, […]

ALBUM: Kris Drever – Mark The Hard Earth

ALBUM: Motion Picture Soundtrack – The Shapes We Fear Are Of Our Own

“Every time I put this CD in my computer it makes a horrible noise”, is not the kindest way to start a review, but it’s true. I hope it’s only my promo copy of The Shapes We Fear Are of Our Own that’s dodgy and not the whole run. At least the disc is self-aware […]
From past experience we all knowPlanet Mu delivers the goods. Since its conception it’s yet to bring you anything your ears didn’t want to hear and has always been a merchant of the new and experimental. The Internal Tulipsare no exception to the rule, and with a LP entitled “Mislead into A Field By A Deformed Deer”, […]

ALBUM: The Internal Tulips – Mislead into A Field By A Deformed Deer

ALBUM: Communion – The Compilation

A Communion is defined as a joining together of minds or spirits, and although this compilation may put the fear of God into non believers with its religious connotations, the album is not a religious outpouring.  Communion is a collection of fantastic folk artists, whose music, whether you are atheist, Jew, gentile or Christian, pulls something spiritual […]
It is ten years now since Kathryn Williams’s second album Little Black Numbers garnered a Mercury Prize nomination. For a select few, including the likes of Dizzy Rascal – touted as Britain’s answer to the likes of Jay-Z but in reality rather more like our answer to MC Hammer – Mercury recognition has been the […]

ALBUM: Kathryn Williams – The Quickening