Peaches

LIVE: PEACHES – 14/06/2022

– Ritz, Manchester – In 2022, there’s something tiring about describing any kind of art as ‘feminist’. Yes, the word and the movement carried us to places we needed to be. And the battle to demolish damaging barriers, language and stereotypes is far from over. But the term ‘feminist’ has been hijacked, repurposed and distorted. […]
Every so often a band comes along that has everything your ears want in an album  and for me the two records released by Amyl And The Sniffers have all that in abundance. In front if a packed Albert Hall they take to the stage and blast through ‘Go F**k Yourself’ and ‘Freaks To The […]

LIVE REVIEW: AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS – ALBERT HALL

Indigo De Souza

LIVE: INDIGO DE SOUZA – 15/05/2022

– Soup, Manchester – Imagine one of those coming of age dramas beloved of streaming services delivering endless content to the kids. You know the ones, featuring an eclectic cast of misfits who over the course of eight episodes manage to steal your heart and really make you care about their trivial day to day […]
– Gorilla, Manchester – I know a grand total of one Mattiel song, yet here am. At Gorilla, watching Mattiel. It’s exactly 15 minutes until the doors open and there’s one, two, three. Three of us in the queue. This initial lack of people makes me nervous but hey, at least I’ll be able to […]
Mattiel

LIVE: MATTIEL / LE REN – 13/05/2022

Tomberlin

LIVE: TOMBERLIN – 02/05/2022

– Yes Basement, Manchester – “Does anyone have any questions or concerns?” Tomberlin, or Sarah Beth Tomberlin, to give her full name, asks us as she re-tunes her guitar for the umpteenth time this evening. A shy Monday night crowd in the Yes basement make some non-committal murmurs; “No? Ok, well I guess I should […]
– Manchester Cathedral – Are Low a noise band now? Based on this astonishing showing tonight, they’re not too far off the label, which has seen them evolve over a wonderful 25-year career from slowcore beauty to fractured, disintegrating noise, with just enough of the aforementioned beauty still around to connect them to their past. […]
Low

LIVE: LOW – 27/04/2022

Midlake

LIVE: MIDLAKE– 10/04/2022

– Albert Hall, Manchester – How does a band who haven’t released a record in nearly a decade until very recently, haven’t toured for nearly as long, and no longer have their OG frontman who performed some of their most beloved songs, mount a credible comeback that people will be bothered about? The answer lies […]
– Cathedral, Manchester – It’s hard not to be seduced by Dead Can Dance. A look at one of the band’s pretty record sleeves, or a read-through of an intriguing list of track titles seemingly drawn from the same well of thought as ex-4AD label mates Cocteau Twins, and resistance becomes futile. The desire to […]
Dead Can Dance

LIVE: DEAD CAN DANCE – 08/04/2022

LoneLady

LIVE: LONELADY – 07/04/2022

– The White Hotel, Manchester – I’ve somehow gotten this far without ever seeing LoneLady (aka Julie Campbell) live, and I’m not sure how this happened. I’ve been a fan since her superb second album ‘Hinterland’ from 2015, a brooding, funky, post-punk masterpiece that seemed to reflect the stark, post industrial wastelands still found in […]
– Deaf Institute, Manchester – “This one combines my love of the 70s with my love of bastards…” deadpans Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson with a nod and a wink, as she introduces her next song ‘Peter Bogdanovich’ (“I like you Peter, I wish you were a wife-leaver”), taking to a stool clutching some kind of 80s […]
CMAT

LIVE: CMAT – 02/04/2022