LIVE: JAMES BLAKE – 07/04/2019

-VICTORIA WAREHOUSE, MANCHESTER- If you’ve listened to James Blake’s beautiful new album Assume Form, read any interviews with him recently or looked on any social media about him, you’ll know one thing: James Blake is fully loved up. His relationship with actress and all round hero Jameela Jamil appears to have fundamentally changed Blake’s outlook […]

-YES, MANCHESTER- Nilüfer Yanya has recently cashed in on a couple of years’ steady hype with her debut album, Miss Universe. Plaudits have rained in from internet corners far and wide, her ascent into the mainstream of the alternative complete. It is fully deserved, too. Miss Universe is a charmingly strange album, one of those that […]

LIVE: NILUFER YANYA – 04/04/2019

LIVE: CHRIS SHIFLETT – 04/04/2019

-NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER- Walking into the Night and Day, a venue I’ve sat in with my old man having a last drink after a session around the Northern Quarter, I am completely surprised to see the lead guitarist of arguably the biggest rock band on the planet stood at the merch stand, taking […]

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- Tommy Villiers has a fresh and funky sound. It’s smooth, like the best kind of peanut butter with tones that stick with you long after you have had a taste of his too short of a set. He reminds me of Louis Cole of the band Knower. Tommy’s noodling around the guitar is […]

LIVE: DARCIE / PIP FLUTEMAN / TOMMY VILLIERS – 04/04/2019

LIVE: PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS – 03/04/2019

-REBELLION, MANCHESTER- Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (or Pigsx7) are one of those bands that are a bit of a mystery. They shot onto the scene with their debut LP Feed the Rats at the beginning of 2017, bringing a riff heavy mix of stoner/sludge/pysch/metal to an unsuspecting scene and they soon made a […]

-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- New Yorker Kelly Moran is a woman of many talents. Producer, composer and a multi instrumentalist, she released her first album Ultraviolet for the legendary Warp label last year to much acclaim, bringing her virtuoso piano skills together with moody electronics to a wider audience that she’s been exposed to […]

LIVE: KELLY MORAN – 04/04/2019

LIVE: IDLES – 03/04/2019

-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- What a rise it has been for Idles. Just 28 months ago, they joined us in the studio for the Silent Radio radio show, with just a two-year-old EP to their name, and an advance single named ‘Well Done’ that was just beginning to get some tentative national airplay. That day, they […]

-RITZ, MANCHESTER- Having first seen Drenge back home at Hull’s Welly Club supporting Temples, with ironically just underneath them on the bill that night the Black Delta Movement, the band I last reviewed for Silent Radio earlier last month, this was a much-anticipated gig for myself and the many others, I’m sure, who have watched […]

LIVE: DRENGE – 29/03/2019

LIVE: THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA – 30/03/2019

-ACADEMY, MANCHESTER- Last time I saw The Cinematic Orchestra was at Soundwave, Croatia in 2010, just down the coast from Zadar – which Alfred Hitchcock described as having the “most beautiful sunset in the world”. Tonight’s concert starts with the rolling, rising, boiling crescendo of ‘Lessons’ and then golden lights wash upwards over the crowd, […]

-VARIOUS VENUES, MANCHESTER- YANA or You Are Not Alone Festival is a multi-venue event that makes its debut this year and has been organised on behalf of non-profit charity Manchester MIND. With the event selling out well in advance, it’s set to be a great day of live music. The first band I manage to […]