LIVE: YAK / MUSH / DEJA VEGA – 09/04/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- Déjà Vega The 3-piece’s formula could be deciphered as: drumming reminiscent of one of those Palm Desert bands from the early 1990s, no doubt putting the kit’s structural integrity into question as the concussive quality surprisingly rings through a sound system I certainly wouldn’t count as Manchester’s finest. The bass playing, with a […]
-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- We have a double whammy of John Fairhurst tonight. First up is a stripped-down acoustic set, as he muses how it’s good to make some chilled acoustic after making such a heavy album. But chilled may not have been the best choice of word for it, excellent fingerpicking at the start of tracks […]

LIVE: JOHN FAIRHURST – 10/04/2019

LIVE: THESE NEW PURITANS – 10/04/2019

-YES, MANCHESTER- Can’t lie kids, this is going to be pretty gushing. What unfolds tonight in Yes is by far the best thing I’ve seen so far this year, it’s all the words like ‘astonishing’, ‘scintillating’, ‘fucking unbelievable’, those kind of descriptors. Because TNP are by far and away the best band in the country, […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- “The ones that sound like you’re on holiday? I’d have gone to see them!” My mum is 63-years-old. She loves The Beatles and Motown and Take That. She also, it turns out, has been as charmed by Beirut’s swaying melodies as I have and packaged that appreciation up in a turn of […]

LIVE: BEIRUT – 10/04/2019

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