ALBUM: THE WAR ON DRUGS – A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

“We as a band went from worrying about the record to worrying about the person,” speaks The War on Drugs bassist Dave Hartley of Adam Granduciel during the making of ‘Lost In The Dream’, the band’s critic-aligning breakthrough – birthed in the grip of a mountainous, sleep-fearing depression. However, sourcing its strength from obsessive insularity, the […]
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- It’s not often that an artist comes to town who can boast that they have performed live in six different decades: Silver Apples, AKA Simeon Coxe, is one of them. Slow Knife open proceedings, with an interesting blend of krautrock, ska and jazz ensemble. Atonal lyrics read from sheets are […]

LIVE: SILVER APPLES – 02/08/2017

LIVE: HIGH WYRE / MADA CRAM / LUKE STEINMAN – 28/07/2017

-THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER- The midsummer months are pretty barren ground for us gig-aholics, with bands spending most of their time on the festival circuit. But in the absence of the established names, this time of year provides a perfect chance to explore some of the local artists plying their trade, hoping for their lucky […]
The heartbroken patience of ‘Red Plantet’ closed Alvvays’ self-titled debut – spinning a web of waiting, and gesturing towards endless cycles of temporary distraction and emptiness. Although a fitting end to an album littered with semi-mid-life beginnings and endings, the final act of the starry-eyed darling’s exploration of the “pathetic perspective” offered more of a […]

SINGLE: ALVVAYS – IN UNDERTOW

SINGLE: KATIE VON SCHLEICHER – LIFE’S A LIE

“I felt really good writing the music,” speaks Katie Von Schleicher of gloom-laden lead single ‘Life’s A Lie’ – taken from her self-produced and co-engineered debut that was recorded on Tascan 488 tape-machine in her childhood home. The Brooklynite and Ba Da Bing Records signee is infamous for her own brand of bleak, lo-fi piano […]
For almost two-decades, the Toronto-hailing army-of-indie that is Broken Social Scene have been traversing their counter-cultural anxieties with visions of familial community and refreshing doses of celebratory sound-collage – ushering in some of our darkest political hours with defiant, unabashed joy. 2010’s ‘Forgiveness Rock Record’ closed with a two-minute ode to the loneliness found in […]

ALBUM: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – HUG OF THUNDER

LIVE: SHEER MAG / TV CRIME – 23/07/2017

-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- What’s going on here, then? It’s not even 8pm and the merch table is 4 deep with t-shirts and records flying from one side of the counter to the other at a sweatshop pace; this isn’t normal. Then again, neither are Sheer Mag. A quintet formed in upstate New York (in Purchase, […]
Combining the words ‘fog’ and ‘lake’ paint that of a tranquil scene – muddied with spirits and demons that quest and cloud. It’s hard to imagine Aaron Powell, Canadian downer-pop veteran, releasing music under a guise that conjures any other image, as Fog Lake is just that: peace-of-mind sitting dormant under a ceiling of head-fuck […]

ALBUM: FOG LAKE – DRAGONCHASER

SINGLE: THE WAR ON DRUGS – STRANGEST THING

Sleepless, flame-out anxiety ivies the narrative of Adam Ganduciel – front-man of Philadelphia-hailing sonic-sculptors The War on Drugs. The obsessive architect has openly touched on how a sudden personal downfall – flanked by isolation and paranoia, inspired elemental crusher ‘Lost in the Dream’, but has also alluded to how he’s still figuring out what happened […]
-PAVILION THEATRE, MANCHESTER- Stepping from a bright Manchester afternoon into a blacked-out tent in the middle of Albert Square, I am soon joining the gathered crowd in applauding the on-stage arrival of the two young Norfolk musicians in Let’s Eat Grandma. The claps give way to complete silence as Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth take […]

LIVE: LET’S EAT GRANDMA – 16/07/2017