ALBUM: IDLES – BRUTALISM

What do Mary Berry, Mark Rothko, Benedictine monks, Bovis homes, Francis Bacon, photographer Richard Billingham and TV chef Rachel Khoo have in common? They are all victims in the equal-opportunity offence blitzkrieg from Idles frontman Joe Talbot on the Bristol band’s debut album, Brutalism. The record opens with an anonymous woman’s horrifying shriek of “NO […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – When you think of the New York City indie rock scene, you instantly recall bands like The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs surfacing in the first knockings of the new millennium. Before that Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground and Blondie pioneered the movement in The Big Apple. […]

LIVE: HAMILTON LEITHAUSER – 10/03/2017

LIVE: MITSKI – 09/03/2017

– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – New York-based musician Mitski’s first Manchester show was as recent as October last year at the Deaf Institute, but it seems she enjoyed herself as she’s back in town already. Daylight hours today were all clear-skied and spring-like, so maybe she made the most of the day with a […]
 – THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER – As far as selling out your first Manchester headline show goes, it can only be a good thing. Even in a modestly sized venue such as The Castle, it’s an intimate setting to get to know your fans. Tonight, a few have travelled from Chester; the birthplace of Peaness. […]

LIVE: PEANESS – 08/03/2017

LIVE: DUSST / LAVENDER / WILD BIRDS OF BRITAIN – 06/03/2017

– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – A wiser man than I once said, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”, and although I don’t usually buy into this façade, nights like this make me think otherwise. In a poorly lit attic above a pub in the heart of the Northern Quarter, the future of British psychedelic […]
– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Incense smoke sneaks around the room, as though from the very pipes of the Albert Hall organ, maybe blown by some celestial keys man, working the heavenly pedals. Something smells pretty sweet, anyways. Look around and at first it seems somehow sacrilegious: that people would rave, silhouetted in front of […]

LIVE: FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS – 04/03/2017

LIVE: HENGE – 03/03/2017

-THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Welcome to Henge. At this gig, you check your measly human earth life at the door. For the uninitiated, this band have come on a longer journey than most to be at the Ruby Lounge tonight – from the State of Mutagia, to be exact. If you’re not 100% clear […]
‘The Night Land’ is a strange place. Full to the brim with synthesized, robotic and electronic sounds, yet somewhere we make some of our most human connections. It’s a place pair John Talabot and Axel Boman capture effortlessly with their debut Talaboman LP, jam-packed with bleeps, beeps and drum machines but also sounding extremely organic. […]

ALBUM: TALABOMAN – THE NIGHT LAND

LIVE: JOSEFIN OHRN & THE LIBERATION – 01/03/0217

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – The Northern Quarter’s Soup Kitchen has developed over recent years into something of a citadel for psych rock bands and fans alike. The scene, which has now been blossoming for longer than most would have thought possible, sees new and unfamiliar bands cropping up from all corners of the world […]
– DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – To the left of me stands an obese, pissed, ageing, fifty-something man exclaiming “we’ve won the cup”, whilst spilling his drink all over the sobbing teenage girls in front of him. To the right stands a rawboned blond-haired middle class student, draped in a baggy coral shirt and an inside-out […]

LIVE: WILD NOTHING / HER’S – 26/02/2017