LIVE: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – 20/10/2016

– THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – We may have failed to land a probe on Mars this week, but despite the project coming crashing down to Earth, Manchester’s love of science is still in orbit. So much so that the city’s tenth annual Science Festival is being opened this year by the recently much-celebrated Public […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The Deaf Institute is bustling with a fresher-flavoured friskiness tonight, albeit only at about two thirds capacity. London-based quartet Beach Baby are coming towards the end of the UK leg of their tour supporting their debut album, No Mind No Money, which came out in September. There is nothing […]

LIVE: BEACH BABY – 19/10/2016

LIVE: JENNY HVAL – 18/10/2016

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – ‘Music isn’t normal’ quipped Norwegian songwriter, Jenny Hval just hours ahead of her performance in Manchester’s Soup Kitchen. This poignant statement is certainly true in the case of Hval, yet by her standards, Blood Bitch, her most recent record, is possibly her most ‘normal’ record yet. Despite its themes of […]
– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – A chorus of ambience welcomes Angel Olsen’s silver-suited, bolo-tied band of 1963 fantasy to Manchester’s darkened Club Academy, only to have them sink into the background as the velvet-adorned hellcat takes to the stage and turns to azurite as she steps into the spotlight and the open-mouth-kiss evening. S-1 in-hand, […]

LIVE: ANGEL OLSEN – 14/10/2016

LIVE: ARAB STRAP – 14/10/2016

– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It may be the faint stirrings of Christmas commercialism or the sour aftermath of Brexit Britain but there seems no better time to welcome back our favourite Scottish curmudgeons Arab Strap.  The band have returned to celebrate their 20th anniversary with a handful of special live shows on the back […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – When the history books have been written and the BBC4 documentaries made about the world of alternative music in 2016, there will need to be entire sections dedicated to the ubiquity of psych rock. A movement that revolves around reinterpreting the music of the original wave of hallucinogenic, distorted underground […]

LIVE: ULRIKA SPACEK – 13/10/2016

LIVE: SPRING KING / GET INUIT – 14/10/2016

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – My back is up against the wall, adjacent to the bouncer, at a Friday night showcase of Spring King. I’d guess the modal age here is a good five years younger than myself as I cast my eyes towards opener Get Inuit. The crowd is tightly bunched towards the front, […]
– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – It feels like a 60’s love-in in the back room at Gullivers tonight, the majority of the crowd have taken to sitting on the floor of the intimate but packed space front of stage waiting for Yvette to start her set.  It’s a friendly atmosphere and everyone is comfortable and ready […]

LIVE: YVETTE YOUNG – 12/10/2016

SINGLE REVIEW: THE ISLAND CLUB – ‘LET GO’

Energetic, floor-filler, upbeat and catchy are just some of the words appropriate for The Island Club’s latest offering. ‘Let Go’ has already been released across various platforms. Although many sounds can be heard in the single, the band centres in the synth pop/indie world although some rock influence is prevalent in their music. The track […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – 285 Kent-by-way-of-Texas pseudo-slackers Parquet Courts have been consuming culture at an unnatural rate and spitting it back out just as fast since 2011 in an endless effort to move beyond prescriptive expectation and reflect the great distances between humanity and the claustrophobia of the concrete world, but according to bassist […]

LIVE: PARQUET COURTS – 10/10/2016