LIVE: LOW LEAF – 25/04/2017

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – It is quite the feat when, as a self-described DIY musician, your performance repertoire includes sidling up to the worthy likes of Fly Lo, Robert Glasper and Roy Ayers. There have only been a few harpists on my radar over the years, yet all of whom I view […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Let’s get this out of the way upfront: Deafheaven are not a black metal band. Guitarist Kerry McCoy said that although clearly influenced by the sub-genre, they don’t really have “the ethos, the aesthetic or really the sound of one”. So there you have it: Deafheaven are not a black metal […]

LIVE: DEAFHEAVEN – 24/04/2017

ALBUM: MINISTRY – TRAX! RARITIES

Ministry is a band I’ve been recommended numerous times. I have generally found them too heavy and monotonous for my liking but I’ve never given them a serious go. “A serious go” is definitely what’s on offer with a recently-released double vinyl called Trax! Rarities. I am actually listening on an electronic copy, but the […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Found at heights greater than 20,000 feet, Cirrus Clouds are formed of narrow bands of white, delicate filament. Gifting painterly waves, they do little to diminish the brightness of the sun and fade as quickly as their fibrous bodies complete. The subdued, sonic equivalent of such formations ghosts Manchester’s […]

LIVE: PALLBEARER – 09/04/2017

LIVE: SOULWAX – 09/04/2017

– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – Soulwax’s 2004 album Any Minute Now was a bit of a seminal album for a 20 year old me. My previous excursions into electronic music had started at Radiohead’s Kid A and finished at Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works – they were literally the only two electronic type albums I […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – There is something undeniably special about a hometown gig. Adopted hometown it may be, but it is no less special to see Californian Chorlton-dweller Jesca Hoop on her own stomping ground. It’s certainly been a journey getting here for the American. A Mormon upbringing, a spell as nanny to Tom Waits’ […]

LIVE: JESCA HOOP – 06/04/2017

LIVE: AMY MACDONALD / NEWTON FAULKNER – 06/04/2017

– THE BRIDGEWATER HALL, MANCHESTER – The last time I was at The Bridgewater Hall was well over half a decade ago for my graduation, so it feels like a special occasion of sorts. It doesn’t look too much different from what I remember – and I don’t remember much, I hardly remember it being a […]
Music writing is full of unending discussion of the fabled album number two. It’s a hurdle so many fall at – buckling under the weight of expectation, overreaching, rushing – all pitfalls for the difficult second album™. Well, one way to side step that particular cliché is for your debut record to go unfairly unnoticed. […]

ALBUM: TOM HICKOX – MONSTERS IN THE DEEP

ALBUM: FATHER JOHN MISTY – PURE COMEDY

I don’t need to tell you about Father John Misty (FJM for brevity’s sake) if you’re here, because I’m taking it you know about him. If not, you can just scroll through any half decent music news website’s newsfeed, as they report literally everything he says or tweets as a bone fide news story. This […]
Forty years after stepping onto the musical battlefield with one of the best albums of the late seventies in ‘Pink Flag’, WIRE return with an album that can be summed up with one phrase: more of the same. It’s better than their last release, the weirdly titled ‘Nocturnal Koreans’, but the plodding nature of many […]

ALBUM: WIRE – SILVER/LEAD