LIVE: LISTENER – 30/08/2016

– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – The band lay bare their emotions and feelings right from the very start tonight.  Entering the stage they begin with their pre-show pep talk with the crowd as witness, hugging in a circle, laughing, warming up and getting in the mood.  I have never seen this before, usually done out of […]
– RNCM, MANCHESTER – It’s like stepping through an upper-middle-class portal tonight, as the Royal Northern College of Music’s or RNCM for short, has its patrons ushered and halted and directed through doors and hallways. Holding wine in their hands, the RNCMs patrons, no more than utter a whisper throughout the performance, as Sam Beam […]

LIVE: SAM BEAM AND JESCA HOOP – 31/08/2016

LIVE: M. WARD – 01/09/2016

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – It dawned on me in about 2004 that several of my favourite bands and musicians were signed to the same label, Merge Records, so I decided to splash out on the then-recent 3-CD compilation Old Enough To Know Better: 15 Years of Merge Records. As a kid I’d been given a […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Whispers about Brooklyn’s Big Thief seem to have echoed across America; Npr music’s Bob Boilen, the man who saw 666 gigs last year, hailed them as a band ‘bound by big songs’ calling their album’ title track ‘Masterpiece’ “one of the best songs of the year”, while Pitchfork said songs on […]

LIVE: BIG THIEF – 01/09/2016

LIVE: MARGO PRICE – 30/08/2016

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Margo Price was born into a life on a corn-and-soybean farm in Buffalo Prairie, a place name so Northern American that it almost must be fictional, as if Price is a character in a movie about an up-and-coming rockabilly star. Her life-so-far story truly has taken on cinema-worthy credentials from her […]
Undoubtedly, Alice Glass was integral to Crystal Castles’ foundation and rise. Her visceral, secretly-recorded vocals on glitchy debut single ‘Alice Practice’ saw record deals come pouring in, and she made a mesmerising front woman, as unrestrained live as she was difficult and impenetrable in interview. But when she announced her departure in October 2014 and […]

Album Review: Crystal Castles – Amnesty (I)

LIVE: THEE MIGHTEES / THE BELLYBUTTONS – 27/08/2016

– BIG HANDS, MANCHESTER – When you finally get to see two bands you’ve been listening to for months, it’s hard not to be somewhat starstruck when the frontmen are running the door and queuing next to you at the bar respectively. Big Hands takes the small venue dynamic to another level, with no noticeable […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Kiran Leonard is Greater Manchester born and bred, but he is far removed from the brit-pop indie stereotype that many Mancunian musicians have followed. Perhaps it’s because he was too young to have grown up engulfed by the likes of The Stone Roses and Oasis, his style is nothing […]

LIVE: KIRAN LEONARD – 25/08/2016

LIVE: JULIANNA BARWICK – 23/08/2016

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – The Deaf Institute is a more sophisticated place than normal tonight. Decked with four rows of chairs and soundtracked by some choice ambient music between acts, the chatter rarely raises beyond a murmur. There’s certainly no crowd noise during opening act Tiny Leaves. The project of composer Joel Nathaniel […]
– MANCHESTER ARENA, MANCHESTER – Before I venture to the Manchester Arena I stop off at my favourite pub on Oldham Street, Gulliver’s. I cannot be arsed paying a tenner for a couple of Fosters when I get to the venue, the worst fucking lager going. With a lovely San Miguel sat off in my belly, […]

LIVE: MORRISSEY – 20/08/2016