ALBUM: Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition)

Although ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ is commonly thought of as an album very much of the 1980s, in many ways it is not at all typical of other big hit pop albums of that decade. In fact it’s a strange mix that, in the end, cannot decide what it wants to be, either musically or […]
Comedian Dough Stanhope once said “Babies are like poems – they’re beautiful… to their creators.” I’m not sure whether the ‘Monkey Poet’ [Matt Panesh] would call what he does on stage ‘beautiful’ – after all, it’s noisy, angry, challenging and unconventional. In all fairness, I think he’d be the first to admit that it’s positively ugly […]

ALBUM: Monkey Poet – Welcome to the UK

LIVE: THE STRANGE BOYS – 17/04/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – First off I would like to say that The Deaf Institute is a truly fantastic venue to go and see live music. I’m sure that many of you reading this will already know that of course, but I’m getting it off my chest regardless. The stage is the perfect […]
– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – Best known for spinning Breakbeat, Krafty Kuts has had a long and successful career, as a DJ, promoter and producer. From Brighton, his career took off when Norman Cook signed his record ‘Gimme the Funk’ to his Southern Fried label. He has lived the DJ dream, playing to audiences around […]

LIVE: KRAFTY KUTS – 17/04/2010

ALBUM: Officer Kicks – Citywide Curfew

Several things annoy me deeply about this album. Firstly there’s the typeface ripped off the Libertines. It suggests, correctly, a complete lack of originality, and worse still that we’re faced with yet another imitation landfill indie band. It was a depressing prospect two years ago, and now it’s reached suicidal levels. And then there’s the […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – With all the ’80s nostalgia going on at the moment, I was fully expecting a dose of it at the Ruby Lounge tonight. Rolled up jeans, hairbands, there was even a Bananarama-style jump suit on offer. I don’t condone it, but maybe that is because I suffered it the […]

LIVE: DARWIN DEEZ – 15/04/2010

LIVE: ROLO TOMASSI – 12/04/2010

– THE ROADHOUSE, MANCHESTER – What, with having a job, and enjoying things like showers and evening meals, I can’t make the 6pm doors at the Roadhouse. I’ve missed ‘Throats’, but a friend tells me it was ‘like being sonically raped’, so maybe that pie wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Alex, the singer […]
– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – Although Robyn Hitchcock has been releasing records since 1981, I have to be honest that he has only just come to my attention with the release of his latest album, ‘Propeller Time’. I heard ‘Sickie Boy’ – the latest single from the album – on BBC 6 Music, and the […]

LIVE: ROBYN HITCHCOCK & THE VENUS 3 – 11/04/2010

EP: We were Promised Jetpacks – The Last Place You’ll Look

What’s happening to Scottish music nowadays? Scottish bands seem to have developed a real identity within guitar music – perhaps seeking to make amends after the turd that was Franz Ferdninand plopped, steaming onto the British music scene. Bleak, melancholy and down-beat, yet without being depressing – like the last rays of sun on a […]
Hyperdub’s first lady Ikonika steps forward with the first in a series of 12”s featuring tracks from her forthcoming album and remixes by some of the best producers around. April’s release sees “Idiot” drop, backed with a remix from Altered Natives. With the full album “Contact, Love, Want, Have” out on Hyperdub on the 6th […]

SINGLE: Ikonika – Idiot /Altered Natives Remix