SINGLE: CROCODILES – SLEEP FOREVER

Leave your wetsuit at home, but do remember your Ray-Bans. Hailing from San Diego, Crocodiles are explorers of the darker side of Californian life. In the moody ‘Sleep Forever’, Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell layer reverberating vocals over jagged synth to fashion a piece of retro-while-contemporary noise-pop. Elsewhere in their catalogue nods to post-punk abound, […]
– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – It’s not easy growing up in the world The Cold One Hundred’s dark pop alludes to, with its tedium and disenchantment, but for source material, it doesn’t sell them short. The hanging gloom of the Night & Day stage is a perfect setting for the live rendition of […]

LIVE: THE COLD ONE HUNDRED – 25/06/2010

LIVE: CHERRY GHOST – 21/06/2010

– ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH, SALFORD – As we shuffle into St. Phillip’s Church in Salford there’s a feeling that we’re the cool kids in the know: This is a warm up gig for the band’s upcoming tour as support for The Coral. On come our heroes, entering without pretension and after a quick “y’alright?” they […]
Missing the obvious I was going to write, “Harper Simon is a fine musician who sounds a lot like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel”, when I read the press release and sure enough: he is Paul Simon’s son. Like father like son. I know children want to plough their own furrows, usually in the opposite […]

SINGLE: Harper Simon – Wishes and Stars

SINGLE: Ólöf Arnalds – Innundir Skinni

I know that the current abiding image of Iceland is that of a country with no national bank, and an unpronounceable volcano intent on ruining our travel plans (I was in the US at the time and sadly it didn’t strand me there). But ever since a younger manifestation of myself became obsessed with “Agaetis […]
– PLATT FIELDS, MANCHESTER – There’s something intractably lucky about any festival on Platt Fields. Despite the weather’s reputation for pissing on Mancunians day in day out year in year out – though it didn’t save a friend of a friend getting literally pissed on during Fake Blood’s set – every time there’s a festival […]

LIVE: PARKLIFE 2010 – 12/06/2010

LIVE: EXIT CALM – 11/06/2010

– FAC251, MANCHESTER – This is a night in which the old goes head to head with the new. Across the city at Platt Fields, Ian Brown is playing Stone Roses tunes to Manchester’s indie community, but here at Fac251, the future is taking shape. With Oasis gone for good and The Verve in statis, […]
– SACRED TRINITY CHURCH, SALFORD – Since its conception, I’ve been a fan of This City Is Ours. Pushing boundaries in the right direction and shrugging off stereotypes is an approach most events lack – more content to fall in line with their cheap drinks and latest flavour of the month sounds. This evening saw […]

LIVE: THIS CITY IS OURS – 11/06/2010

LIVE: MALE BONDING – 10/06/2010

– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – Male Bonding have been making a name for themselves in London over the past couple of years releasing a truckload of singles and constantly playing gigs. They managed to get themselves signed to Sub Pop who put out their wonderful debut album ‘Nothing Hurts’ last month. It’s an album full […]
It is difficult to believe that it is less than two years since the driven, eccentric Lady Gaga became an international force, such is the power she currently enjoys in the world of pop. Gaga fever looks set to continue this summer with the release of ‘Alejandro’, drawn from her repackaged double album The Fame. […]

SINGLE: LADY GAGA – ALEJANDRO