ALBUM: Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can

Laura Marling’s first album, “Alas I Cannot Swim” was an impossibly brilliant debut. Released just after she turned 18 her lyrics combined a delicate shyness with a world-weary maturity that spoke of things with a level of understanding that few people reach in their lifetime, let alone while they are still in their teens. The […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Everytime the Manchester music scene seems to be escaping the shackles of its past, a new club or indie night seems to raise it’s head offering the same kind of generic, pedestrian music and putting on bland ‘landfill indie’ acts. Thank goodness then for nights like Now Wave, who, […]

LIVE: ERRORS – 10/3/2010

LIVE: DELPHIC – 10/03/2010

– CLUB NIRVANA, WIGAN – Approaching Club Nirvana, I feel somewhat apprehensive, wondering what a Wednesday night in Wigan could possibly offer, a feeling which increases as I enter the half empty venue – or is that half full? A tiered, all standing venue, I manage to nab the best spot in the house, right […]
– THE RUBY LOUNGE, MANCHESTER – Alan Sparhawk has had a relatively long and distinguished career as guitarist and frontman for Low. His more recent side project Retribution Gospel choir offer a very different musical proposition to the one he made his name with. While Lows trademark sound is slow, sombre and delicate with beautiful […]

LIVE: RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR – 11/03/2010

SINGLE: Paloma Faith – Upside Down

Paloma Faith has just released her forth single, entitled ‘Upside Down’ – and I like it! It’s jolly; it’s clever; it’s quirky – a lot like Ms Faith, one suspects. It’s also very catchy, but, then again, so too is syphilis. When it comes to Paloma Faith, the problem isn’t with her music – it’s with the musician […]
Some music defies description. Imagine listening to ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ when it was released in June 1967! Imagine being in Vienna’s Kärntnertortheater on 7 May 1824 for the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by the Maestro himself! Imagine a 1943 night flight over a glowing Dresden in a fully laden Lancaster with […]

SINGLE: The Phenomenal Handclap Band – Baby

SINGLE: Kyle Hall – Kaychunk/You Know What I Feel

Detroit based Kyle Hall makes his debut appearance on the mighty Hyperdub. Signed up from a remix of Darkstar’s phenomenal Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer (the original is one of my all time favourites), his remix saw a track take on a House style approach, and most importantly bring him into the Hyperdub spotlight and […]
– SOUND CONTROL, MANCHESTER – Motionless and pudding-faced as they grub their way through a set of competent, simple indie-pop, there has surely never been a band less in need of a second guitarist as The Mandigans. The local sextet exist in a charisma vacuum, and although they aren’t even close to breaking out of […]

LIVE: GENERAL FIASCO – 08/03/2010

LIVE: CATE LE BON – 08/03/2010

– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Meeting your heroes can be a truly terrible experience or one of the happiest moments of your life. When we meet our heroes we do not expect to be disappointed, so when they turn out to be a big fat lecherous let down it can be quite a blow […]
– THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Though they hail from the beaches of blighty, with their cowboy hats, deep throat drawls and bare existentialist lyrics you could be forgiven for thinking The Miserable Rich had ridden up outside Trof on horseback directly from the dusty plains of the American wild west. The Deaf Institute is […]

LIVE: THE MISERABLE RICH – 07/03/2010