LIVE: FRANK TURNER/CHUCK RAGAN – 17/03/2010

– ACADEMY 1, MANCHESTER – It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and Manchester is full of students taking their disgusted first slurps of Guinness, while those used to all the faux-Oirishness that March 17th entails have crammed into the Academy 1 en masse, and are mostly holding drinks with an amber hue. The clean shaven Chuck Ragan, […]
Butler Williams sound like a couple of nice guys.  Their voices are soothing and mellow and their parts merge so peacefully that it is often impossible to distinguish where one starts and the other one finishes. This is their second release to date and for two guys who are known for performances which give a bit […]

ALBUM: Butler Williams – Save it for Someone Else EP

LIVE: EDITORS – 16/03/2010

– THE APOLLO THEATRE, MANCHESTER – I used to like Editors. That is, I did until last night when they left me cold. In their defence, they weren’t awful, they were merely average. They start with a slow number from their third album ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ before opting for their more […]
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 […]

ALBUM: Laura Marling: I Speak Because I Can

LIVE: ERRORS – 10/3/2010

– 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, […]
– 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 […]

LIVE: DELPHIC – 10/03/2010

LIVE: RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR – 11/03/2010

– 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 […]
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 […]

SINGLE: Paloma Faith – Upside Down

SINGLE: The Phenomenal Handclap Band – Baby

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 […]
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 […]

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