ALBUM REVIEW – PERSONAL TRAINER: BIG LOVE BLANKET

Any review of Personal Trainer ought to address the Stephen Malkmus-shaped elephant in the room. In his previous band, Canshaker Pi, Willem Smit, the group’s conductor and cheerleader, recorded with Malkmus and there is a distinct air of Pavement’s swallowed a thesaurus and must select the most phonetically pleasing words approach to Smit’s lyrics. ‘Big […]
– The White Hotel, Manchester – New Orleans industrial disco punks Special Interest specialise in the intense, pushing their sound, political lyrics, and performances to the extreme in the grand tradition of punk bands. Singer Alli Logout leads the ensemble, their frequently angry, incendiary callout lyrics dealing in really showing you how shit the world […]
Special Interest

LIVE: SPECIAL INTEREST– 5/11/2022

ALBUM REVIEW – EZRA COLLECTIVE: WHERE I’M MEANT TO BE

The London jazz scene has been incredibly vibrant in recent years with thrilling albums by the likes of Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia and Sons of Kemet. Ezra Collective can now take a prime place in that list with their second album, ‘Where I’m Meant To Be’. A glance at the titles gives a coherent sense […]
– Yes, Manchester – Will Westerman’s only album of his short career so far Your Hero Is Not Dead, came out at that oddest of moments, June 2020. Cast your mind way back to that time two and a half years ago, and you’ll probably have memories of cautiously, but giddily, emerging from your home […]
Westerman

LIVE: WESTERMAN – 25/10/2022

ALBUM REVIEW – BHAJAN BHOY: SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI

It is impossible to overstate the importance of cassettes to music fanatics growing up in the 1980s. For Ajay Saggar, that included recording John Peel sessions onto cassette, taping gigs onto his Walkman and putting together mixtapes. Later, his first band, the Dandelion Adventure recorded demos tapes that were sent to record labels, venues and […]
As far as singer/songwriter music goes, my taste tends to skew older. I’d rather hear about raw, lived-in experiences than the broad platitudes any day of the week. Sure, the music might oftentimes be slow, relatively mundane, and lacking hooks, but intelligent construction and thoughtful writing can make up for a lot. On that note, […]

ALBUM REVIEW: ALELA DIANE – LOOKING GLASS

LIVE REVIEW: PAVEMENT – 20/10/22

It’s been twenty-two years since Pavement last played Manchester, in the intervening years, social media has taken off, the way we consume music has changed, yet for many bands the two-way street of appreciation between band and audience remains as vital as ever. I was lucky enough to witness Pavement in the early years, after […]
1985 was the year when I started attending gigs regularly. It was a time of fervent excitement where with teenage obsessiveness and excitability every few weeks I would be discovering a new Best Band in the World Ever! It was hard to understand why the whole world was not falling in love with the bands […]

ALBUM REVIEW – VARIOUS ARTISTS: C85

Gilla Band

LIVE: GILLA BAND – 20/10/2022

– Canvas, Manchester – Irish noise masters Gilla Band (fka Girl Band) are back with Most Normal, their new, album of the year contender LP, arriving with a reputation for putting on incendiary live shows. Having just left the brand spanking new Canvas on Oxford Road (very decent, big blank Gorilla sized white box in […]
JD Meatyard’s latest album, ‘Live The Life’, sees John Donaldson resume his explorations of politics and the deeply personal with the characteristic urgency that made him a Peel favourite from Levellers 5 days onwards. The title track updates one of his previous band’s, Calvin Party, most thrilling moments, ‘Caspers Ballroom’, combining a gigantic riff, melody […]

ALBUM REVIEW – JD MEATYARD: LIVE THE LIFE