ALBUM REVIEW: BELLE & SEBASTIAN – DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER

Having recently performed in a cruise ship as part of their ‘Boaty Weekender’ festival, the ever evolving Scots band release their second film soundtrack album. Sadly I didn’t take the indie rock n’ roll cruise, but apparently there were people there for the bands (Belle and Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub and tons more) plus bizarrely enough, […]
Rejoice! Moon Duo have a new album out, ‘Stars Are The Light’ and it’s an absolute masterpiece of hypnotic melodies mixed with electronica and pulsating beats. I first fell in love with their sounds after hearing ‘Circles’ back in 2012, with its fuzzed psych guitars and entrancing melodies, many bands try to do a similar […]

INTERVIEW – MOON DUO

LIVE: EELS – 15/09/19

– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – “Don’t think twice ‘bout whatever keeps you itchin’. Ice water, flyswatter gonna get you through the day.” Lyrics I could not relate to anymore, after a summer of working in a pub in the middle of nowhere, getting bitten by insects daily. Flyswatter is the first of the band’s original […]
– YES BASEMENT, MANCHESTER – Modern Nature who take their name from the late film director Derek Jarman’s garden diaries arrive at Manchester’s Yes venue on the back of their recently released debut album ‘How to Live’. A flowing and at time meditative record which is destined to feature in many end of year critic […]

LIVE: MODERN NATURE – 17/09/2019

LIVE: TANGERINECAT / SLOW KNIFE / FACTORY ACTS / TIN MOLE – 07/09/2019

-GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER- Tin Mole Experimental is a label difficult to define, but it appears Deco have rummaged the attic for a few of the more warped figurines you’d be wise to inspect before touching. Dominated by menacing bass lines, Tin Mole succumb to the irresistibility of synthesisers as they purge onward, almost as though a […]
-THE PEER HAT, MANCHESTER- Furrowed Brow With additional personnel and two months of gigging since their live debut, Furrowed Brow has (much to my predication) significantly gained in confidence and cohesion, akin to a unit of conscripts surviving the very skirmishes that would make or break their service. Having a more technically proficient guitarist (albeit […]

LIVE: GLOVE / CHINA MOON / FURROWED BROW – 06/09/2019

LIVE: SASAMI – 04/09/2019

-YES (THE BASEMENT), MANCHESTER- Sweet relief. The basement in Manchester’s finest establishment Yes is a safe haven tonight, a place to take refuge from the bonkers weather that has plagued this city on this early autumn day (and plagued the England cricket team all day across the city at Old Trafford), and a place to […]
-VARIOUS VENUES, MANCHESTER- As the title shows, the event primarily caters towards a genre half a century in age, although that didn’t stop the promoters from cherry picking enough non-psych bands to give off the impression it was a name only title. I mean understandably you need a healthy balance of differing styles and realistically […]

LIVE: MANCHESTER PSYCH FEST 2019

LIVE: THE BETHS – 31/08/2019

-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Gorilla is sold out for The Beths tonight. We arrive a little later than most and the crowd is already one pensive mass of energy and anticipation. Managing to find a corner at the top of the stairs, we have a clear view of the whole scene, the stage and audience. Jackpot. It […]
-THE WHITE HOTEL, SALFORD- The idea of amassing a selection of bands a few clicks off normal appears to pay off as the White Hotel’s ‘performance room’ slowly starts to fill to capacity in time for the headliner/non-set closer White Fence. I had the suspicion that carting out a load of bands on a half […]

LIVE: WHITE FENCE / ESYA / THE STARLIGHT MAGIC HOUR – 17/08/2019