ALBUM: SELLING – ON REFLECTION

Selling is the new band formed by dance music pioneer Gold Panda and Jas from electro rockers Simian Mobile Disco, and as you’d expect it’s packed to the rafters with all manner of techno wizardry and huge beats. I’m not a massive techno or dance music aficionado, I just like certain albums or songs, yet […]
This E.P. contains songs recorded at the same time as their album ‘I’ll Be Your Girl’ released earlier this year, yet somehow these tunes didn’t fit properly on that album. The Decemberists have ways been a band full of folk infused indie tunes, brimming with a storytelling ambience, but for the last album they stepped […]

EP: THE DECEMBERISTS – TRAVELING ON

MANIC STREET PREACHERS: THIS IS MY TRUTH TELL ME YOURS 20TH ANNIVERSARY BOXSET

Let’s face it, everyone loves a good boxset! They’re a thing of gorgeous, geeky musical indulgence, and as the years go by, and anniversaries of cherished albums come and go, more and more of them are being remastered and repackaged in this stylish manner. Although some feel that it’s a slightly unnecessary move by their […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- Back from late 2000s mega success, MGMT provide tonight the Albert Hall mandem a chance to relive honking hot summers of 08-09, FIFA soundtracks and Made In Chelsea “coming next” segments. Braving the Northern chill, I venture to Manchester full of excitement. Although back in the day I didn’t immediately latch on […]

LIVE: MGMT – 17/12/2018

SINGLE: LOUIE LOUIE – PLAY HOUSE

I have known these guys since the day I moved to Manchester, living in Rusholme, Big Hands became my local. I was even at one point supposed to audition to be their drummer, as Big Hands owner Scott suggested! I got to know Pedro (bassist) and all the staff in Big Hands fairly well, and […]
-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- As far as well respected Scottish artists go, you can’t get more loved than Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert, so the news of the two collaborating together for an album brought joy to the ears of many. And as it happens, the album did the same thing. Released through Rock Action Records […]

LIVE: AIDAN MOFFAT & RM HUBBERT – 14/12/2018

ALBUM: STEEPLE REMOVE – VONAL AXIS

There’s always bands who like to turn the fuzztone up, step on the phase pedal and blast off into hyperspace, and there’s so many bands around doing the shoegazy dream pop thing, it’s often hard to find the decent stuff. So, thank your lava lamps for Steeple Remove, a band from Rouen in France, who […]
-ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER- When indie-rock mavericks The Maccabees played their final shows last summer, I did wonder if we’d hear from any of them again. But it was only a matter of months before frontman Orlando Weeks announced a project he’d been working on for quite some time, The Gritterman. Starting life from a song, […]

LIVE: ORLANDO WEEKS – 12/12/2018

LIVE: PURPLE HEART PARADE / BLANKETMAN – 08/12/2018

-NIGHT PEOPLE, MANCHESTER- More often than not, when a band attempts to surgically graft differing influences together, the difficulty in pulling it off can present a scenario of grave inconsistency. Typically, the final product emerges as a badly rearranged skeletal entity, the kind of which would be best left in some remote, poorly lit cave […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Julia Holter is incredible. The LA-based musician is just 33 years of age, and she released her fifth (5th!) astonishing album Aviary to much acclaim last month, a 90 minute magnum opus that dazzles with its range of styles from atonal experimental noise to some of the best pop songs she’s composed so […]

LIVE: JULIA HOLTER – 06/12/2018