LIVE: ANGEL OLSEN – 14/10/2016

– CLUB ACADEMY, MANCHESTER – A chorus of ambience welcomes Angel Olsen’s silver-suited, bolo-tied band of 1963 fantasy to Manchester’s darkened Club Academy, only to have them sink into the background as the velvet-adorned hellcat takes to the stage and turns to azurite as she steps into the spotlight and the open-mouth-kiss evening. S-1 in-hand, […]
– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It may be the faint stirrings of Christmas commercialism or the sour aftermath of Brexit Britain but there seems no better time to welcome back our favourite Scottish curmudgeons Arab Strap.  The band have returned to celebrate their 20th anniversary with a handful of special live shows on the back […]

LIVE: ARAB STRAP – 14/10/2016

LIVE: ULRIKA SPACEK – 13/10/2016

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – When the history books have been written and the BBC4 documentaries made about the world of alternative music in 2016, there will need to be entire sections dedicated to the ubiquity of psych rock. A movement that revolves around reinterpreting the music of the original wave of hallucinogenic, distorted underground […]
– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – My back is up against the wall, adjacent to the bouncer, at a Friday night showcase of Spring King. I’d guess the modal age here is a good five years younger than myself as I cast my eyes towards opener Get Inuit. The crowd is tightly bunched towards the front, […]

LIVE: SPRING KING / GET INUIT – 14/10/2016

LIVE: YVETTE YOUNG – 12/10/2016

– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – It feels like a 60’s love-in in the back room at Gullivers tonight, the majority of the crowd have taken to sitting on the floor of the intimate but packed space front of stage waiting for Yvette to start her set.  It’s a friendly atmosphere and everyone is comfortable and ready […]
Energetic, floor-filler, upbeat and catchy are just some of the words appropriate for The Island Club’s latest offering. ‘Let Go’ has already been released across various platforms. Although many sounds can be heard in the single, the band centres in the synth pop/indie world although some rock influence is prevalent in their music. The track […]

SINGLE REVIEW: THE ISLAND CLUB – ‘LET GO’

LIVE: PARQUET COURTS – 10/10/2016

– ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – 285 Kent-by-way-of-Texas pseudo-slackers Parquet Courts have been consuming culture at an unnatural rate and spitting it back out just as fast since 2011 in an endless effort to move beyond prescriptive expectation and reflect the great distances between humanity and the claustrophobia of the concrete world, but according to bassist […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – There is a very loudly mic’d kick drum that first draws my attention to tonight’s support act Eugene Quell. I’ve missed opener Claw The Thin Ice due to a slightly gammy foot, the reason for both my late arrival and my choice to sit on a bench despite the crowd […]

LIVE: PITY SEX / EUGENE QUELL – 07/10/2016

LIVE: DESMADRADOS SOLDADOS DE VENTURA – 05/10/2016

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Tonight’s Manchester psych band Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura’s have bulked out their music since their debut record, a two-sided eponymously-titled cassette released nearly four years ago. Few current bands can claim to have put out a 4LP edition, but such is the case with DSDV’s most recent release The Grand […]
It’s great that we live in an age where indie labels are running supreme. The majors will always be there, ready to entice the unsuspecting but to the core of it, underground music and the DIY aesthetic seems to be a fiercer proposition more than ever at the moment. Blak Hand Records are a cassette based […]

ALBUM REVIEW: BLAK HAND RECORDS – HIDE AND PSYCH