LIVE: WIDOWSPEAK – 27/08/2013

– NIGHT AND DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – There’s an American feel about this venue, and so Widowspeak should feel right at home. The support band come from Wigan but sound very Country indeed. The stage is set. It’s dark in here and I’m not wearing my glasses… but I can hear drumming and can’t see […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – The bunker beneath one of Manchester’s finest bars, Soup Kitchen, is the perfect place for Blondes and their brand of ecstatic, build, build and then build some more repetitive house (I think it’s mostly house, with about a million genres of dance music that all merge into each other, who […]

LIVE: BLONDES – 24/08/2013

Album Review: Drenge – Drenge

When asked to think of Derbyshire, you may conjure up images of coal mines, the luxurious home of Jane Austen’s swoon-inducing Mr. Darcy and now angsty, two-man blues/rock duos who make The Black Keys sound dangerously close to irrelevant, plodding dad-rock. Indeed, Derbyshire’s latest export, Drenge – formed by the aptly named brothers Eion and […]
Out Cold is a side project of Simon Aldred, the frontman of Cherry Ghost. Aldred’s work with the Bolton band, such as on minor hits ‘Mathematics’ and ‘4am’, has an organic sound with a widescreen feel, and Aldred’s warm, northern vocals might easily be capable of bringing comfort to any homesick Lancastrian. With Out Cold, […]

Album Review: Out Cold – Invasion of Love

ALBUM REVIEW: TY SEGALL – SLEEPER

As they do, musicians will wander off their path of what we’re used to and surprise us with something that separates itself distinctly from the rest. Like a sore thumb, Ty Segall’s latest album Sleeper stands out as something completely out of his realm. Differentiating itself from the likes of last year’s thrash-and-roll efforts Slaughterhouse, Twins and Hair with Cali pals […]
In 2013, it’s easier than ever before to find new music. The advent of Spotify and the omnipresence of the Internet as a whole means that any new artist can record something with a reasonable degree of competency, and instantly expose it to millions of people with the click of a mouse. Despite the recent […]

Album Review: Washed Out – Paracosm

LIVE: OWEN PALLETT – 12/08/2013

– BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER – Owen Pallett is an extraordinarily talented man. As well as his stellar solo work under his own name and the Final Fantasy moniker, he has also worked on string arrangements for many a band including Beirut, Arcade Fire and Last Shadow Puppets. And it is his strings that […]
With summer almost over, it’s a shame the new Crocodiles album Crimes of Passion has arrived in August as it would have provided the perfect soundtrack to soak up those boozy afternoon sessions in the park. Formed after their previous punk bands had split, Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell decided to continue on their musical […]

Album Review: Crocodiles – Crimes of Passion

Album Review: Laura Veirs – Warp and Weft

With her last album comprising a collection of songs for children and having recently given birth to her second son, it would be an easy assumption that Laura Veirs’ latest material is characterised by more insular themes. However, this is hardly the case at all. After the lofty, scientific subject matter and metaphors of Carbon […]
Journey – An act of travelling from one place to another. The past weekend has been that journey. One that has spanned nearly two decades of waiting, one that has been filled with emotion and one that ended with sheer beauty and happiness. Texas Is The Reason released one album, one EP and two split […]

LIVE: TEXAS IS THE REASON – 03/08/2013 (MANCHESTER) & 04/08/2013 (LONDON)