LIVE: ARAB STRAP – 14/10/2016

– 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 […]
– 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 […]

LIVE: ULRIKA SPACEK – 13/10/2016

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

– 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, […]
– 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 […]

LIVE: YVETTE YOUNG – 12/10/2016

SINGLE REVIEW: THE ISLAND CLUB – ‘LET GO’

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 […]
– 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 […]

LIVE: PARQUET COURTS – 10/10/2016

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

– 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 […]
– 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 […]

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

ALBUM REVIEW: BLAK HAND RECORDS – HIDE AND PSYCH

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 […]
– ACADEMY 1, MANCHESTER –  Making my way into the cramped hole that is the Academy, I begin to feel a sense of fear and excitement, not quite sure what to expect from tonight’s affair. The venue is filled to bursting point and I feel that maybe it is too small for the hundreds of […]

LIVE: BLOSSOMS – 30/09/2016