LIVE REVIEW – BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD: MANCHESTER ALBERT HALL – 13/09/25

A young man with long hair stands right at the front of the crowd, centre stage. He sings every word of every song, seeming to conduct the band, his hands as batons. He looks like he got to the Albert Hall about a week before the gig and would have willingly fought anyone in the […]
As an exclamation, ‘Uh Oh’ sounds mild, a restrained, almost child-like anticipation of trouble rather than a full-blooded, sweary response to an immediate problem. However, there is nothing half-hearted or childish about Patrick Watson’s ‘Uh Oh’, a sophisticated set of eleven compositions that feel magically alive. The album and its title were inspired by a […]

ALBUM REVIEW – PATRICK WATSON: UH OH

ALBUM REVIEW – IGORRR: AMEN

Man and machine is a topic that is currently discussed way too often. Nowadays, we have AI chatboxes such as Chatgpt which take up a huge chunk of our time daily. Even though Chatgpt cannot be used for making and recording music, there are different forms of technologies such as drum machines that can be […]
Home is a loose concept. A person’s physical location is not necessarily where their thoughts and emotions are centred. The third album from ALA.NI is a classic example of this paradox. It may have been written in Paris during the freezing winter of 2023 but the impact of a sojourn in Barbados, Grenada (where her […]

ALBUM REVIEW – ALA.NI: SUNSHINE MUSIC

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 12 SEPTEMBER 2025

Rafiq Bhatia                    Environments  Drawing on his jazz background that has previously included collaborations with Arooj Aftab, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dave Douglas, Marcus Gilmore, Mary Halvorson, Billy Hart, Kassa Overall, Cécile McLorin Salvant and more, Bhatia marks his return to improvised music with a trio of trusted friends and collaborators on ‘Environments’. Sydney Minsky Sargeant          Lunga   […]
An intake of breath is the first sound you hear on David Franklin Courtright’s debut album, Brutal Tenderness, and you’d better take a deep breath of your own – for 35 minutes, the LA-based singer-songwriter will confront you with all his vulnerability, raw and unvarnished, as he searches for inner peace while exploring his queer […]

ALBUM REVIEW – DAVID FRANKLIN COURTRIGHT: BRUTAL TENDERNESS

ALBUM ROUNDUP WEEK ENDING 5 SEPTEMBER 2025

Now that it is September, bedlam ensues with numerous quality releases clamouring for attention. Here is our weekly guide. Go Kurosawa   soft shakes       Solo debut from Kikagaku Moya member. Each day, Go would head to the studio, pick up whatever instrument was around and simply play. The process was slow and instinctive. “If something still […]
After 35 years, 13 studio albums, and a discography which found its identity by leaping between trip hop, synth pop and indie, Saint Etienne call it a day with the release of International, their final studio album. Exploring that vast collection of sounds the band has divulged in within their music, International is a journey […]

ALBUM REVIEW – SAINT ETIENNE: INTERNATIONAL

LIVE REVIEW – HAYDEN PEDIGO: ST MICHAELS, ANCOATS- 28/08/2025

From the front, Hallé St Michaels is an inconspicuous building: nestled in a picturesque residential area of Ancoats, it is easily missed or, if seen, mistaken as any old church. ‘Any old’ it is not, though, given the concert it hosted on Thursday 28th August. As one would expect in an old church building, this […]
“Contact, contact, all this shattered impact, shake three”. My introduction to Water From Your Eyes, and by extension, their second LP, was lead single ‘Life Signs’ which struck a nerve in me. An incredibly good nerve at that. Lead singer Rachel Brown may have a monotonal delivery, but their performance is just one key of […]

ALBUM REVIEW – WATER FROM YOUR EYES: IT’S A BEAUTIFUL PLACE