LIVE: FLOATING POINTS – 12/02/2016

 – THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It’s been a long time coming, but Mancunian Sam Shepherd’s debut album Elaenia was certainly worth the wait. After releasing a string of outstanding DJ friendly EP’s and singles, since 2009, we’re finally able to immerse ourselves in a long player that ebbs and flows from danceable bloops and bleeps, to […]
– MANCHESTER ARENA, MANCHESTER – It has been four years since I had a chance to see Tame Impala play a gig in Manchester. Holidays, plus, I had missed them by about 3 months when moving here, and have been waiting ever since. Tame Impala, whether you know them, like them or not, have been at […]

LIVE: TAME IMPALA / JAGWAR MA – 11/02/2016

LIVE: JOHN GRANT – 08/02/2016

– THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – In a year where the great and the good are checking out at an alarming rate, it is important that we appreciate those still walking amongst us.  John Grant is such an individual. Thankfully that appears to be the case, if the praise for his latest album and string […]
 – THE ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Thunder rolls over Manchester’s Albert Hall from behind a sky sized silver-screen. The whirring thrashes and builds until the sounds of post-millennial paranoia are greeted with silence. The floor-to-ceiling sheet is finally filled with oceanic endlessness, and from behind the separation an incredible otherness cuts through the waves in […]

LIVE: SUEDE – 09/02/2016

ALBUM REVIEW: PLASTIC ANIMALS – PICTURES FROM THE BLACKOUT

Plastic Animals have been slaving over Pictures From The Blackout, their debut album, for two years now. It all starts very promisingly, ‘Ghosts’ is ‘Knives Out’-style Radiohead, all urgency and fuzzy chords and heading off down a woozy rabbit hole halfway through before blossoming into a noisy crescendo. It’s followed by a whisper of feedback […]
Remember last year when Bloc Party lost some of its original members, Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong? Well, according to lead singer Kele Okereke you can blame that on ‘someone doing cocaine and someone not being into it’.  But it doesn’t seem as though the 4- piece band are losing out with the new, yet […]

ALBUM REVIEW: BLOC PARTY – HYMNS

LIVE: YAK / SWEDISH DEATH CANDY – 03/02/2016

 – GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER – Swedish Death Candy for me stole the show. I’m sorry Yak, but their psychedelic musings were a lot more stimulating tonight than your visceral 2 minute “songs”. And Rory Wynne, I like that Heart Of Stone song you played at the end and your comment about how “amazing” we were as […]
– THE CASTLE HOTEL, MANCHESTER – ‘This is a song about germs,’ breathes Daniel Knox. A few beads of sweat drip down his forehead as he introduces ‘Don’t Touch Me’. This starkly titled song taken from his self-titled latest album, he tells us beforehand, is about his germophobic tendencies narrated with a slight sense of […]

LIVE: DANIEL KNOX – 25/01/2016

LIVE: THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT – 24/01/2016

 – ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER – Great and wild Phil Campbell has this voice, so manly, so pleasantly throaty, that one could be watching his performance for countless hours. Even if he’s just singing a prosaic “Yeah-yeaaah-Naah-Na-ah-ah!”, in a hypnotic loop. Manchester’s Academy 2 is packed with fans of all range, from kids to those who […]
– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – It’s an early start at The Ritz tonight. Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, to give the evening’s main act its full name, is working to a 10pm curfew to allow time for the venue to put on its Light Boxx club night afterwards. Appearing in front of us with […]

LIVE: JASON ISBELL – 23/01/2016