LIVE: WIRE – 26/09/2013

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – Wire are one of those bands that you discover through reading reviews of other bands. For me it happened in the earlier 2000’s, when ‘art-rock’ was making big waves through bands such as Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads, and every review seemed to reference these bands from days of yore called […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – I’m a little dubious about tonight’s gig at Gorilla, the main reason being that Jon Hopkins’ recent Mercury Prize nominated album ‘Immunity’ has been played to death since I got hold of it a few months ago and I’ve never listened to it with anyone else around. For me the whole […]

LIVE: JON HOPKINS – 24/09/2013

Album Review: Cuushe – Butterfly Case

For a pianist to adopt a chillwave sound for her sophomore album, a form of music often associated with amateur bedroom musicians, would seem like a dumbed-down shot at accessibility, and ultimately this album follows that lead, with sprinklings of beautiful musicianship along the way, just increasing the frustration of what could have been. To put […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – After walking in Gorilla to find Samaris’ lead singer of just nineteen rushing through her homework, it was hard not to expect an uptight performance tonight, mirroring the Icelandic band’s young age, with the three-piece barely touching twenty. However, clarinet player, Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir, explained to me after the gig, how the […]

LIVE: SAMARIS – 24/09/2013

Album Review: Au Revoir Simone – Move In Spectrums

Generally in the music press, writers love the idea of ‘genre’. The desire to pigeonhole and categorise artists is an instinctive one: it give us the ability to compare and contrast similar artists, which in turn allow us to grade them based on their individual merit. However as we plough ever further into the 21st […]
– PHONES 4U ARENA, MANCHESTER –  It’s a pretty big deal when a young British band, who have spent years playing every toilet venue in the UK and beyond finally get a break and get to play some bigger rooms. So it must feel pretty good to be in Eliza And The Bear right now. After […]

LIVE: ELIZA AND THE BEAR – 20/09/2013

LIVE: JAMES BLAKE – 20/09/13

– THE RITZ, MANCHESTER – James Blake. Not to be confused with the James family of bland, Blunt or Morrison. Blake is a producer and musician of incredible skill and flair. He crafts his songs from a rich array of sounds and electronic production techniques; with nods to bass, dub step, hip hop, R&B and […]
– SATURDAY – I’m sure just like ourselves everyone here has checked the weather for the weekend and noted that today is going to be the best of the three days in Portmeirion, so we decide this is the day to make the most of the village and its surroundings. First port of call is […]

LIVE REVIEW: FESTIVAL NO. 6 – 14/09/2013

LIVE REVIEW: FESTIVAL NO. 6 – 13/09/2013

– FRIDAY – Last year’s festival wristbands cleverly had ‘I am not a number’ written on them, a nod to The Prisoner, the sixties cult sci-fi show filmed at Portmeirion. This gave you a bubbling anticipation of what lay beyond. But this year’s wristbands are different, gone is the ‘I am not a number’, and […]
– SUNDAY 15/09/2013 – It’s half five in the morning and the wind has now been giving our tent a bit of kicking for the last hour or so, so I decide it’s time to go outside and make sure all the tent’s guy ropes are still intact. As it turns out most of them […]

LIVE REVIEW: FESTIVAL NO. 6 – 15/09/2013