LIVE: PEGGY SUE – 09/04/2014

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Choosing Peggy Sue as my first review for Silent Radio seemed like a safe bet having seen them a few years previously, and having followed their progress from their formation in Brighton way back in 2005. Numerous tweaks to the name, side projects, additions to the sparse line up  and […]
–  SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – The French, cigarette smoking, beret toting sock puppet poet that greets me as I enter the Soup Kitchen (though he wasn’t literally working on the door) is not the same one that finishes the support slot around 20 minutes later. Oh no, we are treated to a merry-go-round of comedic […]

LIVE: POSTCARDS FROM JEFF – 08/03/2014

LIVE: BRETON – 04/03/2014

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – I remember hearing London-based indie dance outfit Breton a few years ago and being blown away by how many great artists they managed to sound like in one piece of music. With Foals-esque vocals, Tom Vek’s grooves and the weirdness of Late Of The Pier, Breton made an eclectic debut […]
The image of the Sony Warehouse after it was torched in 2011’s London Riots is a lasting one; plumes of black cloud are seen billowing out of the roof, while the right-hand side of the building where the large blue-lettered Sony sign was emblazoned is slumped, like a fallen giant. Around this time, a folk […]

INTERVIEW: HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER

VIDEO: POSTCARDS FROM JEFF ‘A HOUSE’

Life in the sticks can be seriously strange. From Myxomatosis-stricken rabbits to agoraphobic house parties, Postcards From Jeff offers a brutally honest perspective of looking out from windswept valleys to neighbouring city lights – it’s channelled through the peculiar new Lynchian video for ‘A House’; the first track to be revealed from the melodic explorer’s […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Opening acts are often overlooked, sometimes even skipped. But boy, am I glad that I caught Thumpers when they pumped up the stage for Chvrches last October. The London-based duo consists of Marcus Pepperell and John Hamson Jr., who have been friends since secondary school. A cast of supporting musicians […]

LIVE: THUMPERS – 17/02/2014

NEWS: BRETON – NEW SINGLE ‘ENVY’ + LP

Breton have released the video for their latest single ‘Envy’. ‘Envy is taken from their second album ‘War Room Stories’ which is released by Cut Tooth/Believe Recordings on 3rd February 2014. The album was written during a year spent touring incessantly and playing festivals across the world. It was recorded this summer at the Funkhaus in […]
Carrying on from where other urban festivals such as In The City left off, A Carefully Planned Festival is back to bring more than 100 national and international acts to Manchester’s musical hub, the Northern Quarter, for a weekend of live music, art, spoken word, and partying – all for the princely sum of £12.50 […]

NEWS: A CAREFULLY PLANNED FESTIVAL NO.3 – 120+ ACTS LIVE IN MANCHESTER’S NORTHERN QUARTER

LIVE: BC CAMPLIGHT – 28/09/2013

– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – I love a good story me, and boy, does Brian Christinzio aka BC Camplight, come laden with a whole heap of baggage. Namely the few the suitcases he packed in 2011, when he upped sticks from Philadelphia to set up home here, in Manchester. “Someday the press will awake to […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Looking around, there is no shortage of garage rock crawling out of the bins in every suburb and back alley of America, infecting itself among the fuzz-demented noise craving youth.  That being said, barely legal Chicago five-piece The Orwells fit this mould of what you might call yet another “underground […]

LIVE: THE ORWELLS – 13/09/2013