NEWS: The Durutti Column to release first wax single this century
THE FIRST standalone vinyl single to come from Vini Reilly’s brittle guitar soundscapers The Durutti Column in the 21st century is due to be released this summer – on Vini’s birthday. The 7″, to be pressed on “crystal clear” vinyl, will contain two tracks: “Free From All Chaos”, as first issued on 2014’s Chronicle 2CD …
NEWS: Fairport founder Judy Dyble dies aged 71
SAD news has been circulating in the world of folk today that Fairport Convention’s early female lead, and later singer with cult British duo Trader Horne, Judy Dyble, has died at the age of 71. Born in London in 1949, Judy rose through the British folk scene and was asked to join the fledgling Fairport …
ALBUM REVIEW: V/A ‘Come Stay With Me’ – a leg up for a virus-hit Leeds scene
IT NEEDS no reiteration that the ‘rona has devastated the working British music scene: no gigs, no festivals, no instores, no nuttin’. So in a little way, in response to the privations being experienced on the grassroots Leeds scene in particular, that city’s Come Play With Me label is set to release a compilation entitled …
EP REVIEW: Magik Markers – ‘Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020’
CONNECTICUT’s foremost ragged, slacker squall-rockers Magik Markers have descended from their years-long recess and deigned to bless us with the benison of a new four-track, download-only EP for Drag City, Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020, their first release of any kind in five years. The band, Elisa Ambroglio, John Shaw and Pete Nolan, said: “The …
TRACK: Romare – ‘The River’: insistent, layered Ninja groove
A ROLLING broken beat steps forth, announces a swaying Afro groove. It’s joined by a stabbing piano figure that seems to pin the deep, oceangoing roll of the break, force it to take a new rhythmic shape; a little bassy snippet hints at 70s’ funk. The beat shifts again, gets more insistent. Layers of sourced …
NEWS: Kevin Rowland’s majestic folly, ‘My Beauty’ for autumn rerelease
IT CAME adorned with the artist expressing his beauty – in lippy and suspenders, eyes level, straight to camera. It contained an eclectic range of covers, from Merseyside anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to the passion of the opener, Whitney’s “The Greatest Love of All”, which seeped in on a burst of very open internal …
SEE: Sarah Walk is unblinking on ‘Unravel’
WATCH the film for LA singer-songwriter Sarah Walk’s single, “Unravel”, and know she is a woman who is both facing up to and able to articulate emotional pain. “Why is it my job to fix this mess? / You’re always ready to defend / You hear my concerns as anger / No one wants an …
SEE: Ganser’s ‘Emergency Equipment & Exits’ explores just walking away
ILLINOIS quartet Ganser have just released their second single of 2020, “Emergency Equipment & Exits”, an exploration of that universal human experience, the sudden, instinctual urge to just up and leave; and what would happen if you gave into that urge? The video to the song, beautifully self-directed by the band, finds the quartet in …
TRACK: Come for a dip with Snow Coats’ ‘Pool Girl’
BURGEONING Oxford indie imprint Alcopop! Records – having recently secured the services of angular Bristol geniuses Home Counties – has brought another very fine little band into the fold in the shape of the Netherlands’ Snow Coats. The Dutch four-piece, who released their debut LP Take the Weight off Your Shoulders in 2018, will release …
SEE: Fenne Lily -‘To Be A Woman Pt. 2’: whispered caution, guitars fizzing
BRISTOL is a city that has really pulled its weight in modern musical culture; there’s no need to list all those paradigm-shifters that have come from the Avon Valley. One of the rising stars of the Bristol scene, 2020 vintage, is the Dorset-born singer-songwriter Fenne Lily, who has shared the video for “To Be A …