I last listened to the Norwegian septet The Northern Belle, led by singer-songwriter Stine Andreassen and practitioners of ‘Nordicana’ as it is being called back in February; a song that featured guest appearances by top-ranking Norwegian artists Siv Jakobsen and Louien. Now they have revealed details of a collaborative mini album ‘The Women in Me’ which is scheduled for …

Back in 2017 Highasakite, undoubtedly Norway’s biggest band of recent years, broke up amidst messy legal positioning which ultimately saw the nucleus of the original band, Ingrid Helene Håvik and Trond Bersu, sanctioned to carry on under that name. The other three members, guitarist/flugabone player Kristoffer Lo, and synth masters Øystein Skar and Marte Eberson, …

Heavily promoted on 6Music over the last couple of years (and, not to mention, by this writer), Norway’s Pom Poko earned themselves well-deserved plaudits for last year’s debut album ‘Birthday’ and its controlled raucousness.  They’ve been saying for a while that they wanted to “embrace their extremes a bit more”. If you’ve seen them live you’ll be …

Stockholm artist Miynt has released a new AA-side single consisting of the tracks “Give me palm trees and inner peace” and “Lovesong”.  The songs “address the inexorable digital ubiquity of modern-day human connection”. That sounds like heavy going or it might just mean people spend all their time texting each other rather than talking, a subject which has been covered …

YouTube. What would we do without it, right now? One of the few ways that remain of accessing ‘live gigs’ for starters – the ones you attended at least, whether they were filmed professionally or shakily on a ‘phone – or your favourite ones that you didn’t attend. A trip down Memory Lane in the …

A NEW festival has been announced for 2021 with a blast from the past … Creation Day, featuring Editors, Friendly Fires, Happy Mondays, Echo & The Bunnymen, Sleeper, Glasvegas and many more. The festival is the vision of Creation Records founder Alan McGee, and will take place at Wolverhampton West Park over the weekend of …

Emmy the Great (Emma-Lee Moss) released her fourth album on October 9th. ‘April /月音’ (the Chinese script, which translates as ‘Moon Sound’ on Google Translate but is given as ‘Mid-Autumn’ on the first track signifies her origins in Hong Kong). It was a bit of a rushed job, the fastest she’s ever recorded, ironically as …

THE ARTIST’S name suggests that we’re in for a giggle to British ears, as it hints of something out of a 1960s’ Carry On film or a Frankie Howerd sketch. But all is not what it seems. Vera Hotsauce is deadly serious and “Ricochet”, (referred to as a ‘diss track’) and video take aim specifically …

FORMER Genesis axeman Steve Hackett has released a live recording from his 2019 UK tour, entitled Selling England By The Pound & Spectral Mornings: Live at Hammersmith. The album came out last Friday, September 25th. Steve Hackett joined Genesis at the beginning of 1971 and was part of the classic prog-era line-up which also included …

Hamburg’s iconic annual Reeperbahn Festival’s organisers said right from the start of the pandemic that they would go ahead with this year’s event come what may and true to their word they have. The largely indoor festival, held in Hamburg’s plethora of music venues including the famous Beatles ones such as Indra and Kaiserkeller at …