Music
NEWS: The Pretty Reckless chart with ‘Death By Rock And Roll’
Legendary rockers The Pretty Reckless chart at number 6 with their fourth album ‘Death by Rock and Roll’. The critically-acclaimed record entered the UK Official Albums Chart at the band’s highest position since their debut album ‘Light Me Up’ in 2010 which also peaked at number 6. ‘Death by Rock and Roll’ also hit number …
Album Review: nothing,nowhere. – Trauma Factory
Massachusetts-born rapper and singer Joe Mulherin (professionally known as nothing,nowhere.) opens a new chapter with Trauma Factory, his fourth studio album and second for Fueled by Ramen. This 15-song long outpouring of emotion is his deepest emotional venture to date. Battling ideas of pain, anxiety and heartbreak, Trauma Factory digs deep into the psyche of …
Track: Gazelle Twin & NYX – ‘Deep England’; burrowing into the dank peat of a merrie old nation
THE DANK, dystopian country that is Merrie England is being scried through a glass darkly by Gazelle Twin in shadowy conceit with the NYX electronic drone choir, who are kicking aside the collapsed slates of a realm that exists in our collective consciousness and revealing the rich, wriggling, sightless life scurrying underneath; a project they’ve …
Rosie Alena & Morgan Simpson (Black Midi) share cover in support of the Music Venue Trust
TWO OF the country’s most talented artists being Rosie Alena and Morgan Simpson of black midi have teamed up and shared a wonderful cover of The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun”, In support of the charity, the Music Venue Trust. A song described by the pair as close to their hearts, Rosie Alena’s and Morgan …
Track: The Catenary Wires – ‘Mirrorball’: Amelia and Rob twirl the indiepop glitter
AMELIA FLETCHER and Rob Pursey: a marriage of minds and music who’ve kept those of us who love love loved the C86 guitar pop sound so well musically fed down the years. They forged out of the Talulah Gosh era together with Heavenly, Tender Trap, Marine Research; these days they’re just as busy, working together …
Track: Lindsay Munroe – ‘Need A Ride’: Mancunian alt.blues riser finds strength in solitude
YOU CAN sum up Manchester’s Lindsay Munroe succinctly, thus: wow, that voice. Yours truly remembers dropping their spoon into my metaphorical cornflakes, jaw agape, as I first bathed in Lindsay’s track “River” from last summer, a voice tough and deep and melodic; “like Micah P Hinson,” I said, “her physicality belies the depth and power …
See: Toumani Diabate & The London Symphony Orchestra release video for ‘Hainamady Town’
Collaborations between improvising musicians and orchestras sometimes reveal nothing but a culture clash. The performances can sound disjointed and fragmented, the musical equivalent of cut and paste. But when Toumani Diabate, the kora maestro, and his band of eminent Malian musicians shared the Barbican stage with the London Symphony Orchestra back in 2008, the connection …
Premiere: R.O.C. – ‘Silver Highway’: a languid LA dream from Brixton electro collective
BRIXTON’S R.O.C, who bring the darkness and the devil-may-care to their particularly twisted twist on all things electro – I mean, who else would base a hypnotic, shadowy single for Virgin on a loop of Ugandan despot Idi Amin’s laugh? – are back in the saddle, folks; they’re all ready, a year to the day …
Album review: Mapstation – ‘My Frequencies, When We’: playful, immensely thoughtful tronica
My Frequencies, When We may not flaunt its wares with garish insouciance; but like so many of the albums that end up welded to your turntable, it keeps on enticing you back for more exploration, further interaction. It occasionally raises a grin and equally occasionally, an eyebrow; it’s varied in its approach yet thoroughly cohesive. It’s an immensely thoughtful record
Track: Holy Springs – If I Had A Reason
South London trio Holy Springs, have shared a new track in the form of – ‘If I Had A Reason’. Read our review of their EP Camera released last year here An ode to the 80s with the tracks brooding almost mysterious start, with drawn-out chords that grabs hold from the start. The track shimmers …