Music
Track: NYC’s swoonsome The Shacks break out the tinsel on the double A, ‘Christmas Time Is Here’ / ‘Got To Be Christmas’
NEW YORK’S gorgeous psych-lite caressers The Shacks, the duo of guitarist-producer Max Shrager and singer-bassist Shannon Wise, who know a thing or two about Harpers Bizarre, The Free Design and that semi-mythical Valley of the Dolls, bring all their retro-pop chops – which, it should be noted, are considerable – to a double A release …
News: Sylph releases a new EP, ‘Ancient Hole’, featuring Regis, Terence Fixmer and others; watch a short film of three tracks
SYLPH, the new iteration and solo project of the former singer with South London post-punks S.C.U.M., Thomas Cohen, is rounding off his year with a final, four-track EP, Ancient Hole, to which he invited the musical aesthetics of big, cast-iron techno names such as Regis, Terence Fixmer and Nicolas Bougaïeff and composer and singer Anni Hogan. And as well as being …
See: Beans on Toast leads us in a celebration of what it means to be ‘Humans’; he’s on tour, too
WITH his new album of acoustic optimism, Survival Of The Friendliest, out as of Friday gone and the first leg of a tour crisscrossing the islands already under way, London troubadour Beans on Toast has brought us one final single of homespun warmth, with a video starring Beans, his wife Lizzy Bee and daughter Wren …
Live Review: Electric Six / Vulpynes – The Academy, Dublin 4.12.2021
Down at The Academy in Dublin at the weekend a large crowd gathered for ultimate party band Electric 6 in town. Dublin band Vulpynes played support – made up of Molly and Kaz they describe themselves as Wall of noise, total filth, full of attitude… and you cant help but notice the Molly is a …
Live review: Alabaster dePlume, The Cornish Bank, Falmouth, December 4th, 2021, plus gallery: a unique and sweary odyssey to Planet dePlume
“I LOVE this. I fucking love doing this.” Be aware: Angus Fairbairn, the poet, positivist and saxophonist who transposes into the world of music as Alabaster dePlume, is a completely singular talent. Wearing his heart on his sleeve and cradling his sax in a spiritual embouchure, he grapples with this weird shit we call life; …
Track: The Plane Sailors pair cheeky wit with playful indie melodies on new single ‘Bell Curve’
“This is not your cliche story, I’m sick of happy endings, they feel so boring” declare The Plane Sailors in the typically candid, offbeat style that defines their new single Bell Curve. Blending amusing honesty with hooky melodies, the Brisbane-based outfit recorded the track in singer Curtis Hooper’s bedroom, before completing the session in bassist …
Album review: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Bill Callahan – ‘Blind Date Party’: a rolling thunder lockdown revue of the Drag City stable, cast in cover versions
NOTHING at all, really. That, for a lifer musician with new songs in the back pocket, older ones to take out and share with fans on the road across the country and the world, no chance to get into a proper studio even, if it is only to kinda dick around and have a laugh …
News: Christian Death’s defining US goth debut ‘Only Theatre Of Pain’ receives an expanded, deluxe reissue in the new year
LOVERS of all things Eighties (read: proper) goth, your attention please; LA’s Frontier Records, in partnership with Cult Epics, has announced it is to reissue Christian Death’s defining debut album, Only Theatre Of Pain, to mark its 40th anniversary in January. And it’s not going to be any old repress, oh no: it’s gonna come …
Track: Principe Valiente – Porcelain
Swedish dark pop act Principe Valiente announce their return with new track ‘Porcelain’, taken from the bands forthcoming album entitled ‘Barricades’, due mid-March which will be their first album for new label Metropolis Records. The single ‘Porcelain’ is also available as a remix package with treatments by Agent Side Grinder, Ash Code and TRAITRS. An …
Live Review: Bess Atwell – Oslo, Hackney 2.12.2021
A stolen lamp, a borrowed rug and a rustic charm fills the stage. Just a hipster’s 5km run away from the chaos of the global financial centre here’s Bess Atwell – cosy as a cat and as warm as an open fire – breathing calm with every song. Looking out on the chilly venue Bess …