News
News: Sydney’s legendary indie giants RATCAT announce 30 year anniversary gig
RATCAT will always have a special place in any indie band’s heart in Australia for the way they muscled their way into the general commercial charts in the early nineties through sheer people power and without any marketing. But then, they were so good. With an insouciant attitude, stunningly good looks, a thundering three chord …
News: The iconic Dark Mofo Festival – Come to the Cross – returns to Hobart from 16–22 June 2021. And there was much rejoicing.
We have been assiduously covering the glorious Dark Mofo Festival in the deepest south of the Southern Hemisphere almost since inception – a record blighted by the festival’s necessary cancellation last year due to COVID. And a bleak winter it was without this shining beacon of darkness. Dark Mofo is back this year with a …
News: Erasure to release ‘The Neon Remixed’ to end July – watch the lyric video for a new track, ‘Secrets’; British and European dates announced for the autumn
STRIDING across the synthpop world for 36 years now in a career absolutely without parallel, Vince Clarke and Andy Bell are back with a remixes take on last year’s album, The Neon; and they’ve also announced a string of dates across the UK and Europe for the autumn. Double whammy! The Neon Remixed collects together …
See: Brisbane’s iconic The Goon Sax unveil video for track ‘In The Stone’ and announce new album ‘Mirrors II’ and Australian/UK tour
Steeped in the legendary vibes of Brisbane’s proud and influential indie history, The Goon Sax are exemplary standard bearers for the new generation. They have an arch sensibility, a fey and literate approach to their music and in doing so have shrugged off any comparisons to their predecessors and contemporaries: they have forged their own …
Track: The Mountain Goats drop ‘The Slow Parts On Death Metal Albums’ and announce a tour Stateside
IS IT time that John Darnielle’s purveyors of the great Americana dream, The Mountain Goats, received an award for industry? In the accursed year of our Lord, 2020, when the virus came and we all suddenly became rather better acquainted with the insides of our houses and our heads than most of us could ever …
See: David Devant & His Spirit Wife – ‘Putting My Demons To Bed’: eccentric, theatrical Brighton popsters return with their fourth album in July
CASTING an eye back over the Britpop years, there was a little subset of bands which decided to forego the tracksuits, the bulldogs and the lager to explore the headier possibilities offered in the grand, beautiful, theatrical pop as framed by Pulp and The Divine Comedy, and who never quite garnered the recognition they deserved …
See: Restless Leg unveils evocative video for ‘The World’s A Room’ and announces tour dates
Last month we premiered the glorious jingle jangle pop of Restless Leg‘s ‘The World’s A Room’: an archetypal antipodean indie rock classic with its lilting melodies and indelible refrain. Now the band has put some vision to the sound and released a charming video featuring the band performing in the interior of a crumbling mansion …
News: The Nivens are the latest to get a loving and lovely Optic Nerve 7″ repress with ‘Yesterday’
OPTIC NERVE, the Preston label which is repressing indie 7″s with love and care in its singles series, version 3.0 of which is with us now, have just added a single by Northumberland indiepoppers The Nivens to its canon. In recent times, the label has brought us reissues of The House of Love’s “Christine”, Revolving …
Premiere: Seasurfer showcase stunning new video for ‘Pretend’ and announce limited vinyl release of album ‘Zombies’
Hamburg psych goth band Seasurfer released a magnificent and epic double album ‘Zombies, reviewed by me earlier this year. I wrote that it is an album packed full of anthemic dream pop songs that are differentiated from the pack by an electronic spine and dark-tinged gothic attack. Throughout the album, singer Apolonia’s voice is absolutely …
Track: The Gorstey Lea Street Choir release the epic, anthemic tune ‘Bluebird, Hollywood…Domino’ along with album news
The Gorstey Lea Street Choir are – despite the name – a duo from Staffordshire (Michael Clapham and Russ Phillips) who through their new single ‘Bluebird, Hollywood…Domino’ create an out of world shimmering sound that encompasses folk and indie pop influences with an expansive, dramatic horizon. It is a sound that is filled with grace, …