indie interviews
Meet: Goodbye Van Occupanther – Tim Smith and life after Midlake
In the fall of 2007 I read an article in Spin Magazine about this band named Midlake. Denton, Texas boys with a penchant for dark, folksy songs that had the feel of both Fairport Convention, Fleetwood Mac, and a Ray Brandbury story. It was a review of a live show and the journalist put them …
Meet: The Kitchens of Distinction, and news of their new album
Sometimes you have your head turned. By money, by people you find attractive, by a job offer. For me it was much more simplistic. It was by records. So when I saw something made by the impossibly named Kitchens of Distinction (named, unsurprisingly I suppose on thinking about it) after a shop the band drove …
Meet: We chat with The Magic Numbers, with new album news
You know sometimes you get this sort of blinkered memory of something, or somewhere. Like when I first went to Whitby and I thought it was this fantastic place where I had literally had the food of the gods (well, the best fish and chips ever), but every other time I’ve been I’ve so looked …
Meet: Melbourne singer-songwriter/ producer Tom Day, ahead of his collaborative EP with Monsoonsiren
I sat here thinking what I should write for the introductory paragraph to this contribution. I was going to write something clever about how some composers don’t give the listener any insight into their personality, but Tom Day does. Then I thought I might write about how some music only fits the mood, whereas Tom’s music creates …
Meet: Emily Ireland a.k.a. See Emily Play on Sheffield, new songs, performing and more
I nearly wore out my copy of Kate Bush – The Whole Story when I first started work. For some reason, I found playing The Man with a child in his eyes was just about the most soothing thing it was possible to listen to when I got home from those first steps into being …
Meet: Indie pop darlings Making Marks, and listen to new track ‘Barcodes’.
Sometimes, you hear quite by accident a track that literally bowls you away. That happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I was trawling various social media sites to find something new and good to listen to. I can’t quite remember now how I came across ‘Barcodes’ by Oslo based Making Marks, but …
Meet: Gerard Langley of The Blue Aeroplanes, plus new reissue / tour dates
I suppose I would have been about 18. I’d gone along to the Trent Polytechnic (in those days we had such things) to watch my then favourites, The Darling Buds. When I came away, I’d fallen for this band of Bristol artisans, who made this sort of jagged art-sunk indie, with this front man constantly …
Meet: Drenge
Drenge are made up of two brothers, Eoin and Rory Loveless who hail from the Peak District, not far from us (well, me) in Sheffield. They are a duo in the Black Keys / White Stripes way (as opposed to the Pet Shop Boys sort of way I suppose) with no bass, instead this raw, …
Meet: Memories and Broken Dreams – A Conversation with The Tennis System
Teenagers, was chock full of shoegaze and noise rock goodness. The stuff I fall for every time. Let’s be honest though, there’s a lot of bands attempting to cash in on that late 80s to early 90s sound bands like My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain perfected. They’re not all diamonds in the rough. …
Meet: Sweet Baboo, and his new album ‘Ships’
I don’t know why, but some of the best and most interesting music to come out over the last few years has been from Wales. Amongst this breed of creative people is Stephen Black a.k.a. Sweet Baboo. Under this moniker he has released some criminally undervalued records that mould indie, psych, country, Motown and plain …