Manchester
Say Psych: Video Premiere: Bones Shake – Unwell
Bones Shake are a scuzzed out, fuzz enthused garage rock trio formed in 2011 in Manchester’s underground They play everything to the extreme; violent bottle-neck blues riffs, drums kicked, pounded and exploited and squeals of reverb drenched vocals which when combined, will help save your soul. BSM is honoured to bring you the video premiere …
SEE: The stunning animation for A Certain Ratio’s ‘YoYoGrip’ – two ‘ACR Loco’ tracks meet in harmony
NOT CONTENT to rest on their laurels following the release of ACR Loco, that rich, irresistible return of an album from September, A Certain Ratio have just dropped the animated video for a new single, “YoYoGrip”: yes, that’s right, two of the highlight tracks from that album blended sweetly in a soundclash orchestrated by UK …
Say Psych: Track Review: Blanketman – Beach Body
Blanketman return today with new single ‘Beach Body’, produced by Luke Smith (Foals, Depeche Mode, Petite Noir, LIFE). It arrives as the follow-up to their much-heralded debut single ‘Taking You With Me’, which cruelly arrived right after the band performed sold-out live shows just before Lockdown took hold. Over the last year or two the band have …
MEET: Donald Johnson and Martin Moscrop of A Certain Ratio, on the release of ‘ACR Loco’
A CERTAIN RATIO, overlords of multifaceted Mancunian funk, have been with us now an incredible 43 years: hard to believe, isn’t it? They were the first artists to release a single for Factory, the wiry post-punk of “All Night Party”, back in 1979; but it was the skeletal, angular, hook-laden funk of second single “Shack …
ALBUM REVIEW: A Certain Ratio – ‘ACR Loco’: taut Mancunian future funk and effortless electronic pop
“THIS album is a culmination of everything we’ve ever done,” says A Certain Ratio’s Jez Kerr. “We’ve got some real momentum at the moment.” He’s talking about A Certain Ratio’s first album in 12 years, ACR Loco, which drops this week. Excited much? You wouldn’t bet against a musician so steeped in the groove; A …
ALBUM REVIEW: King of the Slums – ‘Encrypted Contemporary Narratives’: the life we live now as we may not wish to see it
MANCHESTER: that great north-west city with, in the words of an idol very much on an unfortunate downward curve these days, so much to answer for. It’s given us some of the most amazing acts and subcultures of the popular music age. But I’ll advance a theory here, if I may; there’s very much two …
SEE: The video for A Certain Ratio’s ‘Berlin’: UK dates for 2021
MANCHESTER legends A Certain Ratio, whose brilliant new album ACR Loco will be with us on Mute come September 25th, have just dropped the video for the none-more-Mancunian effortless pop of “Berlin” – we’ve embedded it, below. And it really is a great record: we’ve embraced its taut, breathtaking funk and its intelligent pop and …
Feature: Does Manchester really need the two largest music venues in the country?
It opened in 1995 and was originally planned as part of a bid to land the 2000 Olympic Games. With a maximum capacity of 21,000 spectators it is the largest indoor arena in the country, and in Europe, and for several years in the noughties it was the busiest in the world by ticket sales, …
Track: Doves – Cathedrals of the Mind
In my recent interview with Jez Williams from Doves and review of the forthcoming Doves’ album, ‘The Universal Want’, I described the album as immersive. There is no greater example of this than the surprise track just released off the album, the literally vaulting ‘Cathedrals of the Mind’. Shimmering layers of arpeggio, sequencers and sampling …
Meet: We chat with Jez Williams from Doves about Northern Soul, getting the band back together and the new album, plus we review ‘The Universal Want’
The new album from Doves, ‘The Universal Want’ is a blistering rebirth from the Mancunian band. It’s much more than a return to form – their previous albums were uniformly brilliant – but there is a sense of identifiable development and growth in the intervening eleven years since ‘Kingdom of Rust’ was released. Songs such …