Manchester
NEWS: Screamadelica star Denise Johnson has died
MORE sad news from the world of music: it has been reported that Mancunian soul voice extraordinaire Denise Johnson has died unexpectedly at the age of 56. She began her singing career in a gospel setting, with that effortless, soaring voice, and moved through a stint with Maze to become one of the defining voices …
Meet: Charley Keigher of King of the Slums
KING OF THE SLUMS came snarling out of inner-city Manchester in 1986, full of condensed vignettes of raw city living, distorted violins and a deep, dark vision. After a hiatus, they’re back, with current round-up of recent work, ‘Our Favourite Trainers’, available now – we caught up with creative kingpin Charley Keigher for a chat – he also gave us a couple of exclusive photographs. Do read on …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Blinders – ‘Fantasies of a Stay at Home Psychopath’
BOTH the title and motive behind The Blinders’ new album seems remarkably timely. The album explores numerous internal struggles across its eleven tracks, whether through the tortured sense of self in the vocal catharsis of “Forty Days & Forty Nights” or the cataclysmic depiction of an introvert’s breaking point on “Black Glass”, who refuses to …
SEE: Hurts’ ‘Suffer’ in monochrome; September album
MANCHESTER’S intelligent electronic pop duo Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson, better known as Hurts, have released the sultry, monochrome brooder “Suffer” ahead of a fifth album, to be released on September 4th. “Suffer” benefits from a stunning black and white film clip, which you can watch below. The track is on-the-money polished and sultry, occupying …
ALBUM REVIEW: King of the Slums – Our Favourite Trainers
THEY emerged from Hulme in 1986, breathing sour fire and an eagle eye for unfashionable detail. Second cousins of The Fall in the way they filtered and spat language to reach deeper, following the grimy thread of it back through 21st-century estates and the Industrial Revolution to a lost, almost medieval rural folk tongue, as …
MNRØ – I’m not running to you
Out right now is the debut single by Manchester singer-songwriter MNRØ, I’m not running to you, and it marks her out as something to watch out for in the rest of 2020 and beyond. Over bubbling electro beats, MNRØ lays down her expletive laden rejection of continually being used, and taking charge of her own …
TRACK: swim in Lindsay Munroe’s ‘River’
JUST pause a second, and see Lindsay Munroe. Just a brief pause, before you press the right-cursor on her latest track, “River”. I’ll pretty much guarantee you that you’ll utter an expletive in surprise. Like Micah P Hinson, her physicality belies the depth and power of what she’s capable of delivering; like Tim Buckley, you’ll …
SEE: The Blinders up the darkness on ‘Mule Track’
MANCHESTER-based, Doncaster-bred goth-punk outfit The Blinders are back in the fray, with their second album in the can – and their latest single “Mule Track” is a dark thrust into the psyche. The track is named for the painting in the Imperial War Museum, which depicts a mule train making its way through a battlefield. …
Premiere: Joell Jordi – Living For Tonight
Taken from his debut EP, due out later this month, we’re delighted to premiere ‘Living for Tonight’ by 26 year old Manchester singer-songwriter Joell Jordi. Of the track, he says “Living for Tonight is what it says on the tin, it was written about living life for the moment and had a thought behind it …
Track: Lute – Dead and Buried
Manchester Prog metallers Lute have released a new, third, single ‘Dead And Buried’ following on from previous releases Fears and Victims of the Fall. It’s full of extended riffs, gear and direction changes and understated vocals in the verse at least, until the shackles come off in the chorus. The band sail close to Tool …