nick pett
Live: Tom Brosseau at Wilton’s Music Hall
I knew ‘Perfect Abandon’ would sound at its best live: Tom Brosseau and band did not disappoint. Wilton’s Music Hall played host to a beautiful evening of otherworldly country and folk, blending most of the new record with one or two cuts from preceding release ‘Grass Punks’, and a couple of other, older treats. Everyone was on …
Live: The Staves
It’s a rare venue, Wilton’s Music Hall: a combination of grand music hall from the 19th century and a pub from the 1700s. Both are still in effect: the hall playing host to this evening’s musical marvels and the pub providing rich refreshment in the form of the wonderfully-named Curious Brew, and Kernel’s delicious Pale …
Film Review: Girlhood (Bande de Filles) – BFI Flare 2015
For the first time in an age, I’m back at the British Film Institute’s LGBT festival, in the only screen that matters. This evening NFT1 hosted Céline Sciamma’s 2014 feature ‘Girlhood’ (originally screened at last year’s London Film Festival) about the lives and trials of Marieme and her friends in a group of estates on …
Album Review: The Charlatans – Modern Nature
The Charlatans are an ageing Indie Holy Cow, the kind of band whose back catalogue xfm love to (very) selectively mine when they’re not heavily rotating the execrable Kasabian and the fading Kings of Leon. There are legions of fans, they’ve been around for over 25 years, and they have produced some decent tunes like ‘Just When You’re Thinking Things …
New Music: Altadore – Bar Lights
It feels like a long time since Winter 2012’s ‘Golden Hills’, but it has been worth the wait: ‘Bar Lights’ is one hell of a start to 2015 for Altadore. You all know EXACTLY what it’s like. You’ve found a band that you love to pieces, you’ve metaphorically worn away the grooves on the vinyl listening …
From an old record box: Patrick Park – Honest Skrew
The old record box has thrown out some lovely surprises in this month’s bumper crop: a reunion with a clinical pop masterpiece in Roxette’s ‘It Must Have Been Love’, the indie rock rush of The Wedding Present’s ‘2, 3, Go’, and an R.E.M. 12” of high quality (‘Orange Crush’). But there have also been some …
From an old record box: The Mission – Hands Across The Ocean
It’s another product of the ‘Jive Alive’ era. I can’t think how else I would have ended up listening to this goth-indie-classic rock-folk mash-up of a band. Only a few years earlier I can remember filling out Smash Hits Polls uniformly trashing anything with a hint of gloom or rock. Worst bands and songs dominated by …
From an old record box: Tori Amos – Cornflake Girl
In amongst some pretty bonkers material from a pretty bonkers career, the ‘Cornflake Girl’ b/w ‘Sister Janet’ single is still an impressive box of lyrical frogs. Atlantic catalogue number A7281 (East West Records 7567-87281-7) was released in the UK in 1994. It’s one in a long and impressive series of superbly-designed sleeves; the artwork for …
From an old record box: R.E.M. – Orange Crush
“I’m only a person, with Eskimo chain I tattooed my brain all the way Won’t you miss me? Wouldn’t you miss me at all?” My love for R.E.M. has been constant since first seeing the video for ‘Losing My Religion’ on MTV in 1991. I was soon scrimping the cash together to buy the tape of …
Profile: Cat Bear Tree
Comfortable in each other’s company and confident in the development of their music, on the cusp of releasing their next single, this three-piece are enjoying the way things are going. “It all makes sense” they tell Nick Pett. The Clore Ballroom is a calm hollow in the middle of the Royal Festival Hall building, cheerfully …