Tristen – Eager for your Love
By no means planned, here is my second Americana post of the week. Maybe it’s my own personal way of trying to stave off the apparent brit-pop revival that’s around the corner. Please, don’t let it happen. With a slightly more conservative approach compared to Jessica Lea Mayefield, my last country adventure – Chicago born...
Dusty Brown – This City is Killing Me
I’m nearly 10 years too late to be excited about Dusty Brown, but I won’t let that stop me. Dusty Brown are a Sacramento based family trio made up of Zac, Jessica and of course Dusty Brown himself. Their live shows, begun some 10 years ago, have already brought them local music awards in Sacramento. I’m sure their electro folk...
Baiana System – Jah Jah Revolta – Song for the Weekend
I love Twitter. No, not because you end up reading lots of little sentences about people’s unfulfilled lives. It’s because you can find music which you would not otherwise have ever found before. So I was delighted to hear through a Guardian Music Tweet about the Musical Alliance Pact (MAP) which is being run by...
First Aid Kit cover Fever Ray’s When I Grow Up
Karin Dreijer Andersson‘s music has already propelled the likes of Jose Gonzales to stardom with his cover of one of my favourite songs, The Knife‘s Heartbeats - and now it seems to be the turn of First Aid Kit. The Swedish folk duo have just released a cover of Fever Ray’s When I Grow Up...
Breakfast in Fur
The creative juices can flow at the worst times – I’ve irked many a neighbour at 3 in the morning perfecting a few bars of music. Maybe it’s the rush of adrenaline from the fear that an irate pyjama clad person may knock on my door and shoot my face off that can make late...
Gaggle
Choirs conjure up a tirade of stereotypes, usually involving grey hair and cups of 50p tea served in polystyrene. As a member of London Philharmonic Choir my liver can certainly prove we drink more Stella than PG Tips. Gaggle, the female alternative choir from London, are legions apart from crusty old veneer of group singing. They’ve...
Everything Everything Keep the Sound Man Alive
Sound men at music venues have to listen to so much shit that alongside my sympathy for them I always wonder how aural torture affects their tastes. I’d say they either: Detune their standards until Jedward sound like Marvin Gaye reincarnate. Can pick a cherry from a turdy fog but are so useless at admin...
Mines by Menomena – Many Milliseconds of Aural Pleasure
Portland experimental rockers Menomena have released their new album Mines. It’s absolutely spell-binding. I don’t have much to add over the excellent MusicOMH review of Mines other than this is one of my albums of the year so far. I’m a big fan of experimentalism within pop aesthetics, rather like Yeasayer’s great album Odd Blood. What Menomena...
Sugar – New Dead Confederate Album out 24 August
One of my best friends called me whilst I was on a date to tell me Dead Confederate were playing a gig, that night in London. He knew I couldn’t go. He knew how much I love them. He also knew how pissed I would get for missing them on my doorstep. He laughed mockingly when...
Give Up the Ghost – New Radiohead Song Live Video
Thom Yorke performed Give up the Ghost at the Big Chill Festival during his 12 song solo set. Although he has been performing it since around February – it was only after singing this last weekend that he revealed it was in fact a new Radiohead song. Despite murmurs from the Oxford group that after...
Frame the City not its Museum
Going to Seattle? Don’t go to the music museum. It’s shite. Do eat seafood, rent a boat with fishing rods or take a short drive past evergreen forests for a trip to Microsoft town. Other than the museum I struggle to come up with a reason why you wouldn’t visit Seattle – it’s lovely and also where Nate...
Thank You for Your Love – New Antony and the Johnsons single
Antony Hegarty is back at last with the Johnsons. The roaming minstrel has been just about everywhere of late apart from with the group that brought him fame – well of sorts. Although I admit I was never the biggest fan when he first came on the scene – I have grown to love his...
