If our obsession with simulation has taught us anything, it’s that good old-fashioned mimicry is a cause of and a cause perpetuating its own existence. The simulacrum, whether it be a faithful reproduction of Saint Paul’s Catherdral made out of kippers or a waxwork scale model of Elvis Presley testicles, exudes a joy that extends well beyond the original, making it more vital, more meaningful, more entertaining and more authentic than had previously been thought possible. We don’t care that Continue Reading

The mistake Oasis made with ‘Be Here Now’ was that in their haste to create one huge, big, fuck-off wall of sound, they forget to clue-in some tunes. So in this respect, ‘Forth’ is arguably Oasis’s finest moment to date. And I don’t draw the parallel lightly. Here we have two bands who’s terrifically eccentric claims of being the best band in the worlds were, for a short while at least, not the simply the result of having too many Continue Reading

You know your tone deaf mate, those X-Factor contestants that make the thing watchable, Ian Brown at festivals? It’s not their fault, not really. It’s life’s big see-saw, ying ‘n’ yang (or ying and nnnnnnnnng) you see. Because they have none, sorts like The Little Ones have to wear life-jackets so as not to drown in their allocation. Their place is figuratively like an 80s children’s hospice the morning after Challenge Anneka choppered off into the distance leaving rooms rammed Continue Reading

Most of us have seen the sea, a constant coastal reminder predictably wedged somewhere between the land and the sky and most of us will have experienced sand, whether it’s the toe-curling, skin-grafting shingle variety found on beaches around England’s North-East coastline or the white, fiery dusty variety found in Devon and Cornwall. And there may even be those amongst us who have been brave enough to wade a hundred yards out at Fistral Bay and balance precariously on some Continue Reading

Talk about hitting the ground running – like something between roadrunner and Pete Townsend’s windmill arms, only as legs. Add a cloud of dust and crackles of electricity and you near the impact of the opening double of ‘Highways Of Gold’ and the impossibly catchy Breeders-on-sherbet-and-diesel alt-pop helium bomb “Bats Over The Pacific Ocean”. Our recent memory can’t recall anything quite as immediate. This is the work of former members of ballistic emo sorts Blood Brothers and Pretty Girls Make Continue Reading

The moment of truth. Or at least that’s what you might be expecting. But truth seldom arrives in such a timely, predictable fashion, delayed as it often is by inspiration, copyright clearance or its complete reluctance to offer closure, both on a musical and intellectual level. An artist is only ever as good as the last album he made or as predictable as anything he completes subsequently. So if this is the moment of truth, it could only ever be Continue Reading

By all accounts the Los Angeles based ‘Living Legends’ member, The Grouch has been spending his time on the West Coast’s independent scene, pushing, amassing, springing, devoting, birthing and guesting all manner of sh*t in his twenty plus years with the underground supergroup. In fact, such has been his output (7 solo projects and 5 collaborative efforts, 10 ‘Legend’ full-lengths) one might forgive him the occasional lapse on this variously smooth and peaceful fifteen-track collection. Raking leaves up, pulling out Continue Reading

If Gene Hunt and ‘Ashes To Ashes’ proved one thing (with the exception of redefining pilot show, ‘Life On Mars’ as a prodigious one-off) it’s that history repeats itself. You might not ‘need that fascist groove thang’ but that ‘fascist groove thang’ nevertheless has a habit of coming screaming back at you like a fired-up Audi Quattro all the same. So where do Heaven 17 fit in this time-travelling sequence of events? Well somewhere between the loopy, industrial bleep-scape of Continue Reading

It’s an admirable and noble enough intention; the extraordinary journey of the Children at the Agape orphanage in South Arfica, who form a choir and use their not inconsiderable talent and music to help them overcome personal tragedy. Having lost their parents to AIDS at an early age, the children discover that they can use their collective voices to strengthen their spirit and inspire and engage others – travelling from the Orphanage to New York to raise awareness of the Continue Reading

We put on ‘Bluebeard’s Room’, press play, make ourselves a brew over which to consider its ebbs and flows for all you good people and then almost immediately get distracted by a phone call. We return to it a number of minutes later to be confronted head-on by the following gristly lyrical diatribe: “a vaginal swab on a murder-rape victim / a man decapitated by a samurai sword / a baby suffocated by a crazy nurse on children’s ward” (‘Harry Continue Reading