Most of the band studied music and one went to clown school. The significance of this escapes me until the first tumbling bars of ‘Well Done, Josef’ alert me to the band’s rather cheerful, carnivalesque approach to folk – at once psychedelic, studious and almost entirely made up of rippling, cyclic guitar riffs and thumping percussive interludes. It’s an Elliott Smith/Sufjan Stevens vibe that lends a languid, almost murmuring slant to brass parping, party-poppers like ‘Air Filter’, with its crazy Continue Reading

Whether or not its because life support has finally been withdrawn from the time-travelling 80s franchise, Ashes To Ashes, or whether it is because our own contemporary artists are doing the eighties so much better this time around, I find myself quietly disappointed by the latest offering from the ordinarily tremendous ‘New Wave To New Beat’ series. It’s all a bit one-dimensional, if anything. Volume 1 and Volume 2 were a reminder that actual tunes were the glue that held the Continue Reading

Modern Rituals: the tale of two coasts, one east, one west, and the story of two brothers, one called Danny and one called Michael. Complicating Chief’s story, however, are the usual gaps, omissions, lapses and contradictions. Raised in Los Angeles but relocating to New York City for university, the two brothers are supported by able-bodied songwriter, Evan Koga and Mike Moonves arriving on bass. A return trip to Los Angeles also sees them shift the focus of the story back west. Continue Reading

Gonks. You remember them don’t you? Small, furry soft toys your sister used to collect. Like me, you probably never really got them, but at one time they were a ‘must have’ playground accessory. But unlike Rubiks Cubes, they couldn’t be used as a tool to dazzle your mates with how brainy you were and unlike conkers, they proved inadequate when trying to deal someone a really cruel blow on a wet-play in January. In fact it was impossible to Continue Reading

Whilst we’ve not been able to keep up with the constant line-up changes, the temporary break-ups or just who the feck is really running the thing, Crud were no less pleased to learn that cheerfully manufactured all-girl pop band, The Pipettes would be releasing their second album, ‘Earth Versus The Pipettes’  And naturally, in a world of such freakish infidelity, precious few constants remain. So what are we waving goodbye to? Well all three original members, Ani, Gwenno and Beth, the polka Continue Reading

Having never been a fan of funk, and even less a fan of thumb-thwacking helium funkrockers like Level 42, I’m not sure I am in the best position to judge Sunday Best sort, Max Sedgley’s new album, ‘Suddenly Everything’. However, if the musky, patent leather reek of a Ford Gran Torino and extraordinary, flapping flairs is all that you aspire to then tracks like ‘Hey Mr Superstar’ will have you spitting up a range of entirely suitable blaxploitation catchphrases in Continue Reading

I am sure this must have sounded like a good idea at the time. Just how that trip to the Lakes in January must have sounded from the warm, cosy platform of your laptop in June. Mercury-Prize winning Northern folk-heroine, Kathryn Williams and her punky playmate, Anna Spencer put down their baking trays, cleared the table of a crazy accumulation of crayons, paints and handy-wipes and set about creating an album for kids that sailed beyond the usual limitations of Continue Reading

Brendan Perry. Wow, this name takes me back a bit. Last time I caught ear of Brendan Perry’s lugubrious, unearthly baritone was when I was poncing around Sheffield Collegiate as an English undergraduate, a dog-eared copy of Oscar Wilde’s ‘Book of Hugely Precocious Smart Arse, All Knowing, All Trouble-Avoiding Verse’ hanging out of my back pocket and a lifetime subscription to 4AD records carved into my forearm (well written in red biro, to be fair). For all those who might Continue Reading