‘Never underestimate the determination of a quiet man’. In the case of Iain Duncan Smith the phrase sounded oddly pathetic, but whispered alongside the charming and distinguished Ed Harcourt – its resonance could scarcely be sweeter. Ed Harcourt returned this month with new single ‘This One’s For You’. Tender, bruised and effortlessly melodic, ‘This One’s For You’ like much of the new album, ‘Strangers’ is a veritable hourglass of whimsical melancholy and slurring, inebriated vigour. With shades of everyone from Continue Reading

The world’s getting smaller. Either that or we’re getting bigger, which statistically may be true, but to such proportions? Bite size is where it’s at. TV news runs clips rather than interviews, we watch more adverts than full length programmes, broadsheets don’t obscure your views on trains or leave the person opposite with an inky nose anymore, the physical music press has all but disappeared and the remainder rarely dare their dear reader(s) to work through much over 500 words Continue Reading

With woozy Moloko figurehead, Roisin Murphy rumoured to be considering life as a solo artist the release of the ‘11,000 Clicks’ DVD seems an alternately joyous and moving affair to say the least. Filmed at last year’s final U.K. show of 2003 at The Brixton Academy and directed by broad angle camera wiz, Dick Carruthers (also responsible for Oasis’s ‘Familiar To Millions’ and ‘There and Then ‘ releases plus James’s ‘Getting Away with It…Live’) the film takes us through a Continue Reading

It has, granted, been a funny old sort of summer. Here then comes its perfect accompaniment. And with a harsh south-westerly breeze-cum-tropical-storm unexpectedly blowing The Thrills’ sophomore effort half the way toward winter there seems to be little direct competition for The Zillions. Though this is just the kind of ray-soaked indie that would have clambered its way to the top in high season ’86, whipped up nice with an eclecticism that suits us down to the ground today, rather Continue Reading

Up to this point twisted Dublin song-bird Cathy Davey has probably seemed most notable for featuring alongside Alfie, Jimi Doves and the extended Garvey clan on the vocal credits for Elbow’s community-minded career highlight ‘Grace Under Pressure’. We shan’t be taking that as a starting point though, no, for we cannot be sure that she does indeed “still believe in love”, the manipulative sweet-voiced fraud. It’s convenient then that from this point forward there shall be plethoric positive points of Continue Reading

Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t always about getting the party started. Sometimes, with some people, it’s all only about keeping it going. Mark Lanegan, ex-frontman with oft-forgotten grunge greats Screaming Trees, has matured into exactly one of those people, going by the evidence creaking and croaking and groaning and grinding out of my working left headphone as I write this. And he’s not alone. This is not the same Mark Lanegan that recorded his last ‘Field Songs’ longplayer, all lone dusty Continue Reading

As thundering as praise may have been for Ms Hatherley over the last half decade (yes, that long, really), you still consider her little more than a dynamic in the scheme of things don’t you. She revitalised Ash, that’s practically undisputed. She brought legitimate harmonies, sass, sharp guitar playing, mini-skirts and a slender, muscular counterbalance to the giddy testosterone running unchecked BC (Before Charlotte). But you still thought she was only riding Tim Wheeler’s coat-tails didn’t you. Which of you Continue Reading

‘Tres Cosa’ is one of those delicately complex and free spirited flights of fancy that wouldn’t be out of place on Fat Cat, Gronland, Warp, Luaka Bop or Domino Records. Wait a minute, Juana Molina IS on Domino Records. Well that’s just dandy. Nestled between the murmuring loops, buzzes and switches of label buddies The Folk Implosion, Clinic, Four Tet and Cinema and sultry downtempo latinas like Suba and Bebel Gilberto, Juana Molina creates her own moist and enigmatic take Continue Reading

I admit that I am one of them. One of those that are responsible. Responsible for the infection that is manifesting itself in rabid packs dribbling what can only be described as liquid obsession across the entire face of this planet of sound. Ones that weren’t there at the beginning and not consciously at the end, ones given a heads-up by Nirvana and the stream of bands past and very present that exist because of or in compliment to the Continue Reading