Reviews

Of all the New York bands that have been swept up by the straggling wisps of this hegemonic cultural zeitgeist, Longwave seem the most like the geeky college kid on work placement. Normal, boggle-eyed, earnest, eager and endearingly incompatible with their surroundings. That’s not to say that their end product is riddled with gaping holes (though they may well have taken twice as long and enjoyed a higher coffee-break/work ratio), but that where the accepted benchmark-makers of the movement propagate, Continue Reading

Those all-important vital stats first then, with this being a debut album and all. This is yet another of those supergroups, of sorts, and a very indie one at that, the fruits of 3 men working together in spare time that you wouldn’t imagine they had, but do, somehow. There’s Jim O’Rourke, he of various bands and solo encounters on the fringes of the American alternative and now full time guitar botherer in Sonic Youth. And Wilco’s front and back Continue Reading

Not one for naming albums then, Richard Warren. His first appearance under the Echoboy moniker (a solid, satisfying and adequately representative tag if ever we’ve seen one), ‘Volume One’, was followed a while after by ‘Volume Two’. Which was consistent, if nothing else. And now, with no respect for configuration or form, he plumps for ‘Giraffe’ like a listless foreigner on a Learn English By Post course with the wrong photocopied worksheet. Which is random, if nothing else. But it Continue Reading

New York City’s Grand Mal currently number, to the best of our available knowledge, Bill Whitton, Aaron Romanello, Chris Isom (who should be complimented on a good surname if nothing else), Parker Kindred and Nathan Brown amongst their ranks. Admittedly that could all have changed by the time you read this. Aside from mainstay, songwriting boss-man Bill Whitton, the rest of the band has been a swiftly revolving chain-saw conveyor belt of around 30-40 members since its inception in the Continue Reading

When people usually announce an album as being ‘like Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson’ they usually only mean one of two things: a) it’s taken an imponderably long time to create or b) it’s played by already semi-skilled musicians not playing their primary instrument and having less than a measure of success with it. If the truth were known they seldom mean it’s an album of such soaring melodic genius that you could hang a pair of trousers on it Continue Reading

There is no doubt, right from the very first sprinkled distortions of ‘Lyric’, who’s responsible. Alright, maybe there’s just a little, it could easily be ‘mistakenly’ attributed to a particular US alt.rock phenomenon that just about made it from one end of the 90s to the other. But this really is, unmistakably, only the work of one Billy Corgan. Of course without him the Smashing Pumpkins would never have become that phenomenon anyway, one that may well have faded but Continue Reading

It may come as no surprise to learn that the soundtrack to a film that is said to throw the rule-book out of the window, is actually scored by a man renowned for doing much the same thing with records. Speaking of his own idiosyncratic take on famous songs during his stage shows, the mercurial Jon Brion relents: “it’s like spraying musical Raid on the classics, until each dying song flips on its back and wiggles its little musical legs Continue Reading

Think all French music is like Serge Gainsbourg, Air or Daft Punk? Well it is, quite frankly; if what you infer by these choice icons of gallic downtempo and disco-chic is nothing short of the bloody marvellous. Whilst there’s no suggesting the Paris based Source label is the only arrondissement de music pour Francais – there is a very definite bias towards it. Rivalled only by ‘Luaka Bop’ for the curiously (though choonfully) avant-garde, Source can on this evidence alone Continue Reading

It’s early 1986 in the ski town of Mammoth and a major snowstorm has hit. Not very interesting in itself, nothing very remarkable. Add to this a half-dozen or so members of a frankly dubious but well intentioned alternative college rock band and a four-track recorder and the story gets kind of interesting. Add to this a camper van low on gasoline and a deserted cabin house and some imbalanced individuals and you have the makings of a modern myth. Continue Reading

It has been way too long. And they say you only recognise the true value of something when it’s gone, but that’s not quite true. You can only miss something once you’ve realised it’s gone. And sometimes to realise you need to be reminded. Like receiving a postcard or seeing a painting or a video of a place full of memories – but memories consigned by the years to the archives of your mind – is like opening a door Continue Reading