Reviews

Location, location, location. Location is key, everything in its right place and all that. From one of the most obvious examples – Sigur Ros’ affinity with the lunar landscapes of their Icelandic homeland – through to The Strokes’ allegiance with New York and The Libertines to London and, perhaps most appropriate in this instance, Brightblack Morning Light’s tipi-dwelling, wilderness psychedelia. Bands that have no sense of setting or context tend to lack identity and thus reason, with a few notable Continue Reading

If you ask me the perfect antidote to modern life and all of its complications is unlikely to be provided by of a couple of Massive Attack fans from Bristol, in much the same way that the answer to the Cluster Munitions Treaty agreed in Dublin is unlikely to have been resolved by the traditional Irish dancers laid on as entertainment, as impressive as their rigid upper bodies and precise foot movements clearly were to onlookers. And much the same Continue Reading

She’s gay and proud of it. Not that you’d have guessed as this pocket-sized instrumentalist doesn’t use it as the keystone of her existence, the bedrock of her life as an artist and nor does it provide the basis of a thousand and one songs about dungarees, landykes, rainbow holidays, unrequited muffs or a heapful of constant cravings. Members of her own sex occupy her bed and that’s about as much as you can draw from it. So why do Continue Reading

Turkish-Anglo chap and former Fridge man, Adem Ilhan does what his former band member refuses to do and compiles arguably his most assessable and straightforward album to date. That’s not to say that his last album, ‘Love and Other Planets’ wasn’t accessible, just that you needed a fairly complex route map to negotiate your way around its occasionally circuitous nu-folk tangents. This time it’s different. This time we get a glimpse of the man behind the blindingly complex arrangements and Continue Reading

Really, all she had to do was carry on. Her eponymous 2005 debut was a delightful set of timeless folk ruminations with intriguingly fraught seams. It was not at all difficult to like. But things are never likely to be quite that straightforward when you have sprung from the midst of a veritable musical dynasty. So equally, whilst her quality threshold was and always will be a practical foregone conclusion as a result, so too are the wild expectations thrown Continue Reading

It was a stark collaboration then, and it remains a stark collaboration now. Gravel-voiced hell-hound and leather-clad bastion of US alternative Mark Lanegan first dueted with fluttering angel of the Bell & Sebastian parish Isobel Campbell on 2006’s rock-solid porch-Americana dalliance ‘Ballad Of The Broken Seas’. Opposites were seemingly attracted, one became the snug foil of the other and it just worked, much against the odds of some logics. It was akin to a granite block and feather hurled from Continue Reading

Sitting comfortably? Funky modern-day fairytale up ahead. So, band from London province only really known for giving us Athlete (yeah, thanks) cobbles together debut album from their own restless imagination and borrowed fragments from old second hand vinyl, practically go into liquidation in the process (hence its self-fulfilling title – ‘The Debt Collection’), receive plaudits and critical recognition, but still manage to only sell about 8 copies. It’s like you toil long and hard to craft a fine crystal slipper, Continue Reading

Many of the names might mean nothing to us now. But then, many of them probably meant little at the time: Russ Kunkel and Joel O’Brien on drums, Charles Larkey on bass, Danny ‘Krootch’ Kortchmar on guitar and Ralph Schuckett on electric piano. A troupe of consummate yet anonymous session hands supporting a largely unknown singer. That Danny Kortchmar had helped define the signature sound of singer-songwriters like Carly Simon and James Taylor and had supplied no small amount of Continue Reading

Producer, artist and sought after guest vocalist, Lyrics Born is a founding member of the independent label, Quannum Projects which has launched the careers of new-age pioneers like DJ Shadow, Blackalicious and Gift of Gab. He’s also the artist known formerly as Asia Born – a half-American, half-Italian rapper with a Japanese pedigree, born in Tokyo but spending most of his life in San Francisco Bay area and has collaborated with a range of artists that include Jurassic 5 and Continue Reading

Jesus. Some people have to go and make things so damned complex. It’s bad enough trying to keep track of one set of house-keys, but when some clever bastard goes and hands you another set you might well just as resort to breaking and entering. Named after the San Gabriel river fork north of Austin, Texas, South San Gabriel are the prolific Will Johnson’s ‘other’ band. The ‘other band’ is, of course, Centro-Matic. One does slightly grizzled lo-fi in the Continue Reading