You know when you roll up to an arcade machine, or fire up that game of Tetris you have on your desktop for moments of manufactured distraction, turn in an absolute blinder, crack out a smug smile, take an imaginary bow for your adoring public, only to find every top score is still owned by the same damn guy – even if you’re the only one who plays it?  That is The Shins and the rest of indie music, that Continue Reading

Tonight Matthew, I’m going to John Lennon. No, forget that. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Marc Bolan. Oh Bugger. Strike that. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Jack White. No wait a minute. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be take the entire pantheon of classic rock mythology and squeeze it across a dozen or so tracks of quasi-experimental electro-pop blues, mix it up with a little punk posturing, spoon-feed it amphetamines, squeeze it into a really tight pair of Continue Reading

Found it difficult to hear most of the album over the intrusive promotional sound bites and the usual fanfare and shocking self-aggrandizement shite bubbling over the lot like some hyper ‘Mike’s Carpet’ fella. Don’t tell me you’ve arrived Mr Klasnekoff – show me. Anyway, here’s the tussle, not for reproduction and not for the faint hearted.  Hackey-born and based MC and Rapper and founding member of the Terra Firma Crew calls for equality and personal responsibility, criticising his generation’s current Continue Reading

Songs for broken toys and broken lovers. Why keep beating yourself up about things when there’s plenty of people more adequately qualified to pummel, eh? Like a river curling around the peaks and troughs of a peculiar valley there’s more than a trickle of sweet melancholy running through ‘Learning About Loathing’ and though not bitter exactly, it does erupt from a spring of sulky regret and loss. Sung with the fragile resignation of a young Robert Wyatt and rumbling with Continue Reading

Well, quasi-maharishi commune guy with crossed-eyes, squiffy grin and odd musky scent, you really are spoiling us. Just 12 months ago CYHSY’s debut got us all wired with chunks of wonky, e-number drenched indie and already we’re dribbling over a freshly offered platter of unpredictable appetizers; saturated this time it seems in hallucinogens, rich in flavour, the result of a recipe that tastes so positively slapdash it could probably never be repeated. And it’s nice to hold a thing of Continue Reading

Skeg and Rob Life started Breakin’ Bread as a club night in 1998 before it morphed into a label releasing numerous 7”s, 12”s, CD’s and LP’s. Now the whole fabulously grubby event has metamorphosed into one dirtybeatbreakinfunkandhiphop series of compilations beginning with The Deadly 7 Sins in 2001 (selling over 10,000 copies worldwide) and evolving into this, their second release and handpicking the finest beat bakin tunes since the pair’s last release. And for those who’ve got most of this Continue Reading

When a band starts talking about everything from architecture to the films of Aki Kaurismaki, French Impressionism to modern classical composers such as Arvo Part you can pretty much guarantee they’re not going to be shaking their arse and vomiting out the door of the stretch limo very often. But that’s no bad thing. Sometimes you want something a little more cerebral and a little more challenging. No, I’m not talking about Deal Or No Deal, I’m talking about another Continue Reading

Circus ringmaster for the terminally avant-garde, John Cale, spreads his numerous talents across a double CD that comprises a basic chronology of Cale’s musical career to date; from the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith to his recent return to the mainstream with 2003’s Hobosapiens and 2005’s blackAcetate. Featuring artwork by long-time friend Dave McKean, the album was kicked into life when Cale backed by his new band (Dustin Boyer – guitar, Joseph Karnes – bass and Michael Jerome – drums) Continue Reading

The head girl of ragged pre-grunge/riot-grrrl sweet-tonsiled US indie, with her influential band Throwing Muses (also featuring the equally spell-binding Tanya Donnelly in their formative years), has spent much of her solo life toning things down a little, seeking a sunlit zen, a folk-brushed calm, learning to sing like an angel, or indeed a star. Perversely, now she’s named an album as such, that’s not exactly the case anymore. Obviously driven by her aggressive metal-plated head-shaking side project 50ft Wave Continue Reading

What exactly are we expecting here? Do Bloc Party owe us anything? Are they, or should they be, held responsible for whatever you think it is they are responsible? And what is that? How important are they and this album, to their own sense of being, to the more general musical landscape in 2007 and to the wider world? Does the theory match the practice? Do they matter, at all, in the end? All questions worth chewing on as you Continue Reading