Hmmmn. Not too sure I’ve really connected with this. Not sure why, as it bears all the usual watermarks of good taste: trancey tribal rhythms, a menagerie of smooth keys and jazz filters, ambient grooves, an element of funk, a few curves. If it was Air I’d probably be preparing the most kindly of accolades. And if it was Four Tet I’d probably be wetting myself, so the fact that ‘Soft Hand Feel’ is by a fairly anonymous looking Toronto-based Continue Reading

‘I Love The 80s’. That’s the usual battle cry of the nostalgic forty-something rifling through their drawer of leg warmers and fingerless gloves. But hang on a minute. What if you didn’t love the eighties? What if, like me, you managed to sleep through it like the superficial and embarrassing seventies hangover that it was? It wasn’t all bad, of course, we had Chernobyl, Tiananmen Square, even AIDs was a more credible option to Spandau Ballet and Cyndy Lauper, making Continue Reading

Donovan, Roy Harper, Nick Drake, Al Stewart. Could have been talking about Musketeers but we’re talking about troubadours. Dusky, loquacious minstrels with one hand holding a book of poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelly, and one hand clutching a bottle of sleeping pills, squatting in a bedsit in a leafy suburb of Dorset, telling stories about cats, old manuscripts, sunsets, prophets and obscure historical episodes over a glass of warm claret. Very clever stuff. Very tuneful and more often than not, Continue Reading

It’s surprising that things take so long sometimes. We’d expected a raft of mini Bloc Parties long ago, it’s been nearly 2 years since ‘Silent Alarm’ lodged its legend as one of this decade’s most enduring debuts and yet it still remains largely unplundered, wholesale anyway. Battle, when we first caught wind of them, seemed like the first – only a sweet fresh-faced version thereof, which didn’t quite work. Cute, we’d imagine, wasn’t what they were aiming for. So this, Continue Reading

Up until these studio-based boffs produced the title track for Amp Fiddler’s new superfly album ‘Afro Strut’, Yam Who? had been putting themselves about as a ‘notorious’ remix outfit churning out unsolicited reworks of tracks by Raphael Saadiq, Pharrell and Dwele – outlaws existing on the fringes of conventional clubland like some deck-spinning Robin Hoods. Naturally, that’s all about to change. The former DJs, record collectors and like-minded halves of a ‘shared-vision’ have not only been commissioned to remix Jazzy Jeff’s ‘Summertime’, Continue Reading

Favourite Sons are, we’re led to believe, somewhat of a supergroup, comprised of members from underrated 90s psychedelic art-rock bands Rollerskate Skinny (in the case of frontman Ken Griffin) and Aspera (in the case of the rest). We mention this as it might be important to you; it’s just a fringe detail for us as, to the best of our knowledge, neither act ever garnered enough height to trouble Crud’s fussy lugholes. The story instead starts right here for us, Continue Reading

The problem with many mainstream singer-songwriters, those who brandish a voice and acoustic guitar as cosily recognisable, timeless tools of communication, is that they often set out their stall within two bars or so (not counting the inevitable predictability of the middle-eight). Beyond which nothing surprises and everything conforms. Familiarity is useful as a reference point, but to make you feel at home when that’s where you are already isn’t a particularly inspiring concept, and they probably know that – Continue Reading

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. If you’ve never heard of Brooklyn-born one-man rap ensemble, Joe Driscoll then its likely you’ve never heard of live-looping either, but sure as eggs is eggs there’s even a damned festival in Cambridge and one in Sweden celebrating this one darn thing. And here’s how it’s done: you get some digital repetition of some sounds you make using your voice, your guitar, your harmonica or your didgeridoo with the help of your bog-standard, buy-off-the-shelf Line6 Delay Modeler Continue Reading

Now I do believe they’ve taken a wee bit of licence here. Whilst for most people what ‘Sounds Like Sex’ would mean the furtive grunts and groans, faintly amusing squelchy noises and leaky farts stirring from beneath the bedclothes before we switch on ‘Match Of The Day’, Paul and Price evidently have a romantic view of the whole ridiculous process; lush orchestration, soft focus electronica, sighing vocals, xylophones, flutes and some rumbling, fumbling bass grooves. Yes, its idealistic, yes it’s as far Continue Reading