Smog is Bill Callahan; underrated pioneer of the lo-fi revolution, a man as partial to a private melancholy world of fractured lives and strange pursuits as he is to parenthesis. Self-obsessed, insular and staggeringly candid about his considerable peculiarities, the greater body of his work (Julius Caesar, Doctor Came at Dawn, Red Apple Falls) reveals the produce of an addled and alienated individual leafing poignantly through a scrapbook of recollections and profoundly intimate sexual preferences; or as his own song, Continue Reading

Lawrence, real name Peter M. Kersten, purportedly hails from Germany’s rainy north – Hamburg. Already the producer of two wonderful albums for his own Dial imprint and Ladomat his growing reputation as one of Germany’s most sought after producers has yielded praise from Kompakt’s notable, Wolfgang Voigt amongst others. Currently enjoying residencies at Hamburg’s Golden Pudel Club and Click the gently prodigious Lawrence has also been known to release the odd 12” single on the Dial label under the name Continue Reading

How we all love a bit of Dave Fridmann, eh? Not content with his input into the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, we fusty little arbiters of everything a little surreal and a little bit crazy slaver for the even the flimsiest of connections elsewhere. And there’s little more flimsy than Fridmann’s twiddling the dials at mixdown on Home’s new album, ‘No.15’.  After wallowing in the endless production possibilities afforded by recording “XIV“ with David Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios Continue Reading

They arrive on trains, leave on planes and everybody stares at them. One might naturally assume this to be for their incurably wistful and bittersweet brand of California melancholy or the rich and beautiful vocal chemistry that exists between them, but it’s not; it’s actually because for all their flower-handling West Coast dreaminess the pair actually hail from Leicester. And though I’ve made a good number of stopovers at the bus terminal at Leicester’s St. Margarets, never once was I Continue Reading

So just who is it Ryan Adams wants to be this time? Because it is at least clear that this alt-country troubadour is always chasing becoming something. The new Willie Nelson? Gram Parsons? The next Elvis? Springsteen? Morrissey? Evan Dando or Julian Casablancas? He’s certainly put his potential about a bit since the turn of the century, whoring himself across genres and through celebrity circles, demonstrating he can be enviably prolific and malleable, perhaps fearing that if he stands still Continue Reading

Is this a Jim’ll Fix It? It’s still difficult to take Ms Scout Niblett entirely seriously. This is yet again an album of raw emotions and gall, and that’s about it. It’s really the sound of her wanting to achieve something, rather than actually achieving it. It’s built on very basic art-rock (nee punk) principles, namely that nobody can tell you that you can’t. It’s unclear whether it is intentionally obnoxious, aspiringly unconventional, or whether it is genuinely the sound Continue Reading

Listening to this record, the fifth from Texan pop-experimentalists Spoon, as a belated newcomer to the whole Spoon thing, there is the overwhelming suspicion that had Sonic Youth or the Pixies never existed, aside from the ‘alternative’ landscape being completely unrecognisable these Austin boys might have turned out quite nice. You know, clean cut, perfectly-formed pop songs with sensible haircuts, respectful of universally perceived limits of taste and decency would have been order of the day and their grandparents could Continue Reading

This women has been lauded, my has she been lauded. In fact she must have got so weighed down by the stuff that she fell perpetually below radar. Aside from the gust of air that carried her into public consciousness, otherwise known as her 2001 Mercury Prize nomination (for the pretty and gifted ‘Little Black Numbers’), she has remained undeservedly low key. But in a funny way, with a newly skewed hindsight, this album makes that treatment seem justified. Because Continue Reading

It used to be that every band in Scotland sounded, in one way or another, like Teenage Fanclub. Even Idlewild got there in the end you’ll notice. Of course that’s not exactly an all encompassing truth, anymore especially, since we’re sure there are trainee Franz Ferdinands throwing out their Travis pin badges and cluttering up rehearsal space the length and breadth of the country. But wait, here comes the second band, after Biffy Clyro, to sound a bit like Biffy Continue Reading

It sort of doesn’t quite seem right that we’re here at all. Right? Right. Five albums have already been submitted under the Eels moniker, not to mention solo endeavours from main-man E, like a band formed from his own neuroses, under his sole direction and image, wasn’t enough. This was a band too that many thought would collapse in on themselves like a novelty hit black hole after their debut had the good fortune to provide MTV with two wholesome, Continue Reading