Holed-up in a remote country landscape near Chapel Hill the Elliott Smith endorsed Kingsbury Manx began work on third release, ‘Aztec Discipline’ with producer Jerry Kee who had also produced the band’s cautiously taken debut album, ‘Kingsbury Manx’. With recording sessions spread over six-months and with as much attention given to getting drunk and hanging out with friends it seems inevitable that there would be a mighty volume of undisciplined sketching in addition to the flawlessly structured and well realised Continue Reading

It’s used, sometimes, as a kind of defense for the indefensible. Imagine, for instance, a hefty fellow in a ten gallon hat ordering his third main course at a faux-grillhouse in London, because they don’t make the portions gargantuan enough over here, while hurling questionable right-wing diatribes at all and sundry. You might approach him and say “but in these days of more fashionable headwear, lo carb options and political correctness, why do you act like you do in public, Continue Reading

So you’re stuck in a random truck stop in some two bit desert town.  A 300lb local takes exception to your ‘purdy’ clothes and ‘your one of them city folk’ accent.  So what do you do? You fight the bastard! And the soundtrack, well it’d be exactly like this.  Purveyors of the ‘less is more ethos’, The Kills return with a brooding indignation of an album.  It’s devotion and its necessity and although they’re still rocking the monkey on my Continue Reading

I’ve been living with this album, at time of writing, for three weeks. Those three weeks, incidentally, aren’t enough – it’s a comfort then to know that my future is open to their continued influence – but they were necessary. Reflecting on it before now might have been like giving directions around a city before I’d even got there, going by the outline I saw on the horizon. You’ll be aware that Bloc Party are they who are most likely Continue Reading

There’s certainly no doubting that you get your money’s worth with a Joshua Noteboom release. ‘Narrow Path’ comes equipped with not only a bonus DVD but with a bountiful loot of ROM material, mp3s, instrumental versions, videos it also plays host to the entire album in 5.1 Multichannel Surround Sound. That’s in addition to the CD version you get as standard. Even for the majority of major labels, a multi-media release often signals a rather feeble and half-hearted tendering of Continue Reading

Just exactly how long does an artist have to be considered a ‘newcomer’ before we are forced to accept defeat and acquiesce to the broader public consensus that they’re simply not that popular? Nick Drake was never popular. Ian Curtis was never popular; even Elliot Smith could have passed enough folks in the street to fill a liner without ever once courting recognition. The truth is, as intriguing, mysterious and downright obtuse an artist can be, it does not naturally Continue Reading

First – and, if we’re being fair, only – surprise on this, the long overdue debut from LA’s Moving Units, is how very clean it is, meticulous, clinical. It’s the kind of thing that Patrick Bateman of American Psycho might shave to before a dinner date/twilight killing spree. Dangerous dreams indeed. Only when they first hit these shores with their EP and live dates almost 2 years ago they seemed soiled and intent, a lot more dangerous to know, loitering Continue Reading

Together with other delicious ironies in life; the Cocteau Twins consisting of three band members and not two; the Walker Brothers being barely on speaking terms, let alone brothers and the Thrills being anything but thrilling; comes news of more disingenuousness, this time from the adult-contemporary nether-regions of New York. The Brazilian Girls are not only not Brazilian; they’re not all girls. Howzat! Brought together a year ago by the Rome-born, Munich and Nice educated, Brooklyn-based Sabina Sciubba and the Continue Reading

Crackle. Pfft. Crackle. Huuuuuuuum. That there was a reconstruction of the first 6 seconds of the debut album from The Beat Up (or The Beatings for the likes of us who still also refuse to recognise the Mean Fiddler as anything other than the LA2). And that is all the subtlety you’re getting for the next 32 minutes. So on your feet, and no slouching. Well, not unless you can make it look, like, really cool anyway. On initial form Continue Reading