Author: Stephen W Thomas

Stephen Thomas is an Optimistic Realist, except when things aren’t going very well. His favourite music includes Elbow, She & Him, The Leisure Society, Sufjan Stevens, Sam Cooke, The Hold Steady, Stephen Fretwell and Girls Aloud – unless you’re pretty, in which case his favourite music is your favourite music. Stephen names all of his pets after former English prime ministers, but otherwise holds no real interest in politics. He is a serial lister, and has previously listed his Top 25 Disney Females, his Top 10 Albums from 1973 and his Top 20 Billy Joel songs. He frequently publishes his lists at www.wewritelists.blogspot.com

Album | Dan Michaelson – Sudden Fiction

Lord knows where the Coastguards disappeared to. He had them earlier this year, tumbling out low musical rumblings in the tunnels beneath Charing Cross station. He kept them by his side for the first two albums, the devastatingly sad Saltwater…

Album | Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Mirror Traffic

There’s something about the men behind boring band names. Just as the blunt mundaneity of Elbow’s name belies their swooning instrumentation and the wry lyrics of Morrissey served to emphasise the irony in The Smiths everyday moniker, Pavement were always…

Album: Dark Dark Dark – Wild Go

There’s more than just a buzz around Dark Dark Dark and their second album, Wild Go. There’s a hive of adoration in some quarters. Why though? That’s not the easiest question to answer. There’s a definite beauty to Wild Go…

Album: Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards – Shakes

It creaks open like an old wooden door in a Elizabethan house, does Dan Michaelson’s voice. The centrepiece of any album Michaelson features on, be it with the Coastguards or the slightly more established Absentee, it’s a voice that is…

Interview: Dan Mangan

There are few venues in London that can compare to the unique nature of the Union Chapel. It stands tall, looming magnificently tonight over the heads of Dan Mangan and the crowd before him. “It’s so nice,” he jokes, “after…

Live: Mt. Desolation @ Scala 27/09/10

England has had folk pretty much down to a pat for some while now. In fact, the last few years has seen the English folk scene go from strength to strength – developing its own distinct sound, breaking the mainstream…

Folk Music Film Club: Almost Famous

I want to write, and I want to write about music. There are, in my mind, only two types of people in this world: those who are musically talented, and those who aren’t. It’s those who aren’t that tend to go into music writing. That’s certainly why I’m here.

Album: Bombay Bicycle Club – Flaws

It is a brave or stupid musician that names their album Flaws. There is an unwritten rule in the art world that when naming your piece – whether it be an album, film, collection of squiggly lines on canvas, new book or whatever – you do not give it a title that in any way could be quoted by a critic against you.