Malpas are preparing to unleash their brand of electro-bluegrass on this summer’s festivals with dates lined up for the Isle of Wight, Blissfields, Off the Cuff, The Bard’s Party and the Moseley Folk Festival. Before they do, the New Bands Panel cast their ear over their work to date to see what we can...
The Roundhouse still has the ambience of a new venue even several years after its 2006 re-opening as London’s newest kid on the block. This may be because at times it feels like a new flat before the inevitable trip to one of Scandinavia’s furniture store outlets to fill the bits of space with...
Micah P Hinson has announced plans for a new album and is to tour Europe in support of it. ‘Micah P Hinson and the Pioneer Saboteurs’ will be released on June 21, the fourth full album from the Texas-based Tennessean. Taking Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Pioneers! O Pioneers!’ as his inspiration, Hinson will tackle political...
Most will know him best for singing charmingly odd little ditties about mosquitos, oral sex and ghouls; but anyone who has spent time hanging about the merch stall at a Jeffrey Lewis gig will also know that he is a highly talented artist and has produced all manner of comic books and illustrated histories of...
Villagers have been around for a wee while now, causing hubbub in the most remote corners of the music world, one such corner being the little known TV show, ‘Later… With Jools Holland’. Playing to a full to the brim Deaf Institute in Manchester, Conor O’Brien and his band proved why they are next...
Newcastle singer-songwriter Michael Chaney is the latest artist to come before our New Bands Panel, who took a listen to his first handful of songs on his myspace page. Louis Gilbert: Singer-songwriter blues afflict this young man from Newcastle. Yearning and self-cathartic lyrics like Damien Rice (‘I’ll be writing songs about you but you...
It’s finally here – Arcade Fire’s third album, ‘The Suburbs’ is to be released on the 2 August in the UK with a release on the following day for the US. The album can now be pre-ordered from their website. Confirming via a handwritten note on the band’s website, the band also announced that...
Moshi Moshi is phenomenal. While bigger American labels such as Victory and Epitaph have garnered attention, the small London-based label have been releasing a ton of records from exciting bands such as Tilly & the Wall, Hot Club De Paris, Au Revoir Simone and even current craze Florence and the Machine. Whilst The Wave...
As well as the four members of The Remnant Kings, two Edison phonographs with their brass horns accompany Jon Boden at either side of the stage at the Purcell Room. They help to “preserve memories of what’s gone before,” says Boden as he takes to the stage to the sound of eerie Victorian recordings,...
It has been three years since Canada's first supergroup, The New Pornographers, released their last record Challengers. For all that has changed in the band, however, it might as well be three days. With their new studio album – their fifth – the band have stuck strictly to the formula that has served them...
Last Thursday saw the brilliantly modest Stornoway take to the stage to play a sold out gig at London’s ULU. Without fanfare they quietly assembled before our eyes amid a collection of tassled floorlamps, and began to create beautiful music for our ears. Sighs of relief were felt all round when singer Brian Biggs...
O Brother Where Art Thou? is as much about the all-encompassing and redemptive nature of music as it is about the odyssey of the characters involved. It's an exciting, witty and often hilarious film that deserves to be watched and watched again for years to come.
The ever lovable folk trio Peggy Sue have returned from a European tour supporting Archie Bronson Outfit and without even pausing for breath, have announced both a headline tour of the UK and will also be off to the USA again in June. And that’s not all. On the 5 July Peggy Sue release...
We know Joni Mitchell Week was last week, but we’ve just had this submission from one Laura Marling, who’s been busy galavanting all over the States, and we just couldn’t leave it out. Laura’s said on many occasions that Joni’s a big influence, having been introduced to Joni’s records by her music-loving father. Over...
Following a delectable week of Joni Mitchell, Brian’s allowed his hippy side out of the oak tree for a pad around the forest floor. Now, don’t get Brian wrong: he’s not about to give up his beloved dormouse suppers. He has been thinking a lot about lentil-munching, Haribo-avoiding vegetarians a lot over the weekend,...
Last Wednesday, the New Pornographers took the stage of a packed Electric Ballroom for the first European date of their summer tour promoting new album Together, freshly released earlier this month. Together is the band’s first release since 2007 and the mellower, maybe ‘folkier‘ and more introspective Challengers. This new LP takes the New...
When he’s not strumming his guitar and recording solo albums like ‘Veneer’, José Gonzáles teams up with Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn to form Junip, framing his voice with organs, synths and drums. In the past the band met up periodically, schedules permitting, to release their first 7” in 2000, and an EP in...
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