We’re guessing it wasn’t a long meeting between M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel before they settled on the title Volume 3 for this, their, uhm, third collection of 60s-tinged pop. But it wasn’t just the title that was inevitable about this record. You could already guess the sunny sound, the (deliberately) corny lyrics, and...
Nancy Elizabeth is a true musical artist. There are few acts around in 2013 who have mastered the craft of making music like she has. Listening to Dancing, her third album and the one of which she says she is most proud, is like strolling through an exhibition, where the palette subtly changes as...
If you’re already familiar with Patch & The Giant you’ll have been expecting their debut EP to be named after a boat or a boatman. And so it is. Drawn from all four corners of our little Island – and additionally from another Island all together – this merry band of two Scots, an...
The Baptist Generals’ sophomore album begins like a schizophrenic soundtrack to an Atari computer game, beeping and buzzing as a guitar tries to make up its mind which key to play in. ‘Machine En Prolepis’ does settle down after a while, but only a little, and it sets the tone for a second dose...
John Murry, previously a collaborator with Bob Frank on their album of murder ballads World Without End, spent four years recording his remarkable solo debut album The Graceless Age, but it was a lifetime in the making. The musical telling of his complicated but compelling autobiography – a second cousin of William Faulkner who...
New Orleans is a city that teems with music. It rings out on every street corner, from the French quarter to the Garden district, through Treme to the battered and bruised Ninth Ward. There’s a musician on every street corner and why not? They breed them there by the dozen, others flock there by...
Frank Turner’s new album starts in the same place as his first one: a stranger’s house. This time he’s “Blacking in and out in a strange flat in east London… a long way back to the light”, not far from that “sofa in an unfamiliar house” on which he awakes at the start of...
Let me get the negative out of the way right off the bat: this was a gig to forget. And I think no-one would like to forget it more than Lissie. It was unprofessional and downright disappointing. If that’s enough negative for you, please skip to the fourth paragraph. If you’re still with me,...
Thea Gilmore’s return, following the birth of her second child, brings with it a 14th studio album in as many years which finds her on top of her game. Gilmore herself admits the time she took away from music helped refresh her approach to making music, resulting in a more confident sound, and this...
The town of Jackson, Tennessee sits just a little west of the midway point on a long stretch of Interstate 40 which goes by the name of the Music Highway. It is where Carl Perkins came of age, and it is home to the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame, which – despite a rather...
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