“There’s always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If ‘Pi’ didn’t work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don’t think I would have gotten another shot at it. If ‘Requiem for…
Category: Records
Album | Slow Down, Molasses – Walk Into The Sea
Very occasionally Windows Media Player can be quite an astute critic. Take for instance its acute appraisal of Slow Down, Molasses’s Walk into the Sea: “Unknown Genre”. It’s right. The band’s music seems to me to refuse to take shape,…
Album | Lanterns on the Lake – Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
In my previous job, I worked as a presenter for new music station Amazing Radio. One of the first songs I had the opportunity to play on my folk-themed show was the wonderful track Giants, by North East ‘digital orchestra’…
Album | Slow Club – Paradise
In the two years since their debut Yeah So, it’s clear Slow Club have done a whole lot of growing up. Where the debut delighted us with its quirky, often shambolic joy, it still strayed too close to being, well,…
Album | Jeff Bridges – Jeff Bridges
The blurring of the lines between rock stars and movie stars has had a mixed track record of success over the years. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus collected the combined acting talents of Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and…
Album | Vostok 5 – Vostok 5
Vostok 5 is a collection of songs about man’s first uncertain explorations into space. Some of them are about men, both on the ground and in the rockets themselves; some who made it, some who never made it and some…
Album | Ganglians – Still Living
Californian indie-pop band Ganglians offer up a dreamy pop record; an anastomosis of The Beach Boys, The Byrds, The Drums and Beach House. I would love for this band to be set apart from those artists, to possess special individuality…
Album | Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
If Alas I Cannot Swim was Marling vs Fink and I Speak Because I Can was Marling vs Mumford, on A Creature I Don’t Know Laura strikes out on her own. This album doesn’t look to its contemporaries for influence…
Album | Tom Russell – Mesabi
A new Tom Russell album is always an event, and the veteran shows no signs of slowing down as he closes in on his seventh decade. And, from the rollicking ‘And God Created Border Towns’ and the title track to…
Album | Peggy Sue – Acrobats
I first saw Peggy Sue perform in the days when they were Peggy Sue and the Pirates, wearing fancy dress and singing funny, irreverent songs about Superman and wasted teenage girls. Their powerful voices and stage presence were already blindingly…