Deaf Heat opens with the unflinchingly peculiar ‘Tongues’: darkly modulating harmonies bend two minutes into a bottomless eternity of human voices, cutting through hearts like ice. Lead track ‘Deep Green’ thunders in after the ethereal strangeness of ‘Tongues’, imagining the body as…
I am by no means an important person; but I don’t like to be kept waiting. I have long since reconciled myself to the fact that coolness is beyond my grasp – but it has always eluded me, from a…
Listening to Broken Records Toska, the Edinburgh based bands first release in four years, it strikes me that there are two defined (though not necessarily mutually exclusive) routes available when putting together an EP. The first option is to release…
Former Low Anthem front-woman and ex-NASA researcher Jocie Adams has returned in typically unorthodox style with her first record in her shiny new group Arc Iris. While hearing Adams’ voice out front might take a little getting used to, little…
In Hard Rain Barb Jungr pays homage to some of the most violently political songs of a pair of legendary storytellers and songwriters. Mingling the angry, searingly clear-sighted songs of Bob Dylan with the indignant, rage-imbued writing of Leonard Cohen, Jungr brings…
The nights are getting longer, the sun is finally starting to appear after hiding behind a perpetual raincloud throughout the bleak winter months, and Spring is upon us, as is the latest record by The War on Drugs; a musical…
On the day of the launch of his self-released album and hot off the back of supporting Newton Faulkner (who we catch lurking at the back of the venue), Sam Brookes welcomes a sold out crowd who eagerly gather to…
In Undress, adoptive Mancunian Jesca Hoop’s acoustic reworking of 2009 release Hunting my Dress strips five-year-old songs down to the bare, scintillating bones with magnificent results. Welcoming Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Willy Mason, Erika Wennerstrom (of Heartless Bastards) and Samuel Beam…
Sam Brookes toured with fellow acoustic artist Emily and the Woods last year, where he sampled a small pocketful of his new material. It was, however, the right amount, to enlighten the very few standing before him. What they saw,…
