After Kurt Cobain’s death, a gathering was held where his rival, and apparent nemesis, Eddie Vedder noted that the fame of Seattle’s grunge contingency might well be down to Cobain’s genius. Whilst Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino has the same love…
Category: Reviews
Album: Cashier No. 9 – To The Death of Fun
What do you get if you take the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Byrds, Phil Spector, New Order and stick them all into a cocktail shaker? Then serve the contents to five guys from Belfast? The result is Cashier No.9,…
Album: Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Justin Vernon returns with a more integral cast of collaborators for his second album as Bon Iver. The name is drawn from the French for “good winter” (bon hiver) and the often sparse instrumentation coupled with Vernon’s alternately hushed and…
EP: Michael Kiwanuka – Tell Me A Tale
I need to go and see Michael Kiwanuka in person. Only then might I believe he exists, at least in the form we’re told of. Surely it’s more plausible that, rather than being a 23-year-old Londoner, he’s now an aging…
Album | Mechanical Bride – Living With Ants
The once-rarefied (some would say shunned) musical zone of the singer-songwriter has become rather crowded in recent years, a space for any old chap with a guitar and a vintage waistcoat and, as with any burgeoning cultural phenomenon, the more…
Album: Nik Freitas – Saturday Night Underwater
Richey Edwards used to style his hair as Ian McCulloch, John Lennon was initally obsessed with having an Elvis quiff and Ian Curtis tried to dress like David Bowie. Great musicians all have to start somewhere and their beginning is…
Album: Babette Hayward – You Might Be Somebody
It’s been three short years since Laura Marling released her brilliant debut Alas I Cannot Swim. In that time, Marling, along with her contemporaries, has helped to forge the folk revival. This has seen, amongst others, Marling, Fleet Foxes and…
Singles: Marcus Foster, Kyla La Grange, O’Death & Grass House
Marcus Foster – Rushes & Reeds Marcus Foster, possibly best known for having Robert Pattinson sing one of his compositions on the Twilight soundtrack curiously reminded me of a band slightly North of his London roots; Oxford’s Charly Coombes and…
Album: Ty Segall – Goodbye Bread
Before we start I should make my feelings clear: winsome West Coast garage–punker Ty Segall makes me sick. Years of amateurish and painstaking hours strapped to the acoustic guitar have seen me boldly exploring the lyrical and sonic hinterland between…
Album: Vetiver – The Errant Charm
On their fifth album The Errant Charm, San Francisco’s Vetiver make no surprise departures from the breezy psychadelic-folk that fans have become accustomed to. It is a lazy afternoon of a record – a perfectly pleasant diversion that leaves you…