When they said Indietracks was held in a remote part of Derbyshire, they weren’t joking. High on road-trip junk-food and cursing the iPhone’s rubbish navigation, we circled Swanwick’s one-way system 7 times. But all rumours of troll-like staff were quashed…
Category: Reviews
Album: Common Prayer – There is a Mountain
Ok, so it’s true, listeners. There is a mountain. It has its roots planted in old-time folk, back-country blues, gutsy 50s doo-wop and military brass, but it is reaching.. well, somewhere into the sky. Or the future. Somewhere strange and…
Album: The Unthanks — Here’s The Tender Coming
Though their previous album, The Bairns, was Mercury-nominated in 2008, I hadn’t heard The Unthanks until I stumbled across Here’s The Tender Coming in a second-hand record shop, spied the pensive-looking girls on the cover, recognised My People and took…
Festival: Secret Garden Party 2010 – Fact or Fiction
After a journey to secretdom (somewhere between Cambridge and Norwich), the garden unfurls itself all centred around a huge flying machine anchored in a giant lake. This years theme was ‘Fact or Fiction’ and no effort was spared with the…
EP: Rachael Dadd – Elephee
Rachael Dadd’s new EP Elephee sounds delicate and raw, precise and spontaneous. It’s a beautiful collection of songs that could have been recorded just a few hours ago or sometime in the early 1970s. Imagine finding a vinyl record in…
Album: Caitlin Rose – Own Side Now
Speaking as a sincere and devoted life-long Dolly Parton fan, I can’t really begin to explain how wonderful it is that Caitlin Rose even exists – she’s a young, fresh, twenty-something who knows her way around country music backwards and…
EP: Fuzzystar – Late Night Radio
Listening to Fuzzystar will have you scratching your head trying to identify the many influences you hear. There’s all sorts mixed in, from scratchy Lou Barlow all the way to the smoother sounds of Belle & Sebastian. And while we’re…
In Photos: Latitude Festival
Our photographer about town, Georgie M’Glug, reports on the folkier side of Latitude…. Demure and unassuming as ever, but with a new-found fire in her belly, Laura Marling commands the Obelisk Arena on Friday night
Live: Peggy Sue & First Aid Kit @ The Garage, London
Having seen Peggy Sue more recently in a festival field and First Aid Kit in the heavenly Union Chapel, on first impressions The Garage seemed something of a mis-match. A dark, low-ceilinged, intimate venue with a reputation as a rite…
Live: Florence and the Machine @ Somerset House, London
It may be worth starting a consideration of this performance of Florence Welch and her Machine with reference to the end rather than the beginning: “This may be the last time you see us for a while, this is one…