For a relatively unknown artist, Kría Brekkan’s creds are superb – a former member of whispery Icelandic collective múm, Kría has been slowly gaining a name for herself in the indie rock scene, including featuring in the cover art of…
Category: Reviews
Album: Sparrow and the Workshop – Into the Wild
Sparrow and The Workshop present Into The Wild, their debut album, a delicate, intricate and honest gift to the senses. Mixing pop, rock and folk as well as their different backgrounds (Scottish, Welsh and American) and views on music, their sound…
Album: The Dutchess & the Duke – Sunrise/Sunset
Sunset/Sunrise is the second album by The Duchess & The Duke. The Duchess & The Duke form a pair that lives in line with dichotomies and paradoxes, though in complete harmony. Their new work is a stark contrast from their…
Album recommendation: Kristin Hersh – Hips and Makers
Here’s the thing about Kristin Hersh: she’s a fucking goddess. A goddess, I might add, to whom far too little attention is paid. She’s also lead singer and guitarist for Throwing Muses, but that’s another story. I first happened upon…
Album recommendation: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Boatman’s Call
For me, albums I truly admire can be divided into two piles: those I wish I’d written and those I wish someone had written about me. The Boatman’s Call is very much the latter. When an album opens with a…
Live: Devendra Banhart @ Shepherds Bush Empire 15/12/09
Bounding on stage at Shepherds Bush Empire, girl-hipped and beard-faced, Devendra Banhart assessed a crowd made up of copy-cat males (long hair and moustaches gleaming), flower-adorned teenage girls, and a rather large chunk of what I can only describe as…
[Hundred Bands] 5: Lissie
Wow. Already our gargantuan task is worth it. Lissie is a Californian troubadour who made her EP ‘Why You Running’ with Band of Horses man Bill Reynolds. Lissie vocals are deliciously smoky, and she scuffs up her pretty melodies with…
Album: Dan Mangan, Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Dan Mangan is a folk-rock musician with a soft touch and vocals less strained and ragged than Mark Lanegan’s. His latest album, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, is, indeed, a pleasant ode to songwriting and traditional craftsmanship. Piano, horns, claps, female…
EP: Johnny Flynn – Sweet William
Singer, musician, actor, poet and annoyingly handsome fellow Johnny Flynn follows up the success of his 2008 debut long player A Larum with this delightful little package, a taster of what to expect from his second album due out early…
Album: Paper Aeroplanes – The Day We Ran Into The Sea
Born from the ashes of acoustic pop outfit Halflight, Paper Aeroplanes are the combined musical talents of vocalist Sarah Howells and guitar-man Richard Llewellyn – and it doesn’t take Poirot-esque detective skills to work out that the debut from welsh group Paper Aeroplanes is an indie-pop record – from the sweetly fairytale-ish album name to the cover art depicting vocalist Sarah Howells running through a field strewn with feathers – everything about Paper Aeroplanes screams of the kind of doe-eyed, twinkly twee currently being peddled by the likes of Noah and The Whale and Theoretical Girl. So how does the music itself measure up?