Not enough people know this, but the Bandana Splits’ eponymous debut is the most exuberant record of the last five years and the best slice of upbeat comic-book girl-band retro-pop this side of 1962. Alabama-born Lauren Balthrop, one third of…
Festivals | The Great Escape 2013 – folk odyssey
We parachute into Brighton on Thursday evening, landing in the middle of the Komedia Studio bar for our favourite avant-garde Norwegian, Jenny Hval. She wows us with her utterly unique brand of experimental, part-spoken-word, musical musings on bodies, cities and…
Album | CocoRosie – Tales of a Grass Widow
CocoRosie was only ever meant to be a project that existed solely in their own circle of friends but, about a decade on from their debut album, La Maison De Mon Rêve, they keep coming back for more. Since that…
#81 Beck Lanehart – Last Man Down
If anybody’s been watching Nashville (which is mainly worth sticking with for the music – or at least most of the music) then Beck Lanehart’s ‘Last Man Down’ is exactly the kind of thing you might expect one of the…
Album | Just Handshakes – Say It
There is something deceptively and very definitely different about Just Handshakes. Never has a trademark sound been more understated than Clara Patrick’s candy floss-sweet vocals. It seems counterintuitive that such an innocent and ingenuous sound should have the heft to…
#80 She & Him – I Could’ve Been Your Girl
Not that you should need any extra incentive to take in anything and everything that She & Him do, but their latest video is perhaps most notable for being Zooey Deschanel’s directorial debut. She told her HelloGiggles website: “After seven…