IT’S FAIR TO SAY that Loudon Wainwright has had an Interesting Life. Born in North Carolina in 1946, he’s released 22 studio albums, played a singing surgeon in M*A*S*H, been nominated for 3 Grammys, recorded iconic sessions with the late,…
Album | Richard Hawley – Standing At The Sky’s Edge
Standing At The Sky’s Edge takes about a minute to annonce itself as a Richard Hawley album like no other you’ve ever heard before. In the 12 years since the former Longpig went solo he’s carved out a career making…
Album | Jeb Loy Nichols – The Jeb Loy Nichols Special
Jeb Loy Nichols’ name first registered in my head about a decade ago as the man behind the virtually indispensible Country Got Soul compilations, which collected the best of that special brand of music that combines deep grooves with Southern…
Introducing | Balthrop, Alabama
Balthrop, Alabama are from Brooklyn. No, really. Well, okay, not quite. But when siblings Pascal and Lauren Balthrop left the Yellowhammer State for BK they decided to make their new band a home away from home. The town of Balthrop,…
Album | Allo Darlin’ – Europe
If Belle & Sebastian are indeed, as they are often described, the “acceptable face of twee”, then bands like Allo Darlin’ are very much the unacceptable depth of the iceberg below the water – intimidating in their lightness, in their…
Album| Ty Segall & White Hair – Fence
Enfant terrible: the favoured term of writers who seek to envelope youths, of immense promise and questionable mental lucidity, in a cloud of castigation. Or, alternatively, just a stick used by bitter elders, to beat against the reputations of youngsters…