“I haven’t smiled this much all week,” says John Paul White as another huge cheer goes up from the cowd. “That might sound pretty sad, but…well, thanks.” White and Joy Williams, the other half of the Civil Wars, have had…
Album | Thomas White – Yalla
“No-one does hippy love with a bite like Tom White,” claimed the press release for this album, to much amusement at FFS Towers. Once it became clear I wasn’t being accused of deviant behaviour (this time), I tucked into this…
Album | The Shins – Port of Morrow
This FFS writer first stumbled across The Shins at a house party in 2004, the crest of the discovering-indie-through-the-soundtrack-to-The-OC wave. We were professing our love for Death Cab for Cutie to a camp but handsome American chap who reacted with…
Album | The Decemberists – We All Raise Our Voices To The Air
It’s an odd thing, the live album. If you like a band enough to buy one you’ve probably heard most of the songs before, maybe you even own them, and with better recording quality at that. It’s usually hard for…
Album | Soap&Skin – Narrow
It’s hard to believe that Anja Plaschg, aka Soap&Skin, is only 21. With second full-length album, Narrow, the Viennese Plaschg tackles such weighty issues as loss and grief in a classical-goth style that takes a certain level of courageousness. Nor…
Album | Michael Kiwanuka – Home Again
Debut albums always represent the end of a long journey for any artist. Hopefully the beginning of one too, but definitely an ending – a point at which they have realised a long held dream and compiled that defining first…