The All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival is set to welcome a thoroughly eclectic mix of bands to this summer’s two weekend extravaganza in Minehead, including a number of acts that are firm favourites of FFS.
EP Review: Peggy Sue and Les Triplettes – First Aid
This spiffing EP is one more magnificent adventure in the splendid journey of Peggy Sue. Their latest incarnation, with ‘Les Triplettes’ has more depth and complication than previous recordings, and excitingly raises the femme-folk bar higher still. The CD was co-produced with Steve Ansell of Blood Red Shoes and mixed in the US by the Dodos’ producer John Askew to startlingly brilliant effect.
Communion January line-up revealed
Folk club night Communion has announced the line-up for the first show of 2009. The gig on 4th January, organised by Kevin Jones of Cherbourg and Ben Lovett of Mumford and Sons, will feature FFS darlings Peggy Sue alongside Ark People, Sam MacCarthy, Sons of Noel and Adrian and Thomas J Speight. Headlining will be Exlovers.
Hello Saferide
Hello Saferide are a seven-piece Swedish outfit, led by former music journalist and DJ Annika Norlin, known for their infectiously quirky, hook-filled indie-pop. They Say: \\”While writing and recording, we listened to records by: Randy Newman, Carole King, Heavenly, Wilco,…
Album Review: Pavement – Brighten The Corners [Re-issue]
Try saying ‘pavement’. Sounds good, doesn’t it? And therein, according to founding members Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg in an interview this writer read many years ago, is the reasoning behind the name choice of the cult 90s indie rock band. A good a reason as any, I suppose, and yes, unfathomable as it may seem in a musical climate saturated by jingly jangly bands, they had indie rock back in the 90s. And it managed to do well enough for itself without the shameless branding ‘indie rock’ sees these days.
EP Review: Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart
Since the success of 2006’s Mercury nominated Ballad of the Broken Seas we have had a Frankenstein’s monster of a musical combo on our hands; one part gruff voiced Screaming Trees troubadour Mark Lanegan who writes songs in the great outlaw country tradition of Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, the other a treacle-throated Glaswegian defector of Belle and Sebastian fame. An unlikely matching by anyone’s standards, but one which has been pumping out great records over the last two years with a regularity that you could set a clock by.