indie
Album: Kele - The Singing Winds Pt. 3Friday, 17 January 2025
Of the big UK indie bands of the 00s wave, Bloc Party were always the most austerely art-rockish. Where Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand all to some degree or other had a dose of the vaudevillian and a bit of party “woohoo!”, BP adhered way... Read more... |
Album: The Weather Station - HumanhoodThursday, 16 January 2025
Four of Humanhood’s 13 tracks are short, impressionistic mood pieces. Between 48 seconds and just-over a minute-and-a-half long, they mostly lack singing. Instrumentation is jazzy, leaning on piano and wind instruments. Drones and white noise evoke... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Celebrate Yourself! The Sonic Cathedral Story 2004-2024Sunday, 12 January 2025
Yeti Lane’s second album The Echo Show was released in March 2012. The Paris-based duo’s LP was stunning: holding together overall, as well as on a track-by-track basis. There were obvious influences: Kraftwerk, late-period Spacemen 3, motorik, My... Read more... |
Album: Franz Ferdinand - The Human FearFriday, 10 January 2025
Travel back in time to the mid 2000s and you would be hard pressed to escape "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand on the air waves. On the radio, music channels, in discos and clubs, what felt like overnight, the track catapulted frontman Alex Kapranos... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2024: The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to EcstasyFriday, 03 January 2025
Does absolutely everything have to get more difficult with each passing year? Apparently so. The amount of time I’ve spent deciding which of the many truly excellent albums I’ve reviewed this year should get the ‘top prize’ has, frankly, been... Read more... |
Travis, OVO Hydro review - a Christmas night out with some regretsTuesday, 24 December 2024
Travis arrived onstage with the theme tune from classic sitcom Cheers as an accompaniment. The cavernous OVO Hydro might not be a place where everyone knows your name, but a Glasgow homecoming by local lads made good certainly tapped into a festive... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2024: Mercury Rev - Born HorsesFriday, 20 December 2024
Born Horses remains as inscrutable as it was when it was issued in the summer. While it is about the search for enlightenment through journeying into inner space, much of what’s described – the album’s words are largely spoken – is allegorical,... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2024: Amelia Coburn - Between the Moon and the MilkmanFriday, 13 December 2024
I’ve known for some time that Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom’s Never Work is my Album of the Year. This lividly witty, no-filler take-down of workplace servitude arrived on vinyl in May. The creation of two Canadian indie-folkies (from The... Read more... |
Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of MusicThursday, 12 December 2024
Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts Mart Avi over its pulsing five minutes. “Fight the music” he declares. The word “execution” crops up. There is... Read more... |
Vampire Weekend, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a mixture of brilliance and self-indulgenceTuesday, 10 December 2024
When Vampire Weekend arrived onstage they numbered only three and were bunched together at the front with a large curtain draped behind them, obscuring their backdrop. By the time this marathon set ended two and a half hours later, they’d more than... Read more... |
Album: Duster - In DreamsFriday, 06 December 2024
There’s a lot of anger at algorithm-driven music discovery around – a lot of it justified, as the big platforms push the already-big acts and lowest common demoninator slop is aided in rising to the top. But we can’t talk about the topic without... Read more... |
Katy J Pearson, Saint Luke's and the Winged Ox, Glasgow review - warm-hearted songs to banish the coldThursday, 05 December 2024
'Tis the season for all manner of bugs, colds and illnesses. One had befallen Katy J Pearson, who struck an apologetic note after the night’s first number to say she had been unwell all day and was going to do her best to get through the gig. That... Read more... |
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