indie
Miranda Heggie
Other Voices is, according to its founder Philip King, a festival which celebrates what’s about to happen. Indeed, artists like Hozier, Fontaines DC and Amy Winehouse cut their teeth at this unique musical event which, although it has its home in the west of Ireland, has iterations across the world. Other Voices is currently two years into a five year residency in Cardigan, Wales, as part of a partnership supported by the Welsh and Irish governments. With a heavy focus on artists from Wales and ireland, Other Voices Cardigan 2022 had three main strands: headline sets at St Mary’s Church Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
London’s Morton Valence are one of those bands music journos love, not that it’s done their career much good. I’ve bigged them up a few times, myself, starting at least a decade ago, but widespread critical acclaim has not added up to countrywide recognition. They are now up to album eight, still based around core duo Anne Gilpin and ex-Alabama 3 dude Robert “Hacker” Jessett, and their latest album is as consistently pin-sharp as everything else they’ve done. If only more would hear it!As ever, their default setting is doomed Leonard Cohen-meets-Raymond Carver narratives, deliberately English Read more ...
Joe Muggs
There is now a kind of “leftfield mainstream” in electronic music. It’s populated by people a decade or more younger than the original acid house generation, but who take their core inspiration from post-rave experimentation of the early-mid Nineties. Dusky, Bicep and to an extent people like DJ Seinfeld, Four Tet and Jon Hopkins all channel the rich melodies and textures of Future Sound of London, Orbital, early Aphex Twin, Underworld and co to arena-filling effect. And Daniel Avery has been chief among these. Running through his work from the beginning have been tones and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
There’s a song by Kevin Ayers called “The Lady Rachel”. It was on his 1969 debut solo LP Joy Of A Toy. Play it alongside “This Still Life”, the second track on the second album from Ireland’s Aoife Nessa Frances and the aesthetic kinship is clear. The differing genders of the singer-composers aside, one could swap with the other and snugly fit onto either release.It’s not that the Kerry-recorded Protector sounds like it seeks to recreate the past, but that Frances has a sensibility – whether innate and instinctive or intentional – tapping into a seam of archetypal yet idiosyncratic Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
At the start of the song “Two Ribbons” Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth of Let’s Eat Grandma do a brief schoolyard pat-a-cake hand-game. The song is a guileless ode to female friendship, love even, a paean to their own bond, which was strained at one point by the travails of a music career.Of course, it’s a piece of theatre, but the pair also emanate a very real sense of young women enjoying each other’s company, revelling in the sheer creative fun they have together. It’s a big part of their appeal. Kate Bush would be proud of them.Three albums into their career, the Norfolk duo are still Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Rarely will the bar staff at the Glasgow Barrowland have had an easier night. The crowd for Beabadoobee was so youthful that the vibe felt more like a school disco at times, right down to clusters of parents at the back and on the sidelines alternating between keeping a wary eye on proceedings and burying themselves in their phones. Their offspring, meanwhile, were racing to the front eagerly, leaving the usually busy bar areas deserted.Given wild cheering greeted a roadie checking a guitar, it was no surprise that the actual appearance of Beatrice Laus brought on hysteria, both vocally and Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Not content with having released one of the best hip-hop albums in recent memory (Cheat Codes, alongside Black Thought), producer Brian Burton has rekindled his partnership with The Shins’ James Mercer for the first Broken Bells album in almost a decade.Into the Blue is described as “an ode to the pair’s shared musical influences”, a phrase that can, let’s be honest, raise eyebrows and alarm bells. However, far from being a lengthy synonym for painful pastiche, the pair manage to plunder the past with remarkable panache.One thing no one can accuse Into the Blue of is limited range, and that’s Read more ...
Jaminaround, Ancient Technology Centre, Cranborne review - contemporary sounds in an archaic setting
Mark Kidel
The most unlikely venue: an extraordinary, authentic-as-can-be replica of a large Iron Age roundhouse. There’s a turf and grass roof, and the structure, made of immense roughly carved oak trunks, defies belief.You walk in, there is a kind of half-light, the feeling of entering a sacred space or a cathedral. The small circular performance area is set in the middle with gently raked seats rising all around. This is the centre piece of a brilliant and atmospheric evocation of an Iron Age settlement, the site of the Ancient Technology Centre in Cranborne, on the south east edge of Dorset.Although Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Album opener “Atapos” was released as a single earlier in September, its sharply angular beats created by Björk and Indonesian duo Gabber Modus Operandi, one of whom has since had his contributions removed following #MeToo allegations. The song’s message is about growth towards connection. “To insist on absolute justice at all times / blocks connection” she sings, intoning “hope is a muscle” towards the end. A muscle we need to keep in good shape, despite the circumstances.Her 10th album over a 30 year solo career, the big songs here are dedicated to her late mother, Hildur Runa – the seven- Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Presumably before setting out on their current tour the Big Moon smashed a few mirrors, walked under some ladders and crossed the paths of numerous black cats. Not only is this jaunt over two years in the making, endlessly postponed for the usual coronavirus reasons, but the foursome also lost most of their equipment in Spain just prior to hitting the road.In addition this Glasgow show was also hindered by them damaging their lighting on the day of the show. It’s therefore little surprise that bassist and keyboardist Celia Archer introduces “Trouble”, a song originally penned about frontwoman Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
“We love you, Neil!” came the shout from the back of the circle. “Well, you’d have to,” he replied. Five nights, ten albums, 113 songs and 30-plus years of releases: The Divine Comedy’s residency at the Barbican was an opportunity to savour the artistry of Neil Hannon, as his creative life unfolded in fast forward for our pleasure.He began the first concert saying – and acting like – he was worried it was all a grand folly and he was about to fall flat on his face. In fact, the opposite was the case. First – and no mean achievement – Hannon filled the Barbican for all five nights, both with Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Three and a half years on from 2019’s False Alarm, Keep On Smiling comes album number five from Northern Ireland trio, Two Door Cinema Club. Known for having more bounce to the ounce than your average band, their brand of guitar-flecked electro pop has won hearts, minds and sales in roughly equal measure.Confounding expectations from the start, the new album is neatly (nearly) bookended by two instrumentals, the brooding “Messenger AD” and its penultimate partner piece “Messenger HD”. The first brings to mind heyday John Carpenter (or Stranger Things depending on your age). Clocking in at Read more ...