indie
Unknown Mortal Orchestra/Deerhunter, Albert Hall, Manchester review – New Zealanders and friends create festival vibeMonday, 28 May 2018
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s four albums all centre around off-kilter pop and flirtations with distortion; their latest LP, Sex & Food, carries this tradition forwards in a more laid-back manner. Their current European tour in support of the album... Read more... |
Malcolm Middleton, Brighton Festival review - mordant brillianceFriday, 25 May 2018
Before starting this review a decision was taken: that the over-used description of singer-songwriter Malcolm Middleton as a “Scottish miserablist” would not appear. However, this has proved impossible. Middleton is renowned, to the coterie who... Read more... |
CD: Snow Patrol - WildnessThursday, 24 May 2018
Few bands divide opinion quite like Snow Patrol. Their fans see their slow, intense anthems as cathartic friends. Others - myself included - tend to regard their music as an insidious, dreary presence. As Nicky Wire (of the Manics) once put it, "the... Read more... |
CD: Caroline Rose - LonerSunday, 20 May 2018
Loner’s opening track “More of the Same” lyrically tracks being at a party where “everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body and they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth.” It triggers a flashback to schooldays when it was, indeed... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Yung WuSunday, 13 May 2018
When Crazy Rhythms, the ever-fabulous first album by New Jersey’s Feelies was issued in April 1980 it seemed to have little local context. Although the band’s fidgetiness suggested a kinship with Talking Heads and there were a clear nods to The... Read more... |
CD: Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel + CasinoSaturday, 12 May 2018
Arctic Monkeys are the great British guitar band of the 21st century so far. Only now they’re not. For the last couple of albums, Sheffield’s ever-smart rock four-piece have pushed their innate indie guitar sound further and further into 21st pop... Read more... |
CD: Ryley Walker - Deafman GlanceFriday, 11 May 2018
As it was with his last album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, it’s impossible to listen to Ryley Walker without comparisons to John Martyn and Tim Buckley – the jazz-infused, non-linear Buckley of Lorca – springing to mind. But this time round,... Read more... |
Pinkshinyultrablast, Band on the Wall, Manchester - glitch-pop madness from Russia’s finestMonday, 07 May 2018
Pinkshinyultrablast might be a long way from their hometown of St Petersburg, but in recent years they’ve built themselves up in England as one of the more bizarre and original bands in today’s psych/shoegaze revival, and on the day their third... Read more... |
CD: Gaz Coombes - World's Strongest ManWednesday, 02 May 2018
It’s been nearly 30 years since Gaz Coombes’s former band Supergrass released their first brash single “Caught by the Fuzz”, and he hasn’t stopped making great indie music since. His second solo album Matador received a Mercury Prize nomination in... Read more... |
10 Questions for Artist David ShrigleyTuesday, 01 May 2018
David Shrigley (b. 1968) is an artist whose work has become broadly popular via a wide range of formats. At first glance, his stark pen-on-paper drawings seem akin to humorous newspaper cartoons – and, indeed, he’s contributed to The Guardian for... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Julian CopeSunday, 29 April 2018
In terms of chart statistics, Julian Cope’s period with Island Records looks pretty good. He issued four albums with the label and all of them charted. Saint Julian (issued in March 1987) peaked at 11, My Nation Underground (October 1988) stalled at... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Ramallah - the music biz turns its sights on PalestineFriday, 27 April 2018
Maen, a member of the rap collective Sa’aleek, was working one night in their small makeshift studio in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah. He dozed off, only to find the studio door had been concreted over and he was trapped. It took fellow... Read more... |
