Month: July 2004

For a brief spell in the late eighties and early nineties, video spawned a monster: and its name was Morrissey. First released in 1990 off the back of albums ‘Viva Hate’ (1988) and ‘Bona Drag’ (1990) the collection is a veritable treat for anyone who enjoys a shapely promotional short. You’ll doubtless love the homoerotic cut and thrust of ‘Last Of The Famous International Playboys’ (in a bedroom green with envy, no less) just as you’ll doubtless love the miserably Continue Reading

Sheffield’s Pink Grease are dirty. And this is not your off-brown ‘n’ black grime, these are pinks and yellows and flickering red neons. Based on ‘The Pink G.R.EASE’ they’re “gonna make you sweat” too. Promises promises. This is gutter-glammer rock ‘n’ roll at its gaudiest. And there are more promises too, like they’re flaunting their wares candidly in a wide-open window display as the light falls and night draws in. “Pump it up boys” comes the call in ‘Party Live’, Continue Reading

Is it any wonder that this album is beautiful? Naturally it’s not. For many a year she’s provided fresh air to Neil Halstead’s dusty musings in Mojave 3, happy to hang around fairly unassumingly, keeping tabs on all that unfolds around her, nudging things along where necessary. And about a decade on it’s barely worth mentioning that she fronted lauded-by-some shoegazers Slowdive along with Halstead. Her first solo outing doesn’t evoke even a nostalgic pinch of deja-vu for that era Continue Reading

The Orkney Island’s Kevin Cormack likes listening to musicians who challenge the functions of specific instruments, those who try to make other objects into musical instruments. It’s a simple enough wish. Why have the same old tired samples coupled with the same old tired riffing coupled with the same old tired drum-kit when you can make a pleasing enough racket with a washboard, a badly tuned guitar, a suitcase and a box of cornflakes? With the exception of the Animal Continue Reading

Gentle, if unevenly grave lyrical troubadours are not traditionally associated with Warp Records. Quite the contrary, it’s often only the grittiest, edgiest and obscurest acts that survive the label’s incomparable roster of maverick talent. Not that this whimsical Bristol trio are without edge or attitude, just that you have to look for it well beneath the placid romanticism and gossamer fretwork of songwriter Nick Talbot. ‘Tunnels’ is a case in point; spectral, sinister organ sounds and spine-tingling guitar-sounds prevail at Continue Reading