Month: July 2005

Heads up. Here’s something you don’t get every day. Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2 is a compilation of some fourteen remakes of songs by the increasingly resonant Kraftwerk – the pioneers of electronica. Anyone who knows a little bit about Kraftwerk will be familiar with the band’s seminal Trans Europe Express album (1977). On Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2, Kraftwerk classics are reinterpreted by artists from Slovenia. Some of the artists are newcomers, others have been around since the Kraftwerk Continue Reading

With cool, fancy remixes for eminent folks like Kelis, Goldfrapp, The Rapture and Spektrum attracting interest from a fairly broad range of quarters, it’s unlikely there was ever going to be a shortage of ideas or guest appearances on this bright, eager and frighteningly fresh second album ‘Eat Books’ from Berlin’s freak soul-brothers Schwarz. And true to expectations: there ain’t no shortage. Fair enough, a number of the tracks tip a wink in the direction of electro-pop shufflers like Heaven Continue Reading

It pays to be young. More specifically it pays to be young in a grown up’s world. Take as proof, if you will, the Jackson Five, Charlotte Church, the cast of Bugsy Malone and odd-toff child-star antique-expert sex-change chap James (nee Lauren) Harries. No-one said anything about long term gains. We might not be skirting quite that close to conception here, but The Subways obviously consider their youth so bankable that they saw fit to title their debut album accordingly. Continue Reading

Like Kasabian, who singularly lack the giddy eccentricities of the Happy Mondays, the silk-lined soul of The Stone Roses and the convincing future-anarchy of Prml Scrm, but nonetheless pack an efficient punch in their efforts to emulate, Editors are tied tightly to an influence but still come out seeming impressively bullet-proof. They should in theory be easy to write off, their spread of inspirations are even narrower than Kasabian’s, their own personality subtle, their ambitions unclear. But what ‘The Back Continue Reading

So what do we have here then? A public information film? Ahead of the Anger Management Tour pistol-whipping the UK in the autumn, no doubt amid a hail of predictable controversy, the Mary Whitehouses amongst us get a chance to draft their complaints. Look, a hoody! Suburban white kids waving their arms in hypnotic unison! Chanting obscenities on order! A man constantly changing his oversized t-shirts and booming “Detroyyyyiiiit!”. So, truth is, there’s little to get upset by here, surprisingly Continue Reading

It’s the first new studio album from the Grammy Award winning Deep Dish since the release of Junk Science in 1998 and despite initially attracting favour as deep-house producers, the Washington-based duo still manage to comfortably embrace a mass of genres and influences outside their native musical language. From the rocky ‘Sacramento’ with openly gay Boston DJ, remixer, songwriter, producer, Richard Morel, to the marvellously stomping space cowboy club filler ‘Flashdance’ with unsuspecting Iranian-American songstress, Anousheh Khalili, ‘George Is On’ Continue Reading

That Hayseed Dixie have carved themselves a exceptional niche in music, performing bluegrass covers of classic rock tunes may seem a pitiful claim to posterity and hardly the stuff of genius but it works in the context of having a few too many beers, getting giddy and falling over. And having broadened their narrow set list of AC/DC and rock classic covers to include bluegrass takes on everyone from Outkast and Franz Ferdinand to Greenday they’ve done the impossible and Continue Reading

Breaking free from the creative freedom offered by pro-tools and samples is often a brave pursuit for those recently converted – but ex-Husker Du and Sugar frontman, Bob Mould manages to briefly elude his reckless stray into experimental territory and his equally reckless and ill-judged LoudBomb moniker to whittle a dozen or so loathful, self-probing and crunchy guitar-driven power-pop nuggets. Assisted by Brendan Canty (Fugazi) and David Barbe (Sugar) Mould rediscovers some form with the beefy and swelling ‘Circles’, the Continue Reading

To be honest, I was already hooked on this album before the aching and faintly crackling ‘Sun Studios’ opener ‘The Heavens’ finished its sweet melancholy deluge of hopelessness. Why? Because I’m a complete sucker for anything ‘retro’. In fact I was pretty much born hankering mournfully for the past and the consoling familiarity of some pined for golden-period. Blame my mother. Blame the war. Blame the endless and preposterous reruns of Champion The Wonder Horse, ‘Whirlibirds’ and Casey Jones during Continue Reading

Winner of the 1999 L.A. Music Award in the category of Outstanding Guitarist, opening shows for Bonnie Raitt, Etta James and the only woman asked to audition for the post-Garcia version of the Grateful Dead, the Nashville based blues singer-songwriter, Lauren Ellis gets another opportunity to reveal her considerable wares on the new dual-disc album, ‘Feels Like Family’, recorded in her new hometown. Already aired on MTV’s reality shows The Real World, Road Blues and Extreme, songs from the album Continue Reading