Month: September 2006

We seem to have a sudden burst of activity on the Air-Spin Offs front this month. Not content with pitching in with most of the music for deliciously downtempo Parisian flick-chick, Carlotte Gainsbourg’s new ‘5:55’ record (with Jarvis Cocker) and providing Jean-Benoit Dunckel a little timely R&R for his ‘Darkel’ solo project next month, those kindly night owls at Azuli Records have locked the lounge-loving duo in a room with all their favourite records and forced them to come up Continue Reading

After an acrimonious split from Dinosaur Jr, bassist Lou Barlow teamed up with ‘musical terrorist’ Eric Gaffney and formed Sebadoh, one of the defining forces of the early 90’s lo-fi scene. Jason Loewenstein was later incorporated into the line up and Sebadoh then went on to release an album, III, that contained both the homemade feel of their earlier albums and the bigger studio sound they were lazily gravitating towards. III is a sonic rough and tumble with frenetic mini-instrumentals, Continue Reading

The press-sheet finds Yorkston and his people needlessly repelling the listener’s natural tendency to categorise his music, which is, for want of a better word, an intimate menagerie of old fashioned folk, hushed Northern irony and delicate acoustic strumming, curled up and woozy in the warm, trusty bosom of violins, clarinets, concertinas and drum brushes and sparse yet cosy arrangements. In all honesty, it’s a bit like finding yourself marooned in a fish-boat off Skye with a crate of rum, Continue Reading

The follow up to a debut that grabbed critics by the heart and shredded it before them with such genre-ripping abandon that we stood breathless and unable to speak for days, Brighton’s Blackgrass return with ‘A Hundred Days In One’. Having already have drawn the blood of a good word from the likes of Groove Armada, X-Press 2, Mr Scruff and Quantic, Black Grass (aka Mex) are all set to perform open-heart surgery again with an album that morphs shamelessly Continue Reading

‘Dub, soul, west-coast hip-hop, minimal techno and freaked-out post-disco are all thrown into the eclectic mix that is uniquely ‘deepchild’.’ Or so the story goes. And what a piss-awful expression to end on: ‘an eclectic mix that is uniquely ‘deepchild’. That it sounds like a Milk Tray ad is besides the point, what matters here is that things are seldom ‘uniquely’ anything and the Australian producer and acclaimed DJ, Rick Bull’s fourth album under the deeply girlie, ‘Deepchild’ moniker is Continue Reading

‘As The Crow Flows’ was an oddly folksy proposition, filled with all manner of violins, harmoniums and guest musicians, often intimating at greatness, but marred by too many overstuffed ideas from too many hands at the wheel. What should have been a quietly stated departure from fashion and expression of depth, was lost in detours and distractions, which though absorbing, was an arduous experience for any listener. It was also upset by the fact that it was a contradiction in Continue Reading

I was going to start this by saying something along the lines of ‘what looks good on paper doesn’t always sound good on a record’ and then toss in a few triumphant examples by way of explanation. You know the sort I mean, The Raconteurs, Velvet Revolver, Electronic, Band Aid, the Liberal Democrats, the United Nations – something where the sheer weight of expectation grossly off-balances the end product. Something that looks pretty good at first glance, but sounds shit Continue Reading

It is oft hazarded that your own tale is but one of at least 150,000 at Glastonbury. And by Glastonbury we mean the phenomenon that amasses itself as one of the biggest and certainly most far-fetched towns in the West Country for a week in June, rather than the more permanent (albeit slightly mystical) municipality and pointy hill a few miles down the road. But you knew that. Who doesn’t? You see? Which begs the question – what is the Continue Reading

It might just be me, but I get the impression that there are some folks quietly peeved that the proverbial Jaxx have wriggled free of pop’s noble underground and zoomed into an orbit that only whizzy, heaving masses like Robbie Williams and Kylie traditionally spin. We loved Remedy and Rooty, but only on the condition that it was for our ears and our ears only. It was a one on one relationship. It was monogamous. It was a blistering, all Continue Reading

This is all wrong, really. In a world where professional Geordie Lauren Laverne (formerly of giggling Britpop punkas Kenickie) has become the slinky-clobbered indie queen of all broadcast media, where Jacques Le Cont (formerly of Britpop era 80s-electro revivalists Les Rhythms Digitales) is Madonna’s musical pimp and where the Longpigs’ guitarist is a solo Mercury Music Prize nominee for an album full of 40s-era ballroom laments (yes, yes, Richard Hawley), Cerys Matthews should by rights be ripping Robbie Williams a Continue Reading