I have never once lain on my back in a field of corn, avec lover, hand in hand, the tall golden stalks distorting the piercing afternoon sunlight, a warm breeze bringing slow life to everything around me, the world beyond unfolding like a cinefilm movie, just out of reach. But it would be lush, that, wouldn’t it. That’s what the track ‘It’s Close Up, Far Away’ from Denmark’s The Kissaway Trail feels like, or at least what we imagine it Continue Reading
How to approach Fields? On horseback? In a pincer movement? Of course we don’t mean that literally, though it’s not as ridiculous as it might seem. There is a lot going on here you see, and it’s progressive to the extreme. There is no drought of ideas, you can define it by its movement, its constant rolling evolution, its resourcefulness, but what is there of material value? Is there anywhere to get a foothold? What is there that is so Continue Reading
Although the liner notes add a bit of spin to the proposition that Ziggy Stardust morphing into Blue (and Green) Eyed Soulboy was as wrong footing and unpredictable as Radiohead doing reggae, the comparison is not as crass as it looks. Anyone who remembers Radiohead mailing out the first promos of Kid A are likely to recall just how bloody inflexible the vast majority of us were at the proposition of the world’s finest guitar band downing their picks and Continue Reading
Look, we could pontificate about this release till the cows come home, and let’s face it, lest there’s a sudden culling of bovines everywhere, I damned suspect we might do. How important is Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army? Very. Very very important. Way ahead of their time in a time before time and the same is naturally true of that charming old miserablist, John Peel – both of whom feature here, courtesy of Cooking Vinyl’s brand spanking new Maida Continue Reading
Q Magazine is a shit old rag, isn’t it? Not only do they think they can reach out to the mainstream’s lucrative ‘yoof market’ by some lame inclusion of a pull-out poster (I f**king ask you) they describe the frazzled scores and beats of the inspired new record from Roll Deep as ‘hardcore stuff for Asbo’d teenagers in hoodies to stiff glue to’. I mean, where do you start with a statement like this, eh? Not only does it crassly Continue Reading
They may have lacked the marketable quirks of some of their peers when they appeared from nowhere with ‘A Certain Trigger’, but they were spotless, nary a foot nor combed-over hair out of place. And they turned out to be more literate than The Rakes, more immediately accessible than The Futureheads and frankly more reliable than most. Their massive success, initially surprising, can probably be attributed to the fact that there was, and is, nothing much to dislike about them. Continue Reading