Month: August 2007

This is beginning to get faintly ridiculous now. Yes, so the internets may have made everyone everywhere virtual next door neighbours, we get that, but it’s all so bloody misleading. Joining the roll call of certified non-geographers Architecture In Helsinki, Alabama 3 and I’m From Barcelona (no you’re frigging not!) are Manchester Orchestra, from Atlanta, Georgia, USA. You know, where REM come from, where rain macs are – as far as we understand it – rarely worn proud. They do Continue Reading

‘Swayzak – some kind of bastardized Patrick Swayzee , men with hang ups’, and that’s what they say themselves. So where does that leave me to go? Well I could add that they contribute to house what Kate and Gerry contribute to child welfare but that would be a little wide of the mark, as they add something that is deep and unmistakably psychedelic to it, as tired and predictable as most house is. ‘Quiet Life’s swampy sub delirium, it’s Continue Reading

You don’t need this review. If you have any previous experience of Carl Newman’s gleaming Vancouver-based indie supergroup (and my, taking into account Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire too, how Canada have the indie-tribe concept cornered) then you will be aware already of their impossibly tight melodic sensibilities, onward rolling momentum, Pollock-like dashes of colour and tax inspector attention to detail. Fresh air can’t fall between the cracks here. In effect there are no cracks. They’re on a very Continue Reading

Jamie started his career on cruise ships. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with cruises should you be fortunate enough not to fall victim to any gastrointestinal misfortunes along the way, or, along similar lines, have Jamie Cullum cavorting mercilessly at the ivories whilst you bask in the warmth and beauty of the Mediterranean’s coastline – but that’s what you get with package deals, a little something of what you do like, and a little something of what Continue Reading

Jazz exists on a personal and spiritual plane for ex-Digable Planet, King Britt, telling us there’s something cosmic about the genre’s deeply African American heritage. Me, I just find it boring. It doesn’t go anywhere. It promises so much – but never quite delivers. Like a milkman with empty bottles, or the Postman without a stamp. Course it’s experimental, improvisional, the output of a creative dialogue between two or more individuals but then so too is a drunken conversation. And Continue Reading

‘Harmony soaked love songs’, I get – but what’s this? ‘Pre-Psychedelic? What the hell does that mean? Is that ‘Pre-Psychedelic’ in the sense of how you feel just before you get high? Or ‘Pre-Psychedelic’ in the sense of anything between Lewis Carroll, Salvidor Dali and See Emily Play? Hmm. Not sure about that. ‘Hallucinogenic’ maybe, in the same way ‘Exaltation Of Larks’ and tracks like ‘Tall Flowers’ in particular, scratch the tenderest sketches of altered consciousness with their wistful streams Continue Reading

Inspired by the melodies of Cole Porter and the lyrics of Morrissey, it’s inevitable that people are going to draw parallels between the London-Irish-Scouser, Eugene McGuinness and Manhattans’s Stephin Merritt, both capable of running circles around most popular artists and both capable of joyfully literate u-turns and baritone, burlesque sincerity; the only difference being that the multi-faceted McGuinness is capable of far greater circus tricks with his profanely agile vocal, which, just like the curbside princess in his song ‘Bold Continue Reading

In a dimension parallel to this one in which moneys drive cars, engineer feats of sparkling musical dissolution and bang on over and over with miniature cymbals, there exists a musical hierarchy in which New Order, Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, Lieutenant Pigeon, Paul McCartney, Hot Chip, XTC, Yo La Tengo and Spacemen 3 had been replaced by one 26 year old London resident with a debilitating compulsive-obsessive disorder and a fear of the sea. Mark Ronson doesn’t just sound like Continue Reading

If Gogol Bordello’s goggle-eyed cameo during Madonna’s thus spectacular Live Earth headline the other month served any real purpose – other than possibly selling a few more energy saving light bulbs and making people consider using less carrier bags at Tesco, of course – it was to highlight (yes, admittedly to about 6 people watching at home) that not all folk music is hand-knitted and cross-legged, and that the east European gypsy variety in particular is fairly off its nut. Continue Reading