Month: December 2008

Plushgun is another one of those bedroom-studio-to-myspace-and-beyond stories. I can imagine writer/producer/arranger Daniel Ingala in another time wearing a paper general’s hat and sitting amidst the massed ranks of toy tin soldiers – it’s that sense of a self-created world in miniature that comes across, something that for better and for worse the internet has helped to flourish. Ingala’s world sounds a lot like The Postal Service, or perhaps a bookish OMD with soft but driving synths and vocals that Continue Reading

The last time we saw our intrepid anti-hero he was appearing, it has to be said, remarkably upbeat. Dan Michaelson, the baritone rudder of twee but firm-handed post-Britpoppers Absentee, had been somewhat befuddled by love and life and had dragged himself through acts cynical, trying and tongue in cheek on their debut album ‘Schmotime’ before climaxing with the ticker-tape parade of ‘Treacle’ and its repeated “love – it gets sweeter every day!” refrain. The sun came out, it was undoubtedly Continue Reading

Everybody will have their own story to tell about the boy who was the first in the class to buy (and even use as it was intended) a Commodore Amiga 500 home computer, but they’ll all roughly feature some boy who always sat at the front of the class, who always had their hand up and was inevitably the only person in school who had a dog that never chewed their homework. And whilst many of us were able to Continue Reading

The Walkmen have already earned their place in history by releasing the single most acerbic bout of unhinged brilliance to beat its way out of Strokes-era New York in ‘The Rat’, a lean couple of minutes of the most infectiously propulsive post-punk and a voice that sounded like it might snap at any given moment and send serotonin levels through the roof. Casablancas’ mob even had a go at emulating its raw power on their third album to a much Continue Reading

Short history lesson, coming up, so loosen your ties, tilt back your chair and wait for the wind rush. It’s June 22, 1948, and the SS Empire Windrush is docking at Tilbury in Essex. It’s an important moment in the history of modern England. The steamship has stopped in Jamaica to pick up some of the thousands of servicemen who had been recruited to serve in the armed forces during the Second World War. Also on board are some 500 Continue Reading