Reviews

Hip-hop to me – real hip-hop that is – has always been about building something that has definite walls and sides, something that has surfaces, storage cupboards, multi-dimensions and heights – everything but a roof. Listening itself should be a building experience. With a roof, it’s like saying it’s finished, and hip-hop is too transient for that, too fleeting. The closest thing to hip-hop as loose and as free as this is dreaming. The place you inhabit in dreams seems Continue Reading

It might not sound like much of a achievement, but primarily thinking of Charlotte Hatherley as Charlotte Hatherley is just that. The point is, we barely ever think of her as Her From Out Of Ash these days, and that is testament indeed to an excellent debut album, 2005’s snappy ‘Grey Will Fade’. And while the Irish boys flounder under the pressure of losing the best thing ever to happen to them, the best thing that ever happened to them Continue Reading

It doesn’t take much to bring me round in the morning. Some chunky parping horns, the uplifting harmonies of a gospel choir, some loose, baggy beats and some scratchy stop-start stuff. That’s my morning glory. And that’s what kicks off this little DJ mix from Harmless Records – one of the first UK connoisseur collector’s labels to showcase the most crazy and influential artists from around the world and truss them up in a nice little mix series that features Continue Reading

When you have bands – nay, phenomena – like Mogwai and Sigur Ros laying claim to an entire genre with such notable and expansive swathes of sonic majesty, it’s all too tempting to think that as far as the ear can see, right up to the figurative horizon, there’s not a single acre up for rent. If one group has begged to differ since the turn of the century, causing ripples in the volcanic crust such as to create new Continue Reading

There’s probably going to be a few folks disappointed with this album. Why? Well probably a combination of things really. It’s hardly a challenging follow up to 2005’s platinum selling, United State of Atlanta (U.S.A) if you assess it on production values alone, and the soft-core nature of it’s lyrical bent and rap content is hardly going to rip holes in the fabric of either body politic or realpolitik. It’s about girls. It’s about booty. Nothing wrong with that, I Continue Reading

Tonight Matthew, I’m going to John Lennon. No, forget that. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Marc Bolan. Oh Bugger. Strike that. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be Jack White. No wait a minute. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be take the entire pantheon of classic rock mythology and squeeze it across a dozen or so tracks of quasi-experimental electro-pop blues, mix it up with a little punk posturing, spoon-feed it amphetamines, squeeze it into a really tight pair of Continue Reading

You know when you roll up to an arcade machine, or fire up that game of Tetris you have on your desktop for moments of manufactured distraction, turn in an absolute blinder, crack out a smug smile, take an imaginary bow for your adoring public, only to find every top score is still owned by the same damn guy – even if you’re the only one who plays it?  That is The Shins and the rest of indie music, that Continue Reading

Songs for broken toys and broken lovers. Why keep beating yourself up about things when there’s plenty of people more adequately qualified to pummel, eh? Like a river curling around the peaks and troughs of a peculiar valley there’s more than a trickle of sweet melancholy running through ‘Learning About Loathing’ and though not bitter exactly, it does erupt from a spring of sulky regret and loss. Sung with the fragile resignation of a young Robert Wyatt and rumbling with Continue Reading

Found it difficult to hear most of the album over the intrusive promotional sound bites and the usual fanfare and shocking self-aggrandizement shite bubbling over the lot like some hyper ‘Mike’s Carpet’ fella. Don’t tell me you’ve arrived Mr Klasnekoff – show me. Anyway, here’s the tussle, not for reproduction and not for the faint hearted.  Hackey-born and based MC and Rapper and founding member of the Terra Firma Crew calls for equality and personal responsibility, criticising his generation’s current Continue Reading

Well, quasi-maharishi commune guy with crossed-eyes, squiffy grin and odd musky scent, you really are spoiling us. Just 12 months ago CYHSY’s debut got us all wired with chunks of wonky, e-number drenched indie and already we’re dribbling over a freshly offered platter of unpredictable appetizers; saturated this time it seems in hallucinogens, rich in flavour, the result of a recipe that tastes so positively slapdash it could probably never be repeated. And it’s nice to hold a thing of Continue Reading