Reviews

Having emerged at the fag end of the 90s as an off-kilter production duo – all junk shop samples, wonky tracks and an infectious bonhomie – the Nottingham-based duo Bent are no strangers to stumbling out on the same breath as those jolly old spangly Jelly headz and those garlic-munching, ether producing chillsters, Air. In fact we’re now four albums into Bent’s career and we’re still drawing the same comparisons. Not because we’re lazy, but because these are da boyz Continue Reading

Last year’s ‘Prisoners Of Love’ best-of/rarities 3-disc set was as satisfying a final word as anyone could have wished for. A tumbling tribute through 20 years and 11 albums of dizzying eclecticism, bohemian creativity and lo-fi self-sufficiency. It was a patchwork of gentle peaks with a surprising fluidity. If it were an obituary, and it is beautifully articulated, it would probably win the Pulitzer Prize or something. But this band didn’t die – au contraire. This band maybe never will. Continue Reading

What’s the new folk music these days then? Hip hop? Blogging? Whatever it is and however enduring it will be, old(e) folk still very much endures in its original state, having remained largely unchanged for centuries. In fact right now we’re midway through a bit of a resurgence, a few tweaks here, a shuffle there, a cheeky cross-pollination over that way, festivals springing up to cope with the growth, but still relying largely on the standard of singular men with Continue Reading

We might be as defined by our ignorance as much as anything else, but that’s probably no reason to be all that proud of our historically unending snubbery of the French. Look, they’re just there, over the water. Stand on your tip-toes, you can very almost see them! Their food’s alright. They invented the restaurant for god’s sake! And stood up to the imperialist Yanks on their bloody march across the globe! But what more do you know of their Continue Reading

Tomorrow’s headlines could read either way: ‘outrageous, cross-dressing, many voiced Cher & Marilyn Monroe impersonator, Jimmy James shocks celebrity world with capable crock of club gold’ or ‘talented yet sadly deluded impersonator trashes reputation made on Edinburgh’s fringe with outrageously average disco record’. Like I say, it could go either way, but on the evidence of tracks like gentle ‘Freindsreunited’ synth-pop tracks like, ‘Old School Disco’ and shocking zoomy, zoom burlesques like ‘Be Bobo Body’ my money is on the Continue Reading

Wait up a minute. Something has to be wrong. This is the band’s FIFTH album in the US, they’ve hosted their own weekly TV show, “Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy“, featuring guests like Lenny Kravitz, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, and rock band Garbage and they even have their very own animated cartoon show, ‘Hi Hi PuffyAmiYumi’ which sees these gorgeous, pop-savvy J-Girls join a top-rated animated gang that includes the Osmonds, the Jacksons and the Beatles. So why haven’t we heard of them in Continue Reading

When an album comes along and truly takes your breath away – side-steps you, flits around in your peripheral vision, pulls the ground from under your feet and leaves you convulsing amid a galaxy of stars – it’s generally unexpected, something for which you never prepared, a yet unconquered combination, a snapshot from outside your comfort zone. But with Bat For Lashes it’s not quite like that. Bat For Lashes is, though also an intoxicatingly capable band, the realisation of Continue Reading

So, as far as band HR has been concerned over the past few years, seems the magic number has settled up at either around 19 members, or 2. Unless Sergeant Pepper’s entire Lonely Hearts Club Band joined the fray, or the less useful core 50% were swiftly booted aside, The Beatles would have been out on their ear these days. A four-piece, sir? Pfffft! At the lower end of the scale this century, duos such as The Kills, Joy Zipper, Continue Reading

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

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