If being written on the back of old tube tickets, boarding cards and newspapers found abandoned in railway stations, means Chris Singleton’s ‘Twisted City’ is a concept album, then I have the perfect justification for talking shit; I prepare much of what I say whilst idling on the lavatory in the morning. Allegedly this is a record that was conceived as a tube journey through London with each song a stop on the line and each of the songs dealing Continue Reading
Talk is cheap. Talk is incessant, unremitting. Talk can often be like a splintered javelin rammed repeatedly down your ear canal. Silence is golden. But then there are rare voices – few and far between – that you could listen to for hours and hours, endlessly, without wearing. Like honey melting over a roasted hazelnut. John Darnielle, the face of and largely lone member of the plural Mountain Goats, is one of those voices. He has to be. He certainly Continue Reading
Before we head down another ‘DJ’s DJ’s’ or an ‘Axwell has been the figurehead of the Swedish dance scene for 350 years’ preamble, let’s assess what we know about him. No, what we really know about him. Not what the press-sheet says, but what facts we have at our own disposal, and that’s diddlysquat, if I was to be frank. Last time it was Mark Farina. He was the Chicago ‘DJ’s DJ’ who sessioned us some fairly tidy – if Continue Reading
Spooky, funky, crazy, twisted, capricious, eccentric, freakish and sparkling like the glitter ball in a disused and haunted disco. That’s ‘Trust Me’ by Trost – an album of such imponderable cult-chic that you could wrap it in a copy of American Psycho, throw it out of the window of a apartment block in Berlin, get a private detective to trail it, have Peter Lorre pick it up from a lake in Paris and hand it on to Marlene Dietrich as she Continue Reading
Born to a studio veteran father and a mother who was rather fond of poetry, the Nashville bred Landon Pigg brings his own particular fondness for gently lyrical pop in the mould of Ed Harcourt, Rufus Wainwright and David Mead to an album of pleasant yet largely uninspiring hooks, homages and hopelessly eager choruses. Although Pigg also credits Led Zeppelin and the Beatles amongst his influences, it’s really his affection for the spine tingling, emotional rancour of Radiohead that defines Continue Reading
There are some things that land on your desk that you have no expectations of whatsoever. Usually this means that it’s likely to make as lasting impression as writing your name in the sand as the tide comes in and a fishing-trawler comes crashing right in over it with catch-load of erasers. Occasionally though, you’ll get something like this, a collection of sounds so fresh and so exotic that you can’t help spreading a full pack of salted butter on Continue Reading
Ever wondered where those tireless urban tunes you blagged from Napster and Kazaa where stolen from in the first place? No? Well I suppose it is a little like following the trail of that ‘hooky’ car radio you picked up in the local along with those 200 Benson & Hedges and that pirate of the new Bond movie. Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions. But if you did want to ask, and you did want to recover Continue Reading
An album with the ability to divide not only the masses but also the two halves of my own brain. Whilst only a surly, narrow-minded cynic or a man without ears could fail to be won over by Captain’s cheerily overblown production values, the uncorked euphoria and the meteor shower arrangements of tracks like ‘Hazelville’, ‘Glorious’ and ‘Broke’, the sceptic in me writhes around in confusion, totally unable to come down one way or another on whether or not it Continue Reading
Finnish hip hop heads Recluse Crew and Minneapolis agitators Synoptic Pressure rope in and combine for a raw and sweet flowing 17-track album that melds some fractious reality raps with a steady dose of clipped, scuzzy beats, some slick turntablism, and some taut, heavy bass. Picked up on Finland’s uber cool hip hop label, Kool Kat Records, you’ll not only be surprised to hear how natural it all feels, but how fluently it segues.Whether they’re spitting righteous venom or scratching the hell Continue Reading
Chicago born DJ’s DJ, Mark Farina is in charge of today’s ‘Sessions’ – 40 or so tracks that follow fairly tidily (if predictably) in the wake of sessions by Josh Wink and Steve Angello. A disk jockey and musician, known for his chicago house, acid jazz and downtempo works, Mark first cut his teeth in the now legendary Chicago/Detroit scene in the late eighties working with black roots DJs such as Derrick Carter, Kevin Saunderson and Chris Nazuka. In in Continue Reading