Van Morrison for Wickham Festival 2020

Wick­ham Fes­ti­val does­n’t do things by halves. The line­up of the friend­ly, small 4‑day event has con­sis­tent­ly aimed for the top, and this year has man­aged to secure Van Mor­ri­son for its Sat­ur­day head­lin­er. Van’s the Wick­ham man Organ­is­er Peter Cheg­wyn said: “This is absolute­ly mas­sive for us – and for the vil­lage. It will…

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Elephant Stone: powerful beauty of new album Hollow

Mon­tre­al psy­che­del­ic band Ele­phant Stone released their lat­est album Hol­low on Feb­ru­ary 14th. I first saw them at The Lex­ing­ton in 2011 and their stun­ning set remains etched on my mem­o­ry, the pow­er­ful and hyp­not­ic set clos­er Don’t You Know cement­ing an ongo­ing love for this band, and in par­tic­u­lar, Rishi Dhir’s thrilling sitar playing.…

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Featured single of the week: Crazy Enough by Pattern Pusher

They sup­port­ed Wolf Alice and Super­grass in 2019, scaled the heights of the BBC6 Music playlist and even have a Robert Plant con­nec­tion. The band in ques­tion is Pat­tern Push­er, who I saw at Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val last year and was impressed by their upbeat, funky set, skit­ter­ing sum­mer beats and beau­ti­ful bass lines. Now the…

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Lost Village festival 2020: first announcement

The lit­tle Lin­colnshire fes­ti­val Lost Vil­lage has released its first line­up: Bom­bay Bicy­cle Club, Bonobo (DJ set), Four Tet, Djan­go Djan­go, Float­ing Points (live), Kojey Rad­i­cal, Dixon, Hon­ey Dijon, Ross from Friends, Craig Charles, Nor­man Jay and lots more. Lost Vil­lage cre­ates a son­ic tapes­try with red-hot emerg­ing names and estab­lished lumi­nar­ies in equal mea­sure. A…

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A talk on photographer Shirley Baker at Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds

On Sat­ur­day 25th Jan­u­ary, the famed Hyde Park Pic­ture House in Leeds will fea­ture a talk on Shirley Bak­er titled Through the Eyes of Shirley Bak­er: Doc­u­men­tary Pho­tog­ra­phy from the 1950s until now. The talk is part of the launch of a new book by Lou Stop­pard, show­ing many of Shirley Bak­er’s unseen works, and…

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Independent Venue Week 2020

Inde­pen­dent Venue Week lights up the end of Jan­u­ary with a fab­u­lous roll-call of musi­cians at venues around the coun­try. It’s the sev­enth IVW 2020, and it’s hap­pen­ing Mon­day 27th Jan­u­ary to Sun­day 2 Feb­ru­ary. This year cel­e­bra­tions include inti­mate live shows and tours, a fea­ture doc­u­men­tary and a new live record release – details…

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Special Phildel gig at St Pancras Old Church

Phildel will be return­ing to the atmos­pher­ic and inti­mate St Pan­cras Old Church for a spe­cial gig on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 21st where she’ll be per­form­ing songs from The Dis­ap­pear­ance of the Girl and Wave your Flags but as you’ve nev­er heard them before, with the accom­pa­ni­ment of strings and choir. St Pan­cras Old Church was Phildel’s choice…

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Best albums of 2019

These are the 2019 albums that I have on restric­t­ed-play mode, in case I over­do it. These are best played when you’re on your own. No dis­trac­tions and no play­ing them as mood music in the back­ground – who wants some ran­dom per­son to sud­den­ly start talk­ing to you just as you get to the…

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Interview: Bliss are back with a tour and re-release

Bliss are back. First there was the stun­ning per­for­mance at Nam­buc­ca in north Lon­don ear­li­er this year, with for­mer mem­bers Rachel Mor­ri­son and Tom E Mor­ri­son on top form – along with their new Brazil­ian band. Fired up with enthu­si­asm after such a great response, the cou­ple have been hard at work mak­ing things happen.…

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Heavenly weekender at The Trades, Hebden Bridge

The Heav­en­ly Week­ender has been post­poned and will take place the week­end of 11th Decem­ber. Bax­ter Dury to per­form in Octo­ber. Please refer to pos­si­ble changes on the Trades web­site So far on the line­up are Doves, Bax­ter Dury, Cher­ry Ghost, Con­fi­dence Man, Katy J Pear­son, Raf Run­dell and Heav­en­ly Juke­box DJs. Gourmet­gigs was at the…

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