The Besnard Lakes are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings: review

The Besnard Lakes don’t make things easy for them­selves, pub­lic­i­ty wise. The new album which launched on Jan­u­ary 2021, The Besnard Lakes are The Last of the Great Thun­der­storm Warn­ings isn’t a title that fits neat­ly into social media posts, as I’m sure they know. But the Cana­di­an out­fit don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly care – noth­ing is…

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Lumer launch EP The Disappearing Act

There’s been a sur­feit of tal­ent­ed young bands com­ing out of York­shire’s towns and val­leys – such as Work­ing Men’s Club, The Lounge Soci­ety and Fehlt. And local venues such as The Trades in Heb­den Bridge, Bru­denell Social Club in Leeds, and Tod­mor­den’s Gold­en Lion have been instru­men­tal in sup­port­ing their bur­geon­ing tal­ent.  Lumer are…

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American hope: Hiss Golden Messenger ‘Sanctuary’

The song Sanc­tu­ary was writ­ten and record­ed with a mes­sage of hope; for­tu­nate­ly many of those prayers have just been answered, giv­ing its lyrics an added cel­e­bra­to­ry note.  North Car­oli­na folk band Hiss Gold­en Mes­sen­ger, with M.C. Tay­lor at the helm, has pro­duced a warm and beau­ti­ful slice of Amer­i­cana in this atmos­pher­i­cal­ly rich num­ber. Sanctuary…

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New single Atlantic by The Weather Station captures the mood

The Weath­er Sta­tion has released a new sin­gle and video called Atlantic, from forth­com­ing album Igno­rance (5th Feb­ru­ary on Fat Pos­sum).  The Weath­er Sta­tion is a project lead by Cana­di­an singer song­writer Tama­ra Lin­de­man. This lat­est work is intense­ly per­son­al (Tama­ra also direct­ed the video) and it cap­tures the present mood of uncer­tain­ty, with climate…

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Live in Hoxton: Luca Wilding and Wassailer

A win­dow opened briefly on a world we knew and which will come again. Being able to go to a gig – social­ly dis­tanced though it was -– brought into sharp focus just what has been miss­ing from life. It’s ulti­mate­ly about the music but it’s every­thing else besides – the cama­raderie that comes from…

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Top albums, EPs and songs for 2020

Let’s go with the pos­i­tive. This year there has been a pletho­ra of amaz­ing new music from artists both well estab­lished and emerg­ing. For many peo­ple, lis­ten­ing to music has been a life­line to turn to in these trou­bled times. And with lock­down, some have been able to redis­cov­er the plea­sure of play­ing an album…

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Kinbote album release: Shifting Distance

Kin­bote – oth­er­wise known as found-sound sam­pling glitch-pop pro­duc­er Matt Gibb – released a quirky and intrigu­ing sin­gle called Hiemalis in the sum­mer, reviewed on Gourmet Gigs. And on 4th Decem­ber he launched his album called Shift­ing Dis­tance. The cov­er of Shift­ing Dis­tance fea­tures slices of scenery, tan­ta­lis­ing but unable to be grasped and expe­ri­enced in…

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Album Waves of Haste by Hjalte Ross makes its debut

The sim­ple and rather beau­ti­ful draw­ing on the cov­er of Waves of Haste offers a hint of what awaits lis­ten­ers of this new album by Dan­ish artist Hjalte Ross, his sec­ond so far. The illus­tra­tion by Kasper Eistrup is of the head of a young man – per­haps Hjalte him­self. He is lying on a…

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Ed Cosens shares new single The River

Ed Cosens has just released a video for The Riv­er, the sec­ond sin­gle from his debut solo album For­tunes Favour, here it is below. A long-time lynch­pin of the Sheffield music scene, best known as the gui­tarist and co-song­writer in Rev­erend & The Mak­ers, Ed wait­ed to make his solo debut until the time felt right. “It’s only tak­en 10…

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KIN release dreamy ‘Wander and Lost’ single and video

Inter­view with KIN band mem­ber Grace Strick­land de Souza, on the day of the release of their new sin­gle and video Wan­der and Lost. Cre­ative female-focused band KIN are keep­ing things rolling dur­ing lock­down. The Lon­­don-based trio release the new sin­gle Wan­der and Lost today along with a gor­geous­ly atmos­pher­ic video. The mul­ti-tal­en­t­ed band are…

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