Nadine Khouri spring tour and new single

in 2015 Nadine Khouri played at a fes­ti­val local to me called The End. I wrote: “Khouri’s com­po­si­tions are beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed, sophis­ti­cat­ed and pre­cise, over­laid with her soft, smokey vocals.”  Those vocals and her abil­i­ty to cre­ate haunt­ing com­po­si­tions can be heard on new sin­gle “Song of A Caged Bird”, out now. Nadine’s steady and…

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The Finsbury: Percy Rico, Luxury Goods, Natsuma

The Fins­bury pub and music venue has been qui­et­ly get­ting on with host­ing music prac­ti­cal­ly every night for many years and it’s sur­pris­ing how many local(ish) peo­ple just don’t know about its exis­tence. I became a con­vert after The Bed­room Hour played there and that was back in 2014. Apart from the music there’s a…

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Save Brixton Academy

We need to keep Brix­ton Acad­e­my from clo­sure. The met police have request­ed it is closed for good. How­ev­er with a change of secu­ri­ty and of man­age­ment sure­ly this icon­ic and famous venue could be saved. At the moment, the live music scene is in a frag­ile state and we need every venue kept open.…

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Death and Vanilla and Looking Glass Alice: review

It’s been ages since I went to The Shack­lewell Arms for a gig, and it was a reminder not to over­look this venue: wel­com­ing vibe, good space for bands and amaz­ing Lebanese Street Food cooked to order by Jel­ly­fish Organ­ic (soon to move to Hack­ney Wick).  Both the bands play­ing tonight, sup­port Look­ing Glass Alice followed…

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Unique Ukraine & Scouse Supergroup to launch Liverpool’s Eurovision Party

Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark’s Andy McCluskey will join Liv­er­pool indie rock­ers Red Rum Club and psy­che­del­ic pop queen Jane Weaver as they become mem­bers of Wel­come To Euro­topia, – a super­group made up of Liv­er­pool musi­cians and Ukrain­ian artists who will take to the stage at 9:30pm on the Pier Head on 5 May…

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The Orielles at Electric Brixton: review

Bare­ly over jet lag from SXSW, The Orielles are tour­ing the UK and on Wednes­day they played their Lon­don appear­ance at Elec­tric Brix­ton. The band’s 2022 dou­ble album Tableau had me hooked from first lis­ten and I was inter­est­ed to hear those songs live. Mak­ing a sub­stan­tial shift from their for­mer sun­ny, garagey sound, Tableau…

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International Women’s Day

This Inter­na­tion­al Wom­en’s Day I’m think­ing about all those female artists mak­ing it in an indus­try that isn’t always female friend­ly.  I’m lis­ten­ing to BBC Radio 6, enjoy­ing a whole day of music cour­tesy of female artists. It’s got me think­ing of all the amaz­ing women I’ve seen and lis­tened to over the years –…

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Callis, Todmorden band with new single and gigs

The Calder Val­ley has built up an extra­or­di­nary rep­u­ta­tion of being a cra­dle of musi­cal tal­ent with The Orielles, Work­ing Men’s Club, The Lounge Soci­ety and many more emerg­ing from its atmos­pher­ic, intense and brood­ing land­scape. And recent­ly the unique folk music of Trevor Beale was dis­cov­ered, tes­ta­ment to local cre­ative tal­ent hark­ing back to…

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Sparks new tour and album

It’s an excit­ing moment when we hear of new work… and a tour by Sparks. Endur­ing­ly bril­liant, Sparks return this year with a tour, so be ready on your key­boards (with your cof­fee) very soon…  Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly announced 2 nights at London’s Roy­al Albert Hall and 3 per­for­mances at Pri­mav­era Sound Fes­ti­val in Spain and Portugal,…

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IST IST ‘Mary In the Black and White Room’ launch

This new sin­gle by IST IST was launched in Decem­ber but we’re flag­ging it up as we’re excit­ed about the band’s upcom­ing album. Mary In the Black and White Room is tak­en from the Man­ches­ter band’s upcom­ing third album called Pro­tag­o­nists, out 31st March, via Kind Vio­lence records.  IST IST pro­duce a dense and uncompromising…

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