Bill Ryder-Jones fifth album “Iechyd Da” review

Three tracks from Bill Ryder-Jones lat­est album sur­faced towards the close of 2023. They hint­ed at the rich­ness and emo­tion­al depth in store for lis­ten­ers of Iechyd Da, which saw its release on Fri­day 12th Jan­u­ary. The result is a sol­id, beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion of songs, and the tim­ing could not have been bet­ter as we…

Read More

Gigs 2024: The Lottery Winners, Heather Small, Sasha, Electronica in the Tower

Time to start fill­ing up the diary with some choice gigs for 2024.  Man­ches­ter band The Lot­tery Win­ners cer­tain­ly cap­ti­vat­ed fes­ti­val crowds last year. And they’re set to play at Black­pool Tow­er on the 5th April next year. Tick­ets avail­able:Buy tick­ets for Lot­tery Win­ners at Black­pool Tow­er The Fifth Floor, Fri­day 5th Apr 2024 Sasha is set…

Read More

Winter and spring music festivals and gigs

Dream­ing about sum­mer fes­ti­vals? No need – there are plen­ty of win­ter and ear­ly spring events hap­pen­ing around the coun­try, help­ing liv­en up these dark and drea­ry months. No tents involved. Most­ly at cities and towns around the UK with sev­er­al mul­ti-venue events, one-day or week­enders, there’s plen­ty to choose from. Check these good­ies out… Bad…

Read More

Gourmet Gigs – favourite albums, EPs and singles of 2023

These are our favourite releas­es of 2023 – most­ly albums with a smat­ter­ing of EPs and sin­gles too, from folk to elec­tron­i­ca. The most mov­ing album of the year is the emo­tion­al Slow­dive release Every­thing is Alive. There are a few albums we did­n’t have time to include, one being False Lankum: those drone sounds…

Read More

Bill Ryder-Jones releases If Tomorrow Starts Without Me

A new track has just been released by Bill Ryder-Jones. Called ‘If Tomor­row Starts With­out Me’, it’s the sec­ond track tak­en from his forth­com­ing fifth album Iechyd Da, Jan­u­ary 12th. There will also be a run of solo in-store dates for Jan­u­ary. The sim­plis­tic yet mov­ing phrase of ‘If Tomor­row Starts With­out Me’ is something…

Read More

Squeeze announce 50th anniversary tour 2024

TICKETS GO ON SALE 10:00AM, FRIDAY 1ST DECEMBER HERE To cel­e­brate their momen­tous 50th anniver­sary, British music leg­ends Squeeze have announced a mas­sive UK tour for 2024. They will be per­form­ing a list of hits and rare gems from their exten­sive back cat­a­logue and will be joined by spe­cial guest Bad­ly Drawn Boy. Squeeze’s songs were writ­ten by Chris Dif­ford and Glenn Tilbrook, the…

Read More

TDC Tunes and RJ Electronica: venue Film Atelier’s farewell concert

Film Ate­lier is a small venue in Cat­ford – a cafe with its own recipe teas, a dark room/film devel­op­ment stu­dio, an art gallery and con­cert venue. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it is to close short­ly. I can’t stand to hear of yet anoth­er venue clos­ing. But here we are – again.  There is to be a farewell concert…

Read More

Empire Falling: dramatic debut album from Magnetic Skies

With synth-rich anthemic tracks that radi­ate an emo­tion­al land­scape from eupho­ria to dark­ness, Mag­net­ic Skies feels very much like a band who have found their call­ing. And after releas­ing a series of sin­gles and EPs, the band’s debut album, Empire Falling, is out on Fri­day 3rd Novem­ber. Even the album title con­jures impend­ing tur­moil and…

Read More

Llais 23 Both Sides Now Joni Mitchell tribute concert

It was time­ly and fit­ting to hold a trib­ute to Joni Mitchell at Llais 23, the Fes­ti­val of Voice, tak­ing place at the beau­ti­ful Wales Mil­len­ni­um Cen­tre in Cardiff. Joni remains one of the most tal­ent­ed and unique artists of the past few decades, and her vocals and extra­or­di­nary tal­ent for writ­ing poignant and poetic…

Read More

Callis: new single and tour dates plus mini interview

The Tod­mor­den band Cal­lis made an impres­sion on us when their first sin­gle called Dra­maskin came to our atten­tion ear­li­er this year. So it’s wel­come news to hear the band reveal their sec­ond sin­gle, called Dream Sequence, today. The track will also fea­ture on the band’s upcom­ing EP, set to be released in Feb­ru­ary 2024.  Callis…

Read More