Elephant Stone at The Shacklewell Arms 2023

This was an evening fans had been antic­i­pat­ing for a few years – the return of Mon­tre­al psy­che­delia-lean­ing band Ele­phant Stone to UK shores. This, their only show here, took place at char­ac­ter­ful music venue The Shack­lewell Arms, mean­ing fans coun­try wide had no option but to trav­el to the Lon­don venue, a fact that…

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Hot Chip: Fire of Mercy new single feat Yune Pinku

Hot Chip have sure­ly reached nation­al trea­sure sta­tus. The band’s work always has a embrac­ing, uplift­ing qual­i­ty to it, and live they’re exhil­a­rat­ing. As sum­mer gets an uplift weath­­er-wise, it seems like a good time to release this euphor­ic new track fea­tur­ing Malaysian-Irish pro­duc­er and song­writer Yunè Pinku. The new sin­gle is called Fire of Mer­cy. Alexis…

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Bluedot 2023 review

When you’re on the way to Blue­dot, that first glimpse of the Lovell tele­scope is always a ‘wow’, moment. There it stands, on the Cheshire plain, com­muning with the plan­ets and deep space. Our con­duit to the stars and beyond. No won­der that Blue­dot, the fes­ti­val that has grown up around this beau­ti­ful struc­ture has…

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Bluedot 2023 photo gallery Saturday & Sunday

On Sat­ur­day and Sun­day: HENGE, Space Parade, Pic­tish Trail, Tinari­wen, TVAM, Mary in the Junk­yard, Dry Clean­ing. Mag­gie Aderin-Pocock gave a talk at Mis­sion Con­trol. Chris Hawkins with his wife Clare Nasir inter­viewed pho­tog­ra­ph­er Max Alexan­der and talked about near-space sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Music: Tele­man, Lava La Rue, Nihilox­i­ca, Young Fathers and Grace Jones Click here for photos…

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Bluedot 2023 photo gallery Thursday & Friday

Blue­dot 2023. Thurs­day evening – Max Richter and the BBC Con­cert Orches­tra open blue­dot Fes­ti­val 2023 with a spe­cial Unclas­si­fied Live, host­ed by Eliz­a­beth Alk­er.  Fri­day – Lovell, Orbit and Neb­u­la stages. Talks and work­shops plus Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty’s sci­ence stalls. Shaun Keav­e­ny on the Notes stage.  Click here for pho­tos of Sat­ur­day and Sun­day  Lead pho­to: KC…

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Llais 2023 lineup with Gwenno, Bat for Lashes, The Unthanks and more

Llais is Wales Mil­len­ni­um Centre’s annu­al inter­na­tion­al arts fes­ti­val inspired by the instru­ment that con­nects us all – the voice. The Cen­tre has just announced its first wave of artists for Llais 2023, includ­ing Bat For Lash­es, Gwen­no and a cel­e­bra­tion of Joni Mitchell. The events takes place 11–15 Octo­ber. An ode to Joni Mitchell’s…

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Synth maestro Modema releases celestial pop track

She is a famil­iar face to any­one who’s seen The Orielles live over the past cou­ple of years… and now Emi­ly Zukows­ki, aka Mode­ma, has stepped for­ward and released a track of her own.  Unsur­pris­ing­ly, Emi­ly has also been work­ing on her own mate­r­i­al, some­thing she’s been busy with for years, and Run­ning Back is her…

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Festivals through summer and beyond

Fes­ti­val sea­son has moved into high gear. Sev­er­al have sold out (Green Man, Kendal Call­ing and Beau­ti­ful Days to name just three – and Ral­ly is close to sell­ing out) but there’s still over­all plen­ty of choice. Our list includes sev­er­al met­ro­pol­i­tan (non camp­ing) shindigs too, right into Sep­tem­ber. If you’re des­per­ate to attend a…

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Hang Out with Pale Blue Eyes

The indie pop band Pale Blue Eyes have seen their star rise astro­nom­i­cal­ly over the past year – right­ly so – and Hang Out, the new sin­gle from their upcom­ing sec­ond album (Sep­tem­ber, folks) called ‘This House’ is yet again proof that they are on the right track. Hang Out – the sec­ond share from…

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Magnetic Skies release new single “Suffocate”

Mag­net­ic Skies came to our atten­tion with enig­mat­ic sin­gle You Shine On in Feb­ru­ary; now the band have unveiled a new sin­gle called Suf­fo­cate on ReprinT Records. Rem­i­nis­cent of Depeche Mode, Suf­fo­cate is “an intense and pow­er­ful glimpse into a world of despair as a rela­tion­ship comes crash­ing down at an unre­lent­ing pace.”  This beau­ti­­ful­­ly-craft­ed num­ber immediately…

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