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…

Read More

Bluedot 2023 Late Night electronic lineup announcement

Blue­dot fes­ti­val announce a spe­cial late-night pro­gramme cul­mi­nat­ing on Sun­day when Max Coop­er and MESH are to pre­miere a unique A/V sound­scape, with accom­pa­ny­ing bespoke pro­jec­tions on the 50-metre Lovell tele­scope. Groove Arma­da were just one of the head­lin­ers last year using the tele­scope to beam awe-inspir­ing pro­jec­tions over the site (pho­to above). Here’s the plan,…

Read More

White Tea from a Vending Machine: new single by David A Jaycock

This is an enig­mat­ic work from the Cor­nish synth mas­ter, from HOLD. STAR. RETURN, his up and com­ing album. White Tea from a Vend­ing Machine is the sec­ond sin­gle; it opens with a woozy gen­tle­ness that envelops you and sinks you into a com­fort­ing space with its sim­ple retro-synth sound and lay­ered soft vocals.  White…

Read More

Sara Wolff reveals first EP track “Don’t Feed The Birds”

Liv­er­pool-based avant-garde artist Sara Wolff caught our atten­tion in 2021 on the release of her debut sin­gle Bad Thoughts Com­pi­la­tion, reviewed here. Sara has been busy since then, pro­duc­ing oth­er artists, ses­sion musi­cian, embark­ing upon a solo tour of uncon­ven­tion­al spaces whilst armed with her trusty 4‑track cas­sette machine and the mor­ph­ing visu­als of multidisciplinary…

Read More

Albums of the year 2022

Look­ing over our choic­es for albums of the year, sev­er­al fea­ture dreams, frac­tured mem­o­ries in an ambi­ent set­ting… artists search­ing for clues from the past to help them make sense of the present. Per­haps it’s a post Covid thing, as we escaped our con­fines and moved war­i­ly, or rushed glad­ly, out into open spaces again,…

Read More

Trevor Beales – newly found folk artist of Hebden Bridge

Heb­den Bridge is known for its cre­ative and inde­pen­dent spir­it, and music is a vibrant and impor­tant part of that. There’s the annu­al Folk Roots Fes­ti­val; thriv­ing grass­roots venue The Trades Club, and any num­ber of pubs across the area that host live music. More recent­ly the town has become known for pro­duc­ing a wave…

Read More

Deux Furieuses new single All We Need is Sanctuary

All We Need is Sanc­tu­ary is the new sin­gle by Lon­­don-based duo Deux Furieuses just released. Deux Furieuses com­pris­es Scot­tish vocal­ist and gui­tarist Ros Cair­ney and drum­mer Vas Anto­ni­adou.  The duo have carved out a name for them­selves with their polit­i­cal­ly charged mate­r­i­al and uncom­pro­mis­ing atti­tude but All We Need is Sanc­tu­ary has a wistful,…

Read More

Le Junk new single “Midnight Lover” out now

Some­thing for the dance floor: a radi­ant new sin­gle called Mid­night Lover by the Lon­­don-based mul­ti-instru­­men­­tal­ist Le Junk. With spo­ken word vocals, this slinky num­ber, which came out on 12th August, pow­ers along with a dri­ving bass and a cho­rus you’ll want to sing along to. His lyrics are “strewn with sto­ries of sleazy misdemeanours…

Read More

Pale Blue Eyes share Star Vehicle ahead of album launch

I first heard Pale Blue Eyes ear­li­er this year when they released a sin­gle called Dr Pong – an addic­tive, chunky, upbeat num­ber some­what rem­i­nis­cent of Djan­go Djan­go, that instant­ly had me excit­ed­ly rootling around to check out the rest of their mate­r­i­al. Oh – and the song’s about play­ing table ten­nis all night in…

Read More

Review: Bearded Theory 2022

Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val or “Spring Gath­er­ing’ as they like to call it, has been silent for the past three years, but due to the strange elas­tic­i­ty of time, once we’re on site it feels more like a week or so since we were last there. Things are look­ing com­fort­ing­ly famil­iar – we don’t want too…

Read More