The Besnard Lakes unveil She’s An Icicle

Just a few tan­ta­lis­ing weeks ahead of their tour, which includes dates in the UK, The Besnard Lakes have released a sin­gle called She’s An Ici­cle. This new track is in keep­ing with the feel and atmos­phere of their last, tri­umphant album The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Thun­der­storm Warn­ings, released in early…

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The Battery Farm release ‘We’re At The Top’

We’re At The Top is the clos­ing track from The Bat­tery Far­m’s 2nd EP Dirty Den’s March of Suf­fer­ing. It is a song about “lone­li­ness and a song about for­got­ten peo­ple”. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, it’s suf­fused with melan­choly – but so heart­felt and so raw it stopped me in my tracks. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly paced num­ber, commanding…

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Jo Schornikow new release ‘Visions’

Aus­tralian singer-song­writer and pianist for Matthew Houck, aka Phos­pho­res­cent, Jo Schornikow has cre­at­ed an album of alt Amer­i­can indie which ‘explores the com­plex­i­ties and lone­li­ness of moth­er­hood’. Our first peep is this beau­ti­ful track called Visions. The new album is called Altar, to be released on May 20, via Keeled Scales. With woozy, rever­by guitars…

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The Orielles at The Trades for IVW week

The Orielles played at The Trades in Heb­den Bridge as part of IVW. As a local out­fit – and the one who osten­si­bly kick­start­ed the ‘Calder­for­nia’ pletho­ra of local bands, there was a sup­port­ive atmos­phere, with plen­ty of their friends out in the crowd, singing along, word per­fect. I’ve prob­a­bly seen The Orielles more than…

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Cherry Ghost at The Trades for IVW

Cher­ry Ghost appeared at The Trades back in 2015 as part of the Heav­en­ly week­ender. It‘s been a long wait to see them again, espe­cial­ly with Covid caus­ing a cou­ple of frus­trat­ing delays. But here we are, on the final night of Inde­pen­dent Venue Week, with Simon Aldred and – for this gig – Christian…

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Fire Records Heaven on Fire at Studio 9295

In Decem­ber 2019 I attend­ed the Fire Records Christ­mas gig at Stu­dio 9295 in Hack­ney. It’s the sort of event I’d like to see more of: a selec­tion of artists with 40-ish minute sets, and all in a relaxed and friend­ly atmos­phere. So how for­tu­itous it was to dis­cov­er that the label were dish­ing up…

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Green Man 2021 review: frolics in the Brecon Beacons

Imag­ine all the ele­ments that make Green Man fes­ti­val so spe­cial, mul­ti­ply that sev­er­al times over and you’ll get the gen­er­al idea of the sheer plea­sure and excite­ment of this year‘s extrav­a­gan­za in the Bre­con Bea­cons.  The Green Man team did every­thing they could in order to go ahead this year and it was all…

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Sparks on the beach by Simon Beck

A giant image of the Mael broth­ers Ron and Rus­sell, aka Sparks, has been carved into the sand on Bre­an beach, Som­er­set. The work was cre­at­ed by Simon Beck who was moved to cre­ate the impres­sive work to cel­e­brate the release of the new film about the two, called The Sparks Broth­ers. Simon Beck, a…

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Review: Gwyl 2021 festival

The future looks promis­ing for live fes­ti­vals, but for now we are still in the land of the vir­tu­al. Gwyl 2021 ear­li­er this month used this mode to its full advan­tage. The event was put togeth­er by four Welsh fes­ti­vals, Focus Wales, Fes­ti­val of Voice, Aberys­t­wyth Fes­ti­val of Com­e­dy and Oth­er Voic­es. Col­lec­tive­ly, they created…

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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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