Phildel CD cover
May 9

Music news: Phildel and Metallica (but not together)

Phildel has just won Pop/Top 40 cat­e­go­ry for Moon­sea in the Inter­na­tion­al Song­writ­ing Com­pe­ti­tion where she was up against over 20,000 entries. A fan­tas­tic result from a mul­ti-tal­en­t­ed and extreme­ly hard­work­ing per­former. This pres­ti­gious songr­writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion was judged this year by such lumi­nar­ies as John May­all, Black Fran­cis (The Pix­ies), Robert Smith (The Cure),  Tom Waits and Imag­ine Drag­ons.This is…

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St James Church
May 2

Review: Kurt Vile at St James’s Church

St James’s Church, Pic­cadil­ly, it’s a beau­ti­ful jew­el of a church designed by Christo­pher Wren, and like sev­er­al Lon­don church­es, moon­lights as a music venue. Noth­ing of the Metal­li­ca vari­ety, obvi­ous­ly. We are here to see Kurt Vile do a solo set which is more in keep­ing. Despite its beau­ty, the church’s view­ing expe­ri­ence is only just adequate;…

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Tom on Cyr wheel
Apr 27

Event: The Second Breath. Take to the streets for a mystery tour

The Sec­ond Breath will be hap­pen­ing for one day in May, bring­ing togeth­er club­bing cul­ture, cir­cus skills, a mys­tery tour and cli­mate change sto­ries. The Sec­ond Breath is a walk­ing mys­tery tour of Leeds, with daz­zling cir­cus acts and dar­ing stunts, pro­jec­tions, sto­ries and psy­che­del­ic dance music. The sound­track was espe­cial­ly writ­ten for the per­for­mances by local DJ, KWAH and the pro­jec­tions are by…

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the bedroom hour 1
Apr 18

Be part of the process: crowd funding helps artists like The Bedroom Hour achieve their goals

There are sev­er­al fund­ing sites out there oper­at­ing in slight­ly dif­fer­ent ways, but they all have the same objec­tive; offer­ing fans an attrac­tive way to con­tribute towards a cho­sen artist’s cre­ative process. This gets you, the fan, clos­er to the band. And it gives the musi­cians a chance to exer­cise their PR and mar­ket­ing skills by dream­ing up…

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Simone Felice
Apr 14

Review: Simone Felice at Bush Hall

Simone Felice starts his gig at Bush Hall with New York Times – it’s a haunt­ing and grit­ty num­ber which encap­su­lates famil­iar Felice ter­ri­to­ry – man’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and cru­el­ty, human strug­gle, death. But also love, find­ing beau­ty and joy in life, and the plea­sure and impor­tance of good friends. Of the grit­ti­er sub­ject mat­ter, Felice does­n’t shy away but tack­les things head on, and…

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Blue Zoo Islington Academy
Apr 11

Animal magic with Blue Zoo, 02 Academy Islington

The 80s – a much maligned decade for music but dig deep and there was plen­ty to enjoy. I’m a fan of my office’s occa­sion­al “Pow­er Bal­lad Thurs­days”. Instead of a sea of hunched com­put­er nerds nod­ding along to their own pri­vate world via their head­phones, we’re all shar­ing the moment as Africa by Toto and Urgent by For­eign­er blast out…

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Festival no 6
Mar 21

Green and pleasant: festivals for 2014

Dust down the sleep­ing bags and camp­ing stove, the start of fes­ti­val sea­son is only a cou­ple of months away. These days, music fes­ti­vals are work­ing hard­er to attract a fol­low­ing, offer­ing debat­ing ses­sions and work­shops, ban­quets and bal­loon­ing, hop­ing to carve out a unique and iden­ti­fi­able image from a sea of for­mu­la­ic events. Here…

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The See See
Mar 11

Review: The See See – psychedelia with attitude at The Lexington

The See See were part of a swirly psy­che­delia night at The Lex­ing­ton on Pen­tonville Road two years ago, and they par­tic­u­lar­ly caught my atten­tion. (Also mem­o­rable were Cana­di­an band Ele­phant Stone whose music is enriched with Rishi Dhir’s mes­meris­ing sitar play­ing). Fast for­ward two years and we were back at The Lex­ing­ton last week for The…

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Earl Haig Hall
Mar 5

Vinyl memories released: tell your Stylus Story at Earl Haig Hall

The intro of a song is all that’s need­ed for spe­cial mem­o­ries to come flood­ing back. Just a bar or two and you find your­self cat­a­pult­ed back to a par­tic­u­lar moment in time: whether fun­ny or joy­ful, roman­tic or melan­cholic, it’s the music that will take you there. Many of us pos­sess some of our favourites as…

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Ace Hotel
Feb 19

Review: Courtney Barnett at ACE hotel, Shoreditch

The Aussie-accen­t­ed, coun­try-tinged tones of Court­ney Bar­net­t’s songs have been float­ing over the Radio 6 music air­waves of late. Last Thurs­day was her sec­ond Lon­don appear­ance, this time at Ace Hotel, Shored­itch. Court­ney takes keeps things min­i­mal, walk­ing on stage to plug all the leads in before she’s joined by her bass play­er and drum­mer. With no…

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