Sparks new tour and album

It’s an excit­ing moment when we hear of new work… and a tour by Sparks. Endur­ing­ly bril­liant, Sparks return this year with a tour, so be ready on your key­boards (with your cof­fee) very soon…  Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly announced 2 nights at London’s Roy­al Albert Hall and 3 per­for­mances at Pri­mav­era Sound Fes­ti­val in Spain and Portugal,…

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Beans on Toast with new album and books for kids

I expect that Beans on Toast, the pop­u­lar folky fes­ti­val artist, will be ton­ing down the sweary lan­guage in his new series of chil­dren’s books. Called The Fas­ci­nat­ing Adven­tures Of Lit­tle Bee, the books will be com­ing out in time for Christ­mas, launch­ing on Decem­ber 1st, and there’s an accom­pa­ny­ing album too. Beans on Toast –…

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Alabaster dePlume new song ‘Mrs Calamari’

There’s a lot of music out there designed to bring down the heart rate, still the breath­ing, calm the soul and send you to a pleas­ant and nour­ish­ing place. There is one artist, an eccen­tric, car­ing and exot­ic being, who has made work which def­i­nite­ly has this effect: Alabaster dePlume, poet per­former has pre­vi­ous form…

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Aftertouch: magical new album from Absolutely Free

Emerg­ing from a misty and dreamy land­scape comes the sec­ond album from Cana­di­an out­fit Absolute­ly Free called After­touch, released Sep­tem­ber 24 on Boiled Records. The band caught my atten­tion ear­li­er in the year with the thought-pro­­vok­ing sin­gle How to Paint Clouds – the sec­ond track on this new release. Absolute­ly Free, com­pris­ing the core trio…

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Kinbote album release: Shifting Distance

Kin­bote – oth­er­wise known as found-sound sam­pling glitch-pop pro­duc­er Matt Gibb – released a quirky and intrigu­ing sin­gle called Hiemalis in the sum­mer, reviewed on Gourmet Gigs. And on 4th Decem­ber he launched his album called Shift­ing Dis­tance. The cov­er of Shift­ing Dis­tance fea­tures slices of scenery, tan­ta­lis­ing but unable to be grasped and expe­ri­enced in…

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Poetic drama: Sylvette release album Stiller than Still

I have to cred­it Chris Hawkins’ ear­ly morn­ing show on Radio 6 Music for intro­duc­ing me to the Man­ches­ter band Syl­vette. The slinky, crys­talline notes of their new sin­gle Kelpius cut through the ear­ly morn­ing blur and I was instant­ly wide awake. Music as caf­feine.  The album Stiller than Still, the band’s sec­ond album, was…

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New single Light Me Up by The Coronas

The Coro­nas released their new sin­gle Light Me Up on 17 July. It is the lat­est song to be revealed from their new album True Love Waits, released 31st July. The sin­gle fol­lows the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed duet with Gabrielle Aplin called Lost In the Thick Of It.  The band has also announced that all their…

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Latest release: Warm Digits Flight of Ideas

Anoth­er ener­­gy-filled album from Warm Dig­its. On Flight of Ideas Warm Dig­its “make a call to arms: when we all think our ideas are right, what are the costs of nev­er believ­ing you could be wrong?” And so the explo­ration begins, with the duo plus a selec­tion of guest vocal­ists step­ping back in time and…

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Elephant Stone: powerful beauty of new album Hollow

Mon­tre­al psy­che­del­ic band Ele­phant Stone released their lat­est album Hol­low on Feb­ru­ary 14th. I first saw them at The Lex­ing­ton in 2011 and their stun­ning set remains etched on my mem­o­ry, the pow­er­ful and hyp­not­ic set clos­er Don’t You Know cement­ing an ongo­ing love for this band, and in par­tic­u­lar, Rishi Dhir’s thrilling sitar playing.…

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Robin Trower album and tour

Good to hear there’s no stop­ping for Robin Trow­er, who just released a new stu­dio album enti­tled Where You Are Going To, by Man­haton Records.  Trow­er was a mem­ber of Pro­col Harum in the 60s, and became known for his ‘soft psy­che­delia’. The leg­endary  blues rock gui­tarist and singer-song­writer is also going to be head­ing out on…

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