Papercuts new track “I Want My Jacket Back”

There‘s a groovy new sin­gle out by Paper­cuts – aka mul­ti-instru­­men­­tal­ist and pro­duc­er Jason Quev­er. Dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the polit­i­cal cli­mate of the time (Trump) and a non­sen­si­cal con­ver­sa­tion with a con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist pro­vid­ed the trig­gers for the track, enti­tled I Want My Jack­et Back. Despite its despair­ing themes, any melan­choly is restrict­ed to the vocals. Quev­er’s…

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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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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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Review: The Besnard Lakes, London

The Besnard Lakes closed the UK leg of their tour with a tri­umphant, beau­ti­ful and emo­tion­al per­for­mance at The Assem­bly Hall, Isling­ton. The space was per­fect for The Besnard Lakes. It’s a medi­um-sized venue with a grand feel, and that Besnard sound swirled around and filled the space, the mir­ror­ball on the ceil­ing look­ing like an escapee from their last album cover,…

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Review: Jane Weaver at Oslo

Set against a mus­cu­lar, dri­ving bassline and wall of dense synth/guitar, Weaver’s voice adds a spacey, ethe­re­al light­ness, the two ele­ments bal­anc­ing each oth­er, cre­at­ing almost vis­i­ble layers. 

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Pink Floyd, flower children, swinging London: the 60s films of Anthony Stern

Over the sum­mer of 2014, Lon­don’s South­bank Cen­tre held a Fes­ti­val of Love, exhibit­ing pieces of hip­py iconog­ra­phy which remained dot­ted around the com­plex long after the event. They cre­at­ed a suit­ably fit­ting por­tal to one par­tic­u­lar event: an evening of psy­che­del­ic films at the BFI called Flower Chil­dren in the Blind­ing Light: the 60s…

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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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