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,…

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The Besnard Lakes live at Oslo Hackney

We’ve wait­ed over two frus­trat­ing years but here they are – Mon­tre­al psy indie band The Besnard Lakes return to UK shores for a run of live shows. Actu­al­ly this night at Oslo in Hack­ney is their penul­ti­mate on the tour. The venue has sched­uled a club night for half an hour after the Bezzies…

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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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Top albums and EPs 2021

This has been an abun­dant year for new music, hard­ly sur­pris­ing as artists were forced into lock­down, stuck in their hous­es / bed­rooms /studios with only synths and gui­tars for com­pa­ny. We’re delight­ed to bring you Gourmet Gigs’ favourites this year: a com­bi­na­tion of albums and an EP. A few long-await­­ed albums turned out to…

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The Besnard Lakes launch their redemptive new album

The Besnard Lakes don’t make things easy for them­selves, pub­lic­i­ty wise. The new album which launched on Jan­u­ary 2021, The Besnard Lakes are The Last of the Great Thun­der­storm Warn­ings isn’t a title that fits neat­ly into social media posts, as well they know. But the Cana­di­an out­fit don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly care – noth­ing is going…

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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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The Besnard Lakes announce a new album and share glorious track, Raindrops

It has been a thrill in these dark times to hear the announce­ment of new music from The Besnard Lakes. The Mon­tre­al band’s impend­ing album, to be unveiled 29 Jan­u­ary 2021, is titled – in their typ­i­cal rather inflat­ed prog-influ­enced style – The Besnard Lakes Are the last of the Great Thun­der­storm Warn­ings. I’ve been…

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Favourite albums of 2016

Putting togeth­er a list of favourite albums of 2016, I recalled writ­ing last year’s col­lec­tion. What a dif­fer­ent world we now inhab­it. Every­thing feels brit­tle and frag­ile, a sense of per­ma­nence lost. The loss of so many great musi­cians and artists this year has been raw and shock­ing. How­ev­er… there are plen­ty of releas­es I’ve real­ly enjoyed this year, and inevitably…

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Green Man 2016 review: indie and lots of weather

Fore­casts were for gales, thun­der and tor­ren­tial rain. What we actu­al­ly got were tan­ta­lis­ing peeks of sun, and show­ers which float­ed down with clock­work reg­u­lar­i­ty like a sprin­kler sys­tem. If you’ve ever want­ed a qui­et word with the Met Office when they get things wrong, by for­tu­nate coin­ci­dence there they were, at Ein­stein’s Gar­den, Green Man’s science /…

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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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