Recent Posts
#282 Close Lobsters – I'm Going To Heaven To See If It Rains
‘C86 is a term used to describe Britain’s mid-Eighties indie-pop climate when haircuts were round, major labels taboo and anoraks obligatory’. Close Lobsters were a fine exponent of the phenomenon, a scene that emerged after NME gave away a free […]
#281 Jim Noir – My Patch
If the marketing men hear this they will be rushing to the suburbs of greater Manchester to woo its maker Jim Noir (stage name taken from a Vic Reeves character, real name Alan Roberts). ‘My Patch’ has a defining quality […]
#280 Part Chimp – Bring Back The Sound
Here’s one to clean out the cobwebs, reminiscent of And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at their most devastating (or all of ‘Source Tags & Codes’). Part Chimp come from London and are quite logically signed […]
#279 Six By Seven – My Life Is An Accident
There were a couple of reasons why Six By Seven caught my attention. Mostly vague reasons really, my favourite number (Hitchhiker) and my favourite football team (Forest) being the most obvious. Chris Olley is a big lad and his menacing […]
#278 The Minor Canon – A False Start
Paul Larson certainly has an impressive CV. His previous work has seen him work with various members of Dntel, the Postal Service and Beachwood Sparks. His new adventures are taking place under the Minor Canon moniker and if ‘A False […]
#277 Daylight's For The Birds – For Now
When On! Air! Library! broke up it didn’t take long for its main protagonists to set up shop elsewhere. The new incarnation is Daylight’s For The Birds, which originally included both Philip Wann and Claudia Deheza. While Claudia’s role has […]
#276 The Divine Comedy – Tonight We Fly
That Beirut post had me thinking about the Divine Comedy and how they used to rattle my cage before Hannon lost the run of himself and sold his posh arse to commercialism (or putting it another way, he set off […]
#275 Beirut – Mount Wroclai
And out on the west wing a mad young Zach Condon spins his baroque ditties with a cast that includes junk store accordions, beat up trumpets and his own surreptitious voice. Nar a guitar in sight but who cares when […]
#274 Ef – Ett
You can count the number of great post-rock bands on a single hand. Tis’ a shame really because at its best the genre can be genuinely moving. There are a number of nearly men inhabiting the fringes (Japan’s Mono for […]
#273 Hopewell – Synthetic Symphony
After succumbing to Hopewell’s latest vision nobody could be surprised that the ubiquitous Dave Fridmann sat in on production duties. And the Mercury Rev connections only begin there, as lead singer Jason Russo was a long time member of the […]
#283 [ingenting] – En Battre Dag
Considering Labrador is a Swedish label it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover that [ingenting] are the first artists on their roster to actually sing in their native tongue. Not that it matters that much as the […]