The Cult – London – 21 January 2011
When you add up the years, you realise Ian Astbury and Billy Dully have been making music as The Cult for a long-ass time. Sitting in the rafters of the Hammersmith Apollo ("Hammersmith Odeon", Astbury demurs, referring to the venue's previous appellation), the debt paid to the excesses of rock n’ roll have more-or-less treated both kindly. Astbury, the once flower-child/wolf-child looks a little rough round the edges, but when you style yourself on Jim Morrisson and then suddenly become him, what can you expect. Duffy on the other hand, is ageless, looking more like David Beckham‘s older brother than a well-tooled guitar god.
Taken By Trees – East of Eden
Ex-Concrete Victoria Bergsman heads to Pakistan to seek inspiration for her second album as Taken By Trees.
Julian Plenti – Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper
Paul Banks discovers that the best path to seduction lies in reduction on his first solo outing as the mysterious Julian Plenti.
Animal Collective – Interview with David Portner (Static, 2009)
Having just released the second single "Summertime Clothes" from their acclaimed eighth album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Chris Berkley from Static spoke to David Portner from Baltimore, Maryland's favourite sons, Animal Collective and asked, among other
British Sea Power – Man of Aran
British Sea Power take to the Irish Coast to provide a fresh soundtrack to this 1934 documentary on the people of Aran.
Who The Hell Are… The Rifle Volunteer?
It's an audacious pronouncement to commit to releasing 12 singles in 12 months. The Wedding Present set the benchmark in the 90's. Ash tried the same thing recently, in a mixture of desperation and overkill in numbers too large to comprehend and tarnishing the very idea of a single. It's not just two songs on a slab of vinyl (or cd, or one of those less satisfying digital w/artwork jobs). It's a living, breathing statement. A trojan horse in disguise. A rallying cry to fall behind. A rallying cry... See, The Rifle Volunteer comprehend this. "I'll Sleep When That Damned Sun Is Dead", the first single in their year long campaign, is what we're talking about. Here is a band that means business.
Jacob Golden – Interview circa Revenge Songs (2008)
If success was awarded by the amount of struggle and heartbreak an artist had endured, and took into account the innate talent the artist had, Jacob Golden would be multi-platinum and headlining London's Royal
Rat vs Possum – Interview (2010)
I'd heard murmurings of a Melbourne band who subscribed to the "let's give them a real show" theory of concert performance - glitter, paint bombs and bubble wrap - along with a huge wall of
Blue Roses – Blue Roses
Blue Roses may not exist in nature but there's nothing artificial about Yorkshire songsmith Laura Groves.
Contiuum Books 33 1/3 – Television, Rolling Stones, Dinosaur Jr
Behind every great album is more often than not, an even greater story waiting to be told. The pursuit for higher understanding of artists and their most influential pieces of work and how the two came to pass has long been the ultimate goal of the ardent music fan who thrives on having every recorded nuance and historical detail mapped out like a combined atlas and encyclopedia of the human body. One of the more indispensible series of music books published that actually does, more or less, what is expected above, has been Continuum's 33 1/3. With the recent addition of The Rolling Stones Some Girls, Dinosaur Jr's You're Living All Over Me and Television's Marquee Moon to their honour roll, 33 1/3 show no sign of scraping the bargain bin anytime soon.
Kings Of Leon – Come Around Sundown
"a polished genre grab bag record of mostly stale, completely innocuous songs". Kings of Leon - Win!
I Break Horses – Hearts
Welcome to the lilting shoegaze world of Swedish duo I Break Horses, "more than just a nostalgic pastiche of an ethereal past".
Vivian Girls – Everything Goes Wrong
The title may be Everything Goes Wrong, but to our ears, everything goes right for the Vivian Girls on their sophomore release.
MGMT – Congratulations
One of the hotly anticipated releases for 2010, MGMT shake things up with their follow-up to Oracular Spectacular but the title is anything but ironic.
Shout Out Louds – Interview (2007)
Just call it the comeback. While the Shout Out Loud's debut album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff showed promise few could have predicated the seismic improvement for follow-up Our Ill Wills -- a veritable treasure chest