Miss Li – Late Night Heartbroken Blues
National, 2006 [8/10] With three albums within a twelve months period and a best of album summarising her first year released, Miss Li may be the most productive artist in Scandinavia today, if not ever.
Who The Hell Are… Zoo Animal?
Picture the scene... in a dark Minneapolis jazz club, three anonymous musicians take the stage. The usual rituals of tuning and testing, smiling and carrying on, and then the lead singer steps up to the microphone. It only takes a few songs to appreciate the underestimated prowess of the band; the churning bass, the precision in the drumming, and a fiesty singer whose melancholy adroitness shines through her toned-down Joplin-esque voice and ferocious, half-prostrated guitar solos. This is Holly Newsom and Zoo Animal, a band marked by a soulful yet minimal electrofolk sound and introspective, sometimes spiritual lyrics.
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
Who The Hell Are… Bleeding Knees Club?
There's not much point in asking where Bleeding Knees Club got their name. It's the kind of degenerate tag that you'd expect from a couple of Australian garage surf-punks, but for the innocent and curious alike the band spell it out below. If they happen to ask if you want to join their particular club, ladies just say 'no'. Hailing from Brisbane, where every home has its own swimming pool thanks to last year's insane floods, Alex and Jordan of Bleeding Knees Club have "won hearts and minds through a reckless live reputation and with a swag of super-catchy tunes on their debut EP Virginity".
William Fitzsimmons – The Sparrow and the Crow
William Fitzsimmons goes through the gamut of emotions on his new album - forgiveness, loss, optimism - but it still cannot save the effort from a terminal dullness.
Primavera Festival – Barcelona – 27-29 May 2010
Ah, Barcelona, your beaches are beautiful, your women are smoking jewels (literally), and this festival by the beach (really an explosion of concrete by the seaside) is clearly the diamond in the rough for the travelling roadshow of bands that litter the skies with one thing in mind - a paid holiday. With a selection of acts that suited this weary hack like a good pair of tight jeans and a band tee, Primavera was a stage to stage delight. The current crop of new band like The Drums, Surfer Blood and Dum Dum Girls rose up to meet the challenge of the '90s alternative old guard of Pixies, Pavement and Superchunk.