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CD: Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim ReaperMonday, 19 January 2015
Some have suggested that the title of Panda Bear’s fifth studio album means this could be the last we hear of Noah Lennox’s musical alter ego. If he is going, he’s certainly not doing it quietly, as this follow up to 2011’s Tomboy takes the intense... Read more... |
CD: Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to LoveSaturday, 17 January 2015
In interviews, Sleater-Kinney have been at pains to point out that their first album in nigh-on a decade is not a “reunion”. It’s certainly not a word I’d reach for to describe No Cities to Love: it’s too cosy a word – one that conjures buried... Read more... |
CD: BC Camplight – How to Die in the NorthThursday, 15 January 2015
Decamping to Manchester from Philadelphia after a personal crisis seems an unlikely move. But this is what Brian Christinzio – who is BC Camplight – did in 2012. How to Die in the North was recorded in Bredbury, near Stockport.As cross-continental... Read more... |
CD: The Callstore – Save No OneThursday, 08 January 2015
At first it seems akin to entering a world conjured by Efterlkang at their most elegiac. Strings swell and what sounds like a cimbalom chimes. A wordless vocal sighs. After the opening instrumental – titled “Intro” – “Lovers Lane” (sic) surges... Read more... |
CD: Spectres – DyingMonday, 05 January 2015
For a band dealing in noise and sonic possibilities, the niches at the coalface on which to get a foothold are few and far between. The sound has been mined for years and one has to wonder whether there are any new strains we’ve not heard somewhere... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Millions Like UsSunday, 21 December 2014
Various Artists: Millions Like Us - The Story of the Mod Revival 1977–1989A “testosterone-fuelled youth movement” is how the opening paragraph of the introductory essay of this box set tags the mod revival. Aficionados of the “clean-cut,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The CzarsSunday, 14 December 2014
The Czars: Best ofQueen of Denmark, John Grant’s first solo album, seemed to arrive from nowhere in 2010. Here was a singer-songwriter with a unique voice evoking disparate wellsprings Eric Carmen, Randy Newman and Lionel Richie. When taken with a... Read more... |
DVD: The Possibilities are EndlessFriday, 05 December 2014
The subject of The Possibilities are Endless does not appear until 24 minutes into the film. When Edwyn Collins is manifested, it is as a silhouette, as spectral as he is tangible. Collins is bifurcated: corporeal but also removed. The massive... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Reykjavík: Iceland Airwaves 2014Sunday, 16 November 2014
A slim 69-year-old man in a rumpled sports jacket looking like a gone-to-seed history lecturer with the colour-clash dress sense of Michael Portillo is gripping a microphone so hard it’s a wonder it hasn’t been crushed. He is barking lyrics in... Read more... |
Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 12Friday, 07 November 2014
The voice is unmistakably Icelandic. Fluting and dancing around the notes, the words it carries are broken into segments which don’t respect syllables. Although singing in English, Hildur Kristín Stefánsdóttir hasn’t sacrificed her Icelandic... Read more... |
CD: The Flaming Lips 2014 - With a Little Help from My FwendsWednesday, 29 October 2014
Choosing the cutesy-pie “Fwends” – as The Flaming Lips have before – for the title rather than "friends" instantly suggests this track-by-track revisit to The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band isn’t going to be entirely... Read more... |
CD: The Twilight Sad - Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To LeaveWednesday, 22 October 2014
You wonder what gets them out of bed. After more than a decade together, and with this, their fourth album, just released, The Twilight Sad must be feeling very miserable. The odd thing is, they seem to revel in their misery. “Scottish band who... Read more... |
