indie
Reissue CDs Weekly: Josef KSunday, 11 May 2014
Josef K: The Only Fun in TownJosef K seem like one that got away. Their fellow Postcard Records’ bands Aztec Camera and Orange Juice had high-profile afterlives with, respectively, the careers of their songwriters and front men Roddy Frame and... Read more... |
CD: Papercuts – Life Among the SavagesThursday, 08 May 2014
Although the trademark aqueous shimmer is still recognisable on Life Among the Savages, the sound of San Francisco’s Papercuts has changed since 2011’s Fading Parade. On his fifth album as Papercuts, Jason Quever has kept arrangements more sparse... Read more... |
FrankWednesday, 07 May 2014
Two potential obstacles need navigating while considering Frank. First, despite what it initially seems, this is not an account of the life and times of Frank Sidebottom, the giant-headed character created by maverick musician Chris Sievey. Second,... Read more... |
CD: tUnE-yArDs - Nikki NackSunday, 04 May 2014
That Nikki Nack, the third album from tUnE-yArDs, sounds as if it could share the name with some brightly-coloured superhero from a nursery rhyme seems appropriate, because that’s always been how I’ve pictured Merrill Garbus. It’s a persona that she... Read more... |
CD: Olga Bell – KraiSunday, 20 April 2014
Krai – Край – is employed in Russia to label tracts of land separating regions or marking borders. These liminal places each have their own name, defined limits and character, and have inspired the second solo album by the Brooklyn-based Olga Bell.... Read more... |
CD: EMA - The Future's VoidMonday, 07 April 2014
Erika M Anderson’s dystopian follow-up to 2011’s critically acclaimed Past Life Martyred Saints was always going to be prescient, but in the end even she was taken by surprise. “Facebook just bought the company that makes … the VR headset I am... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Estonia: Freedom and Music Thrive in the Shadow of Putin’s RussiaSunday, 06 April 2014
“Art, real art, is a denial of the status quo. A tradition that values the role of the individual.” Speaking in Estonia’s capital for the opening of Tallinn Music Week, the Baltic country’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is referring to what’s just... Read more... |
CD: Kaiser Chiefs - Education, Education, Education & WarSunday, 30 March 2014
By the time I reached “Coming Home” - the second track on Kaiser Chiefs’ fifth album, and the band’s "comeback" single - I was predicting not a riot exactly, but certainly a few snide comments below re: my knowledge of the Leeds lads’ back catalogue... Read more... |
CD: The Hold Steady - Teeth DreamsSunday, 23 March 2014
Thinking back, it was with 2010’s Heaven is Whenever that I stopped recommending my favourite band to the people who didn’t already get it. It wasn’t that it was a bad album – in capturing the world-weariness of the party band once the world moves... Read more... |
CD: The War on Drugs – Lost in the DreamMonday, 17 March 2014
Lost in the Dream takes a while to make its presence felt. Four tracks in, with “An Ocean in Between the Waves”, it all falls into place. A frosted-glass take on the Bruce Springsteen of “I’m on Fire” washes out from the speakers and submerges the... Read more... |
CD: Wild Beasts - Present TenseMonday, 24 February 2014
In a fairly dry climate for original new music Wild Beasts have for the past six years been an oasis of fascination. With this, the Kendal schoolmates’ fourth album, their impeccable indie credentials, including an eclectic musical palette,... Read more... |
CD: St Vincent - St VincentThursday, 20 February 2014
Perhaps the most effective way to sum up St Vincent - the self-titled fourth album from the one-woman avant garde powerhouse known to her friends as Annie Clark - is that it’s the closest she has come on record to the visceral, engrossing experience... Read more... |
