Summer Sundae, Leicester De Montfort Hall

Summer Sundae is for this seasoned festival-goer; not just a side-dish of a festival to accompany a main course of one of the larger, more famous British weekenders, but a truly great gathering in its own right.

In The City announces new additions…

The bill gets bigger and better – with the addition of Oh No Ono, the Tom Vek featuring Breton, Hype Williams and Bright Light Bright Light.

Wildbirds And Peacedrums – Rivers

A listenable collection of two different EPs.

The Singles… Kirstie McCrum on Belleruche, Holy Ghost!, The Lines and THe Magic Numbers

It’s singles of the week time… and the canon-free and canonless await! What ho.

Recent Articles:

Wildbirds & Peacedrums, The Lexington, London

September 3, 2010 Gig, Reviews Comments
Wildbirds & Peacedrums

Wildbirds & Peacedrums

August 26, 2010

On the way to this gig, a friend asks for a description of Wildbirds & Peacedrums. “They make your insides shake,” we tell them. He raises an eyebrow. Another friend adds “but your heart is in your mouth.” He looks faintly suspicious as we arrive at the (lovely) Lexington.

… Continue Reading

Reading Festival, Caversham Bridge

September 3, 2010 Gig, Reviews Comments
Reading Festival

Reading Festival

August 27-29, 2010

When the music at Reading Festival begins on Friday (following a boozy Thursday session in the town centre), a hangover is as welcome as the evacuation of vomit that preceded it (said sickness is still being blamed on an salmonella-friendly campsite BBQ on Thursday night). As the phrase goes, time stands still for no man (even one with a hangover) and a now-successful remedy is to get a cold pint of Gaymers (other ciders are available, just nowhere near the festival site) and head off to see some bands. … Continue Reading

Altar Eagle – Mechanical Gardens

September 2, 2010 Album, Reviews Comments

Altar Eagle - Mechanical Gardens

Altar Eagle - Mechanical Gardens

Mechanical Gardens is the latest release from husband and wife Brad Rose and Eden Hemming’s Altar Eagle. It’s a soft lit romp between warm, fuzzy synthesisers and glassy techno bathed in the saturation of a super 8 camera. It could be the soundtrack to some hazy evening lost to the corner of an ATP chalet, or a dusty field filled with summer time, hangovers and the peaceful slow motion of an over heated, relaxed mind.

Considering his other projects (The North Sea, ajilvsga, Alligator Crystal Moth) Rose isn’t the first name you would naturally associate with soft focussed alt-pop but Mechanical Gardens is a triumph of rich, flowing electronic dream pop that offers ease of access into its nine crumbling, colour-bled tracks without resorting to gimmickry or forfeiting its calm, ethereal qualities to po-faced demands for melody. … Continue Reading

Ten Kens – For Posterity

September 2, 2010 Album, Reviews Comments
Ten Kens - For Posterity

Ten Kens - For Posterity

Following a couple of personnel changes within their ranks the Toronto noiseniks Ten Kens locked themselves away from the world for a number of months to gestate this, For Posterity, their second album, and boy does it sound like it. Loud is definitely the word of the hour here whilst the sense of the frustration born of too much time in each others’ company is palpable throughout, so clearly they fed off the self-imposed studio confinement. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth – with a new song by The National!

September 1, 2010 Columns Comments

The National

The National

Track of the week: ‘You Were a Kindness’ by The National

I heard this when they played it live for the very very very first time, and it was just as amazing then as it is now when hearing it behind my laptop. Berninger’s baritone is just lovely, so filled with sadness. The slide guitar, when I heard that live, that was brilliant. Stroke of genius. Best thing is, this is nothing like what they did on their High Violet album this year. Not that the album was bad, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was wondering what would happen if they got even more bombastic… would it possible?

But it’s OK: here, they’ve come back with a restrained heartbreaker full of self-doubt. I love the reference to Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (Berninger sings: “You were a kindness when I was a stranger”, which I think is taken from “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers”, otherwise “kindness” in the first sentence is grammatically incorrect). It’s one of the best songs I’ve heard all year. … Continue Reading

Fan Death – Womb Of Dreams

September 1, 2010 Album, Reviews Comments
Fan Death - Womb Of Dreams

Fan Death - Womb Of Dreams

We’ve all been there – wondered if Dave Grohl has died again this week and ended up three hours later stuck in a never-ending carousel of Wikipedia entries. Criticised for its lack of accuracy (although for reliability, the BBC has it only a gnat’s chuff off the Encyclopedia Britannica – but then, I found that factoid from Wikipedia itself), as “free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual, encyclopedia projects” go (again, lifted from Wikipedia’s entry on itself, which is already some fucked up feedback loop), when it comes to binging on pointless information, it’s a pretty cool resource to have. … Continue Reading

Leeds Festival, Bramham Park

September 1, 2010 Gig, Reviews Comments
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, from near the front of main stage: atop a sign, below a screen and

Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, from near the front of main stage: atop a sign, below a screen

August 28-29, 2010

Leeds Festival is a sheer delight. The crowd isn’t necessarily dead excited for one band in particular, more enthralled by the sheer amount of things at its disposal. … Continue Reading

L.E.D. Festival, Victoria Park, London

September 1, 2010 Gig, Reviews Comments
L.E.D. Festival

L.E.D. Festival

August 28, 2010

Competing with established gurnfests SW4 and Creamfields, not to mention the might of Reading and Leeds tempting tens of thousands out of the capital, it is somewhat of a bold move for L.E.D. Festival organisers to launch a new two-day dance event on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Reports from Friday were ominous; an extremely patchy bill topped by the horrifically turgid David Guetta was matched by a low turnout, mud and a barely audible soundsystem. Boasting the likes of Aphex Twin, Friendly Fires, Leftfield and everyone’s favourite comedy South African rappers Die Antwoord, surely the Saturday would fare better? … Continue Reading

PVT – Church With No Magic

PVT - Church With No Magic

PVT - Church With No Magic

While being robbed of their vowels by similarly-named Yank band Pivot would present something of an issue on Countdown, it seems to have proved a blessing in disguise for Aussie electro three-piece PVT. Not only does their new handle sound more like a physics equation, sitting comfortably with their bleepy maths rock output, they’ve used it as an opportunity to start over. And from the title onwards, this is an exercise in spiritual rebirth.

Beyond the name, the most obvious new development is that they have literally found their voice on Church With No Magic. Rather than applying vocal noises as just another layer of instrumentation, the songs are increasingly shaped around frontman Richard Pike’s actual singing, and his talent is such that you wonder why he didn’t pipe up earlier. … Continue Reading

Dylan Leblanc – Paupers Field

Dylamn

Dylan Leblanc - Paupers Field

What Paupers Field does so beautifully is show that true anguish is weary and unhurried; heartbreaking in its resignation. Born-in-the-90s Dylan Leblanc, and indeed the album itself, are preceded by an impressively dramatic bio: dropping out of school to hang out with musicians, the murder of his grandfather, and his own drinking and depression all vie for pole position in his list of influences.  As he sings on the opening track, “Are you feeling alright? Are you feeling low?”, you can’t help wonder who he’s talking to – us or himself. … Continue Reading

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Wildbirds & Peacedrums, The Lexington, London

September 3, 2010

By the encore, my insides are shaking and my heart is in my mouth.

Reading Festival, Caversham Bridge

September 3, 2010

It might be returning to the point where the music is more important than rioting.

Altar Eagle – Mechanical Gardens

September 2, 2010

You feel as if the two halves of Altar Eagle have travelled through their own musical influences and arrived at something entirely their own on the other side.

Ten Kens – For Posterity

September 2, 2010

That time spent in enforced proximity to each other has more than paid off.

Fan Death – Womb Of Dreams

September 1, 2010

From the get-go, this feels obviously orchestrated – maybe overly so.

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