Wolf Parade, Bristol Thekla

Wolf Parade

September 11, 2010

After Spencer Krug released his best ever record last year in the form of Sunset Rubdown’s Dragonslayer, reteaming with Dan Boeckner to put out another album of fantastic verse-chorus Wolf Parade songs somehow failed to provoke any particularly vocal enthusiasm from… well,  anyone really. Following the dazzling hyper-ambition of Dragonslayer, it was all too easy to overlook the “fantastic” part of “fantastic verse-chorus Wolf Parade songs” –big choruses and conventional structures felt somehow regressive, despite their obvious quality.

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Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, Wales

Green Man Festival

This review has to start with a total confession of my journalistic bias: Green Man Festival is my favourite place on Earth. Consider my hat firmly in the ring on that one. Just like kids hanging up their stockings for Santa, or lonely middle-aged housewives hearing the thumping beat of the X-Factor opening music, the foreboding doom of black cloud moving over the horizon of an otherwise kind-of-dry summer fills me with an excitement that can only mean one thing: Green Man is coming. … Continue Reading

Aberfeldy – Somewhere To Jump From

Aberfeldy - Somewhere To Jump From

Despite being tour support for many high profile acts and featuring in a Coca Cola advert, Scottish indie-pop outfit Aberfeldy have somehow managed to elude any meaningful widespread recognition. Somewhere to Jump From helps us to understand why. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s unassuming and modest to a fault – shuffling through the ears almost unnoticed, leaving no footprints in the wake of its gentle harmonies and acoustic strumming. … Continue Reading

Fennesz/Daniell/Buck – Knoxville

Fennesz/Daniell/Buck - Knoxville

A lot of music journalism is a bluff. Upon being assigned an album to review, writers often fall immediately to sniffing around Google in an effort to contextualise the record within its zeitgeist and genre. The eventual hope is that the reader hears a voice that Gets The Record and Knows What It’s Talking About. Sometimes, however, a reviewer is forced to throw their hands in the air and confess that a record has left them adrift in a sea of experimental abstraction. Live recording Knoxville by three of the world’s most well respected purveyors of improvised experimental music – Christian Fennesz, David Daniell, and Tony Buck – is such a record. My critical faculties cower in the presence of what is essentially a physical experience, rather than an aural one. … Continue Reading

Maps And Atlases – Perch Patchwork

Maps And Atlases - Perch Patchwork

When you’re writing for a website which sternly prohibits its contributors from employing lazy genre labels to describe a record, reviewing a band like Maps and Atlases does most of the hard work for you. Opening with a one-two punch of tracks which sound but distant cousins to one another, Perch Patchwork immediately announces itself as a sticky – but beguiling – little puzzle. Neither specifically ‘math rock’ (as they have been so doggedly labelled thus far into their career), nor ‘indie’ (a word quickly gathering itself a reputation akin to the n-word on this site) – this is an album of fiercely inventive and hyper-skilful guitar music, impossible to categorise any less broadly. … Continue Reading

Active Child – Curtis Lane EP

Active Child - Curtis Lane EP

Let’s see what we have here then. Alright, this appears to be yet another EP of blog-friendly electronic bedroom pop. Well, we all know how this goes by rote by now, don’t we? Altogether now: thick layers of synthesiser, reverb soaked drum loops (with a huge bass kick), a harp, blissful harmonies – hang on a sec – a harp? Touché, Active Child. I can’t say I saw that one coming.

That’s not to say that Active Child is a gimmick peddler. He won’t come to be known as ‘that laptop-guy with a harp’. His use of the instrument is far subtler than that – choosing only to pepper his songs with occasional plinks, plonks and flourishes. Far from being a selling point on its own terms, Active Child’s use of harp is indicative of a wider desire to meld the organic with the electronic throughout the course of this EP. … Continue Reading

Standon Calling, Standon

Standon Calling - view from the crowd

Earlier this week, I read an article about how miserable the music festival experience can be. One of their prime examples was Chicago’s Pitchfork Festival; a festival which I had the pleasure of attending last year. And whilst I had an undeniably great time, I can see where the writers of the article were coming from – it was cramped, it was hot, and it wasn’t ideal. … Continue Reading

Caitlin Rose – Own Side Now

Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now

You can tell that Caitlin Rose is a small town country gal just by glancing at her album’s track listing. Her soft, Nashville accent not only carries the songs’ melodies but actually pervades the titles themselves: she’s not Learning To Ride, she’s Learnin’ To Ride; she’s not Coming Up, she’s Comin’ Up. For better or worse, Own Side Now is undeniably an album of good ol’ country music – complete with all the connotations of the genre – but it’s country music at its most youthful and vibrant. Whether it’s the sweeping waltz of lead single ‘For The Rabbits’, the high-tempo frolic of ‘Shanghai Cigarettes’ or the laid back sweetness of ‘Own Side’, Caitlin adorns everything with hummable refrains and a sense of easy playfulness unique to hard drinking girls in their early twenties. … Continue Reading

Fucked Up, Cardiff Barfly

Fucked Up, Photo by Russell Warfield

July 15, 2010

Perhaps it’s a case rural boredom or maybe it’s the country’s economic depression but, for one reason or another, the Welsh heartily embrace nihilistic and violent rock shows. Oftentimes, this makes for a dreary evening of headaches, bruises and boredom but tonight’s Fucked Up gig is a welcome reminder of how brilliantly visceral – and fun – a hardcore punk show can be. … Continue Reading

Singles of the Week: mostly on Panda Bear’s greatness…

Panda Bear

As you read this, Spain will still be celebrating their World Cup victory; Paul Gasgoine will be solemnly dismantiling his fishing rod; Paul the Octopus will be eating from a solitaty feeding bowl and you will be wondering why this sentence insists on being so fucking long when I could be spending words discussing one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year… … Continue Reading