Nimmo And The Gauntletts – Young Light

Nimmo And The Gauntlets - Young Light

By Joel Stagg

Nimmo And The Gauntletts have been steadily increasing their profile over the last year or so, as part of the Strummerville foundation’s band roster, mentored by Emmy the Great, and having appeared at Secret Garden Party and the Eden project as well as frequent live appearances in Brighton and London. Now with Young Light, they finally deliver on their promise and emerge with a strikingly confident EP that’s bound to delight fans old and new and strongly situate them as one of the more exciting young guitar bands of the present moment. … Continue Reading

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Stage Whisper

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Stage Whisper

By Solange Moffi

Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of you know who (if a well-guided and true muso you are, that is), has proved an effortless coolness magnet with the likes Air, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon, Tony Allen and Nigel Godrich all standing in line previously to put their stamp on the self-converted chanteuse’s cap, on 5:55 back in 2006. Three year later, she even enrolled fiddler extraordinaire, Beck, to tailor-produce her next LP, IRM. The pair seems to have enjoyed the experience so much, they brought a sequel to their collaboration with a part-studio/part-live album. … Continue Reading

Errors – Have Some Faith In Magic

Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

By David Lichfield

A stylistic shift is always a welcome move when a band hits the second or third wind of their career, and the already unique ambience magicians Errors may be a man down after the departure of Greg Paterson, but there’s little on the Glasgow trio’s third full-length album Have Some Faith In Magic to suggest that the band haven’t reassembled themselves effortlessly to no detriment to their craft, adding vocals to their lush and layered hook-laden soundscapes and ultimately yet another weapon to their already formidable artillery. … Continue Reading

Richard Youngs – Amaranthine

Richard Youngs - Amaranthine

By Tom Bolton

If anyone’s channelling England’s dreaming, it’s Richard Youngs with his baffling, absorbing fragments that seem simultaneously alien and a fundamental part of us. The debate about Youngs always seems to get hung up on trying to describe and categorise: “Is this album more ‘avant-garde’ than the last?” or “Is he still experimental, or has he sold out?” This is definitely missing the point. His music is highly original, and seems to exist to defy and destroy categories. Nor do definitions help to understand what you’re hearing. He experiments, for sure, but the significance of his work is in its ability to help the listener value sounds and musical experiences they might otherwise dismiss. … Continue Reading

The Bevis Frond – The Leaving Of London

The Bevis Frond - The Leaving Of London

By Kenny McMurtrie

A concept album about the BBC’s relocation of staff to Salford? Or the heralding of an exodus of those disinterested in the Olympics this coming Summer? Whatever the theme of studio album number 22 from Nick Saloman and cohorts the eight year hiatus since the Hit Squad album hasn’t degraded their talents in any way. Indeed Saloman is still hands on enough throughout the process of constructing The Bevis Frond’s works that he’s the album producer and sleeve photographer/designer. Freedoms not to be sniffed at in an increasingly controlled and passively observant society. … Continue Reading

Prinzhorn Dance School – Clay Class

Prinzhorn Dance School - Clay Class

By Nick Cowan

When Brighton come Portsmouth post-punk duo, Prinzhorn Dance School released their self titled debut in 2008, it enthralled some and bewildered most. Confused listeners didn’t know what to make of the sparse bass riffs and poignant pauses, shattered by lyrics chanted or shouted but rarely sung. It led to divisive reviews claiming it to genius or nonsense and sometimes both.

So far, so pretentious but when it worked the band conveyed an awkward gravity that left you unsettled and craving more. Now they’re back with their follow-up album Clay Class, an altogether richer and more layered experience. Not to say that Prinzhorn have completely forsaken their minimalist roots, just that most of the tracks on Clay Class actually feel like songs, a claim that was sometimes hard to make on their first outing. … Continue Reading

Karen Dalton – 1966

Karen Dalton - 1966

By Tom Bolton

In the hyper-documented, post-digital world can there really be any unknown great music?  The back catalogues of the 1960s in particular have been trawled on an industrial scale, and the scrapings from the ocean bottom packaged and re-released to fading acclaim.  In the context of rapidly diminishing returns, the low-key arrival of Karen Dalton’s 1966 is positively seismic.  This is the closest we are likely to get to songs that we’ve never heard before, that deserve to be considered with the best. … Continue Reading

Trailer Trash Tracys – Ester

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester

By Paul Stephen Gettings

Much has been made recently of the constant search for novelty in music, and how it traps consumers and artists alike in a cycle that sees yesterday’s next big thing discarded in the chase for fresher, newer sounds. We hear of bands that, after one modish or mediocre debut, are dropped by labels and fans alike before they get to release another, robbing them of their chance to mature as artists and perhaps even pull out a classic later on in their career. … Continue Reading

We Have Band – Ternion

We Have Band - Ternion

By Rosie Duffield

In 2009 We Have Band played a small, non-descript bar on the Lower East Side of New York; a warm up gig for their forthcoming visit to SXSW. Second on the bill, their brash electro-pop blew the headliners out of the water and gained them new fans across the pond.

Their music was exciting, energetic and really well put together.  The songs they showcased that night went on to become their debut album, WHB, a collection of percussion heavy songs with intricate rhythms and catchy melodies like ‘OH!’ and ‘Divisive’.

… Continue Reading

The 2 Bears – Be Strong

The 2 Bears - Be Strong

By Jim Merrett

A GSOH might be a prerequisite for a lonely-hearts ad, but in the music industry it won’t get you very far. Everyone wants to be taken seriously, so a po-face, skinny jeans and stick-on council estate accent is in, a bear suit is definitely out.

But if there’s one music genre that knows how to have a good time, it’s dance. And of course this arena is not alien to novelty either. No doubt thanks to the availability of cheap drugs, we’ve embraced robots (Daft Punk) and a man with a massive mouse head (deadmau5), now with a typically British low-rent, half-hearted Carry On spirit the 2 Bears lumber into a club near you. … Continue Reading