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

The Duke Spirit – Bruiser

The Duke Spirit - Bruiser

By Paul Faller

The words ‘criminally overlooked’ are somewhat of an understatement when it comes to The Duke Spirit. Their debut record Cuts Across The Land was a bit of an odd one out in 2005′s indie crowd, its dark and brooding style at odds with the ‘popular’ notion of indie at the time. A follow-up was slow to emerge, but worth waiting for, and 2008′s Neptune married the group’s distinctive style with a hook-laiden sense of immediacy. It seems that three years is about the right gestation period for the band, as 2011 saw third album Bruiser land, get some decent reviews, then fall straight off everyone’s radar, which is pretty criminal in my opinion. Nevertheless, North Americans finally have the chance to get their hands on a physical copy of the record in early February – and as we haven’t reviewed Bruiser before now, it seems as good a time as any to explain why it was one of my favourite records of last year. … Continue Reading

Gonajsufi – MU.ZZ.LE

Gonjasufi - MU.ZZ.LE

By Antonio Tzikas

Crackling and buzzing through your speakers like a transmission from the depths, MU.ZZ.LE is a solemn and experimental mixture of broken, disjointed, lo-fi hip-hop and haunting, croaky soul. The latest offering from Warp Records’ Gonjasufi (Sumach Ecks), this record was written out on the road, recorded back at his home studio and acts as a compilation of experiences and emotions garnered throughout his travels. The ‘weary traveller’ element of the songs comes across as much in the production as it does in the songwriting and lyrics, the same grating distortion that defined the aesthetic of his critically acclaimed and highly recommended 2010 debut, A Sufi and a Killer. … Continue Reading

FOE – Bad Dream Hotline

FOE - Bad Dream Hotline

By Paul Faller

FOE is the alter ego of 21 year-old Fleet-based musician Hannah Clark, who started out this project with a £40 Technics organ and a distinct sense of not fitting in. But while early influences PJ Harvey and Nirvana do inform her debut album Bad Dream Hotline to an extent, there’s a deliciously dark world to be discovered within, and it’s very much her own. … Continue Reading

DJ Food – The Search Engine

DJ Food - The Search Engine

By Kenny McMurtrie

DJ Food‘s The Search Engine starts off with one of those annoying but occasionally amusing deep voices that advertise films. Given that the album’s created entirely from samples it probably is just exactly that. Thankfully it disappears after the first track (‘All Covered In Darkness (pt. 1)’). This consistently surprising album then throws up a pretty major one right on track two with a 30 year old song being sung by its originator – Talk Talk’s Matt Johnson does ‘GIANT’. Ten and a half minutes of unadulterated danceable goodness. … Continue Reading

Chairlift – Something

Chairlift - Something

By Russell Warfield

While it’s true to say that Charlift’s 2008 single ‘Bruises’ didn’t become as embedded into the public consciousness as something like Feist’s ‘1234’ when it was used in an iPod advert a few years ago, it nevertheless drew plenty of positive attention from the exposure all the same. But in an almost Herculean effort to not capitalise on momentum, Charilift went into radio silence for four years, underwent a course of inter-band relationship drama, lost a member, and only now return for their second bite of the cherry. … Continue Reading