Latitude 2012: A Festival Preview

By Sam Cleeve

The 2012 Latitude Festival takes place at Henham Park, Southwold, June 12th-15th (website/tickets).

Latitude started out as something of an alternative to festival season’s mainstays – a little more gently pastoral than the post-GCSE armageddon of Reading and Leeds, a little less of the thrilling batshit-bedlam of Glastonbury, whilst altogether less embarrassing than getting caught doltishly gawking at a set from The Enemy at T In The Park. Luckily, that’s (largely) what it remains. … Continue Reading

Muso’s Guide’s Favourite 50 of 2011 – 10-1

We’ve spent the last two days unveiling numbers 50-11 in our top 50 songs of 2011, and now the time has come to unveil what Muso’s Guide’s hefty panel of writers nominated as their top 10 songs released this year. It’s been a pretty diverse selection thus far, and the top end of the chart is no different. … Continue Reading

Albums Of 2011: 10-1

PJ Harvey

Welcome to the fifth and final part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41, 40-31, 30-21 and 20-11. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year next week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading

T In The Park, Balado Airfield

T in the Park

We bring you the round up from our next stop in an 11-festival calendar with Vodafone VIP – Scotland’s pride, T in the Park festival.

For those who presume that a festival containing 70,000 ‘revellers’ (as the local papers will have you picture it) in a giant muddy field can’t possibly have the excitement of their favourite band headlining a venue in their town, T in the Park is a strong challenger. … Continue Reading

Singles of the Week: 27th June 2011

Its Monday once again which means its time for a trawl through this week’s harvest of singles in search of something just off the beaten track worth a listen.

… Continue Reading

Reading Festival, Caversham Bridge

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

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

Offset Festival (Saturday), Hainault Country Park

Offset Festival

September 5, 2009

So here we are again: the first weekend of September. An autumnal chill on the darker nights, and one of the last festivals of the summer – Offset, in a beautiful country park in Essex.

… Continue Reading

Metronomy – Not Made For Love EP

Metronomy

Completely out of nowhere, Metronomy have just released a new EP. It’s the first fruit of their new line-up, and it’s a decidely different offering to Nights Out. In fact, it verges closer to the lo-fi (hell, it’s relative!) of their debut album Pip Paine (Pay Back The £5000 You Owe). Kind of. Well actually not really; the Not Made For Love EP is an interesting stopgap with not too much indication of what the future holds.

Title track ‘Not Made For Love’ feels restrained. It’s a slow-builder, with the line “you made a big mistake” repeated over an ever-building cross-section of lines into a still-pared down climax. The sound comes together masterfully, staccato rhythms dropping in and out over the top of delirious in-unison syncopation. Thoughts, hopes or fears that the addition of a drummer in the live show would turn Metronomy into a guitar band seem to have been royally dismissed. … Continue Reading

Offset Festival adds Metronomy to its line-up

Metronomy

Woah there, MG live favourites Metronomy have been announced as the headliners of Loud & Quiet’s stage at Offset Festival this very year, taking place in Hainault Forest on September 5 and 6.

In a line-up already featuring the unchartered likes of A Certain Ratio, The Slits and Damo Suzuki amidst 2009′s tried and tested (The Horrors! Wild Beasts! Future Of The Left!), it’s lining up to be one of the most diverse billings across the year’s festival calendar.

It hasn’t even sold out! And you can check out bands just about to blow up (hopefully not really) such as Male Bonding and An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump. … Continue Reading