New Young Pony Club – The Optimist

New Young Pony Club - The Optimist

I remember seeing New Young Pony Club whilst I was at university a few years ago when they were touring with the NME on the same bill as CSS and the Klaxons.  I was swept up on the nu-rave bandwagon and really liked their original, edgy sound. But then they sort of disappeared.

With only a hazy memory of their previous work (mainly ‘Ice Cream’), I was expecting more of the same; plinky-plonky ’80s electro, nu-rave pop – and their new album The Optimist delivers, but on a larger scale. … Continue Reading

Trouble Books – Gathered Tones

Trouble Books - Gathered Tones

There is undoubtedly something magical about a great lost album. Even when you discount the dirty pleasure of indie snobbery, there is still something warming about a really special piece of music which you share with a small number of similarly enlightened souls. Ohio band Trouble Books’ last effort, The United Colors of Trouble Books was a thing of almost impossible beauty which fell squarely into that category, missed as it was by many. Given the delicate, unhurried nature of their sound, it is perhaps fitting that the acclaim for the band is starting to swell ever so gradually, including a recent spot in The Guardian’s New Band of the Day column, meaning their fanbase is starting very slowly to expand. … Continue Reading

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

Reviewing the new Joanna Newsom record mere days after its release feels like a self-defeating task.  While all music writing is essentially various attempts to express the inherently inexpressible (and you can either fail well or badly), the sheer size, scope and intricacy of Have One On Me guarantees failure – at this stage, fans, musicians and critics are still just listening; there should be no writing – I should probably stop here. This is an album that unwittingly acts as a retort to the people who bemoan the speed at which music is consumed nowadays – it’s a triple album, composed largely on a harp, and the second track is an eleven minute song about a daddy long legs. You can’t blog Have One On Me; you can’t cherry-pick the singles and delete the rest. Welcome back, Joanna Newsom. … Continue Reading

Pantha du Prince – Black Noise

Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise

You can nearly always hazard a guess as to what music an artist has been listening to when hearing their album, but rarely can you do it upon just seeing the title. To name this album ‘Black Noise’, we can safely assume that Hendrik Weber’s musical diet consists of Mika, classical chillout compilations and a radio station that only plays birdsong. It’s hard to imagine another way that the man known as Pantha du Prince could have looked at himself in the mirror and said, “Pantha, this isn’t warm, pleasant, ultimately rather dull noise that you’ve created. Oh no, this is black noise. And that is what you should name the album.” … Continue Reading

These New Puritans – Hidden

These New Puritans - Hidden

Albums are all too frequently things of palatable serenity. We sit ignorant in undulating waves of fluffy swirling sound, while subtle aural flavours drift unregistered, become bland and all too often painlessly benumbing. If you’re predisposed to this practice of passive listening then you’ll hate Hidden, the second offering from Southend-on-Sea foursome, These New Puritans. … Continue Reading

Liars – Sisterworld

Liars - Sisterworld

Best Liars moments: crawling down the cavern of bass that is ‘This Dust Makes Mud’ (the 30 minute closer to Liars’ debut), while shrooming. Being front-row on the “They were wrong…” tour, Angus yelling lyrics at everyone from inside a hood, clasping the microphone in monster gloves, and when he gets to me, I yell the next line back – he looks surprised (the album’s not yet out), but he’s approving. Getting free tickets (from Rough Trade) to the UK debut of Drum’s not Dead, on my birthday, paired with a screening of a 9/11 conspiracy theory movie; meeting Aaron and Julian halfway through and babbling at them until they give me badges. … Continue Reading

tUnE-yArDs – London Cargo

tUnE-yArDs

February 15, 2009

I’ve drafted this tUnE-yArDs review about 12 times today, yet each time, I fail to eloquently express just how this performance set the bar higher than anything I’ve seen before. It’s thankful then that a video exists of the song that closed the night. It’s a new one, called ‘You Yes You’. … Continue Reading

Archie Bronson Outfit, London Lexington

January 27, 2010

After a wait of almost four years since the release of their last album, Derdang Derdang, it’s good to be able to report that the Archie Bronson Outfit haven’t subjected themselves to the whimsies of stylists in the fields of either music or fashion while putting together their new LP. The beards are still there, they still shun the need for roadies by doing their own pre-set tuning, and while they may have recruited a synth-player, rest assured they haven’t gone all ’80s on us.
… Continue Reading

Owen Pallett, London Union Chapel

January 26, 2010

After seeing him under his former alias Final Fantasy at the very same venue in the summer of 2009, hopes are riding high in the sky for this show. In that night back yonder in May 2009, he shot from an artist I was distantly fascinated by to an untouchable beacon of everything that live music should provide. Skip forward forward a few months and it’s little wonder that I’m left evermore aghast at the purpose of my existence on exiting the Victorian Gothic Union Chapel’s doors… … Continue Reading

Field Music – Field Music (Measure)

Field Music (Measure)

The 20 tracks on Field Music (Measure) stand solitarily in the same space as earnest thoughts, part of a deliberately incoherent snapshot into human emotion. It’s a return that this writer would welcome without having heard the album, and thus the highest achievement of all that it stands proud as what must surely be 2010’s finest. … Continue Reading