By Hayley Scott/Kenny McMurtrie
January 11, 2013
Having not yet been caught out by any snow we here at Muso’s Guide have made up for it by neglecting a small slew of further albums coming out this side of Easter. To re-balance things we’ve set them out below. … Continue Reading
By Sam Cleeve
July 13-15, 2012
Part I of our coverage of this year’s Latitude festival can be found here.
A little later on Saturday, and we return to The Word Arena to catch masked London beat-maker SBTRKT. It’s the rowdiest a Latitude crowd gets all weekend–as tensions begin to mount before Aaron Jerome and his right-hand man Sampha take to the stage, we’re flanked by an unprecedented number of Topman wife-beaters, and there’s a staunch smell of Lynx in the air. Predictably then, things get a bit boisterous. In a sort of pseudo-riot, tentative pushing‘n’shoving, middle-class kind of way. Regardless, the duo put in an electrifying performance–from opener ‘Never Never’ through to the likes of ‘Wildfire’ and ‘Pharaohs,’ the pair blast through SBTRKT’s eponymous debut LP with an unrelenting ferocity. … Continue Reading
By Nick Cowan
The 2012 Beacons Festival takes place at the Funkirk Estate, Skipton, 17th-19th August (website/tickets)
After being called off last year due to flooding, Beacons Festival is back for another attempt. However, what with the worst summer anyone can recall, numerous other festival misfortunes and that Mayan apocalyptic prophesy, the outlook for 2012 isn’t looking good either. But the Beacons crew are a determined bunch and thanks to a better, more flood resistant location in the picturesque Yorkshire dales, and affordable ticket prices (originally £60, now £84.50) along with a fine selection of music and arts to take in, Beacons 2012 will be worth braving the elements for. … Continue Reading
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
By Russell Warfield
March 16, 2012
As much as I love Wild Beasts, it’s the allure of hyper-promupstarts alt-J which entices me to make the trip to see my ex-homecity’s best exports for what must be close to the billionth time. There’s just a clutch of tracks circulating around the net in advance of their full debut (due later this year), but material as strong as ‘Fitzpleasure’ and ‘Breezeblocks’ is more than enough to get people rightly excited about this band. And, just a few days before the gig, I realise that I’ve encountered these chaps before – playing the back rooms of pubs in Leeds during my university years. Then called Films, they were incredibly arresting and promising even in that germinating state. Tonight, alt-J move through their songs with competence and style, even if somehow lacking a slight measure of vitality – there’s a little reserve to the vocals; the electronics sound a little canned; the components of the arrangements never quite meld together into a unified perfection. But these are quibbles – the tiniest chinks in the armour of a band who are still very much in their infancy, and tonight is a perfectly solid airing of an eerily accomplished set of tracks for material comprising a debut record – very, very encouraging. … Continue Reading
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
Yesterday we posted numbers 50-21 in our Favourite Songs of the year countdown, and we’re edging ever closer to the Top 10. Today sees us revealing the bottom half of our top 20, which can be enjoyed below, in tantalising reverse order of course. … Continue Reading
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
Constellations 2011
By Russell Warfield
November 12, 2011
This year’s Constellations Festival was a double-decker treat for me. Not only was it a second straight year of excellent music at Leeds University Union (and only the second year in total, to boot), but it was also the first time that I managed to get back oop n’rth after graduating from the university earlier this year. Gorgeously decorated stages aside, it was a joy to roam around the place, enjoying performances, supping on pints which didn’t require me to sell a kidney to purchase. (Note to self: don’t just turn this into a review of how much you love Leeds) … Continue Reading
Wild Beasts are to release Reach a Bit Further as the next single from their widely acclaimed top twenty album, Smother. Reach a Bit Further is an exercise in the happy / sad love song built around Benny Little’s exquisite guitars, cathartic call and answer vocals from Hayden Thorpe / Tom Fleming and a distinctive galloping drumbeat from Chris Talbot. The single will be available on 14th November via digital download. Click below for your exclusive listen!
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