indie
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTH Being Dead When Horses Would Run (Bayonet)Being Dead are ostensibly an indie trio from Austin, Texas, but that description doesn’t really do justice to their smörgåsbord sound. Their default setting seems to be Trashmen “Surfin’ Bird” (just check “Come On”) but they also enjoying fooling around with synths. They’re not easily categorizable. What they are is catchy, whether combining sing-along choruses with flamenco and dream-pop on “Daydream”, or inventing narcotic underwater country’n’western on the mournful, murky and bizarre “Livin’easy”. Three more comparisons (faint) Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Margaret Calvert's creations are never far. She set the rules for the design of Britain’s road signs, as well as drafting typography and graphics for national, regional and local rail signage. Back to the Swamp’s fifth track “Margaret Calvert Drives Out” features the lyrics “maximum information conveyed by minimum means, triangles for warning, circles for limits, blue for instructions, green for directions.”“Margaret Calvert Drives Out” gets into the specifics of this important figure’s guiding principles and inspirations within the framing of a pulsing music hinting at Arthur Russell and Read more ...
Cheri Amour
Just over 30 years ago, avant-pop icons Stereolab released their debut album Peng! establishing the early hallmarks of the English-French band’s sound; 1960s pop harmonies, chorus-laden guitar riffs and a borderless world of analog electrics. Helmed by longstanding members English songwriter and guitarist Tim Gane and French lyricist and vocalist Laetitia Sadier, Stereolab was born from the ashes of 80s indie pop band McCarthy after frontman Malcolm Eden called time on the band at the start of a new decade. Spurred on by their shared stage antics, Gane and Sadier continued their Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Patterns is a small, low-ceilinged, underground, seafront venue. Tonight it would be a feast for any passing ancient succubae who happens to feed on raw human energy. From 7.00 PM until 10.00 PM, the room plays host to a package tour of three rising bands. Their short, vim-filled sets are hard-wired to a thrilling, relentless punk intensity.First up is Brighton four-piece Monakis (pictured left), fronted by bare-topped tattooed, bass-playing James Porter, who has a touch of Bon Scott about him. The band have just driven down from Glasgow, he tells us, and are glad to be home. They ramraid Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Well, this is lovely. Pearlies opens with “I Was Miles Away”, a puffball of a sonic cloud which marries twinkling electronica with guitar-led shoegazing. It has a familial resemblance with the sort of thing perfected by Sweden’s I Break Horses, but lacks the frostiness. Here, there is a glow akin to that of a fire’s embers. Next, the vaguely bossa nova-ish and similarly exquisite “Bend the Round”.Emma Anderson was one-half of the front-line of Lush and her contemplative yet instant first solo album is brim-full of such gems. Take, at random, “Xanthe” with its giallo soundtrack undertone. What Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Recently recovered from her fifth bout of Covid, Thea Gilmore last night made a return to London’s Union Chapel, a wonderfully atmospheric venue where the price to pay for a concert is a numb bum (unless you remember to hire a cushion). For the first time since 2017, she stepped out with a band – Charlie Rachael Kay on bass, Jim Kirkpatrick on guitar, Olly Tandon on drums – playing to a not-quite-full house that was overwhelmingly white and appeared rather surprisingly old. It was a strikingly weird disconnect.The tour proper begins in January and this gig was presumably planned to coincide Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
The first declaration of love for the Last Dinner Party arrived approximately one song into their set. “I love you too,” declared a delighted looking Abigail Morris, the band’s pirouetting frontwoman, in response, and the ensuing hour suggested outpourings of affection are just one of many reasons for Morris to be cheerful these days.This show had been upgraded from the considerably smaller King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and yet filled up with ease, with a number of Glaswegians getting dressed up like Morris and her compatriots, whether in Gothic chic or Virgin Suicides esque dresses. Onstage Read more ...
Liz Thomson
The artist formerly known as Afterlight returns with her first self-titled album, a collection of songs which “delves into the cracks between the paving slabs of life's big themes” and which explores “the understanding that comes with experience”."Nice Normal Woman", the track, which opens the album, was inspired by a quote from Bette Davis in All About Eve (“write me one about a nice normal woman who just shoots her husband”) and it arrives in the world with an 800-frame stop-motion video attached, filmed by Gilmour in her bedroom.Having chronicled her escape from a toxic relationship in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In an interview following the release of Pale Saints’ March 1992 second album In Ribbons, the band’s Ian Masters expressed his admiration for Eyeless in Gaza, Laura Nyro and Television. He told Option magazine “I find it incredible how much I am moved by Laura Nyro’s songs and how much of the emotional input that she has translates. I find it quite disturbing – it’s uplifting and depressing and really has the full spectrum of feelings.”Of Television, he revealed “I’ve just been buying up old copies of [their debut LP] Marquee Moon and stacking them in my living room. Sooner or later, I’ll Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Canberra band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers continue the recent tradition of Australian indie bands having unwieldy comedy names. However, their music, as laid out on their debut album, has higher aspirations, bridging their scuzzy punkin’ roots and a larger sound, loosely somewhere between The Breeders and Foo Fighters, yet very much their own thing.Sometimes they sail too far into mainstream rock for this writer but, overall, they win the day. The best of I Love You tends towards either catchy new wavey power pop guitar or snarling, sneering numbers vehemently raging at mistreatment in Read more ...
mark.kidel
Sufjan Stevens, so we’ve heard, has just been struck down with a rare and immobilising disease – the Guillain-Barré syndrome. With characteristic courage and faith, he has thrown himself into physical rehabilitation. That he should be so reduced and challenged with suffering resonates perhaps with the extraordinary vulnerability that distinguishes his work – a unique avalanche of remarkable albums, generous and brave collaborations.Stevens is among the mean of his generation who find strength in opening their hearts, singing in a high register close to falsetto, and risking the pain that Read more ...
mark.kidel
London’s Roundhouse is a very special venue. For decades the circular shed, with its elegant ironwork supporting structures has hosted a wonderful and varied series of performances. Like a great cathedral, the space has a hallowed feel about it. The culmination of a sold-out UK tour, PJ Harvey’s exquisitely paced and passionate set, as much pagan ritual as perfect entertainment, makes the most of this womb of a space.A womb, but also an alchemical vessel, in which this consummate artist works through a series of transformations, changes that reveal the many facets of her complex persona. She Read more ...