indie
Thomas H. Green
R.E.M. surprised the music world this morning by announcing an imminent new studio album, Charged. It will be released on their own record label, Around The Sun, on Friday 6th April via Spotify and iTunes, as well as a vinyl version distributed through record shops.The announcement was made via singer Michael Stipe’s press office which shared the album cover art and released the following brief statement:“That bird in the sky. It is flying over America. Distorted, unclear, far away. As with the future. We will not be back long. We will not tour. We must say something. Then we will go. Love to Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
The Deconstruction is the 12th album from Californian rockers Eels, written and co-produced as always by perennial frontman Mark Oliver Everett (“E”). With 2014’s The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett garnering mixed reviews, The Deconstruction seems determined to do the same, constantly blending the emotional with the whimsical. Whilst this works to an extent on a track-by-track level, it unfortunately makes the album feel disjointed as a whole.The title song begins in a pool of soft guitar, twinkling sounds, and gorgeous strings which – juxtaposed with E’s weathered voice – Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Manchester trio The Longcut’s latest album, their third, comes nearly a decade after their last one, but is rife with ideas and energy as if it's still riding the crest of their initial success. Their M.O. is twofold, either shoegaze-ish, jangle-tinted numbers with wispy indie vocals in a singing style not a million miles from Ian Brown of The Stone Roses, or mantric post-Krautrock jams that pulse with building energy. The cuts in the former style are not dramatically special but the ones in the latter tend to be vividly realised and truly dynamic.The best of Arrows boasts imaginative Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Three years ago The Vaccines’ last album, English Graffiti, received a mixed response. It appeared to be a stab at moving sideways from the previous two, at proving they were more than just a guitar band in the classic indie mould, that they could also be studio-produced into the realms of polished pop. It was an experiment they’re now, perhaps, less sure about. In any case, The Vaccines 2018 is a different band. Drummer Pete Robinson has left, to be replaced by Yoann Intonti of fellow London major-indie outfit Spector, and keyboard-player Tim Lanham has also joined. On Combat Sports this Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
This column last encountered Cocteau Twins in 2015 when the compilation The Pink Opaque and the Tiny Dynamine/Echoes in a Shallow Bay album, which collected two EPs, were reissued on vinyl only. Now, it’s the turn of two albums-as-such: 1983's Head Over Heels and 1984's Treasure.The overriding question from then still applies: neither record is rare in its original form and neither fetches a high price. The reissues sell for around £17. Decent-shape first pressings fetch £3 or £4 less than that. Why would anyone buy a vinyl reissue of either?And, upending a review’s normal structure, the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Considering the coal-dark nature of her music, it was unsurprising Sweden's Anna von Hausswolff was dressed entirely in black while meeting up at London’s Rough Trade East shop to talk about her new album Dead Magic. Less foreseeable was her sunny disposition and willingness to veer off topic. She happily explored what has brought her to this point and spoke enthusiastically about her inspirations. Whatever was discussed, the overriding impression was of a cheerful but nonetheless serious-minded person who puts a lot of thought into their music.Dead Magic (pictured below) is the Gothenburg- Read more ...
joe.muggs
For some a lack of development is failure; not for Kim Deal. Her songwriting and voice have influenced hordes of indie bands from the Eighties until now – indeed the “angular” clang and arch drawl of bands indebted to Pixies, and The Breeders, her band with sister Kelly, is as great a cliché as blues licks were in the Sixties and Seventies. Yet still, on this reunion album for The Breeders' 1993 lineup, the voice, sound and structures remain utterly distinctive and gloriously alien, a world away from the imitators, just as they shone out as different from all around them during The Breeders' Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Without further ado, let’s cut straight to it. Below theartsdesk on Vinyl offers over 30 records reviewed, running the gamut from Adult Orientated Rock to steel-hard techno via the sweetest, liveliest pop. Dive in!VINYL OF THE MONTH 1Zoë Mc Pherson String Figures (SVS)Where to begin with this one? Zoe Mc Pherson [sic] is a Brussels-based producer of French-Northern Irish extraction who collects field recordings around the world, from Indonesia to Greenland, then works with the accomplished percussionist Falk Schrauwen, and a load of electronic equipment, to turn them into something thrilling Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A trio from Halifax with a collective age of 56, Orielles aren’t shy about revealing their musical enthusiasms. References to A Certain Ratio. ESG, Happy Mondays, the Housemartins, Orange Juice, the Pastels and the Soup Dragons pepper their interviews. The band’s first rehearsal was dedicated to mastering The Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks”. Much of the music they cite was made before they were born.The connections with the past go further than preferred musical flavours. The father of bassist/vocalist Esmé Hand-Halford and her drummer sister Sidonie was in the indie band the Train Set, who were Read more ...
Katie Colombus
There are two types of people - those who are fans of Belle & Sebastian and those who are too ashamed to admit such plebbishness regarding musical tastes, that they won’t admit to not being fans of the Glaswegian band.Unfortunately I fall into the latter camp. I wish I got this band, I really do. I wish I was one of those cool-kid superfans. So I’m trying my darndest with this triplicate mini-album release – a hark back to their 1997 album of the same order.“Sweet Dew Lee” hearteningly opens with a duet that promises the filmic soundscapes of earlier albums, but ends up being try-hard Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What does a band do when it loses a key member? Pack it in? Carry on as if nothing has happened? Execute a radical change of direction? Nick McCarthy, Franz Ferdinand’s rhythm guitarist and keyboard player, left the band last July and their new album Always Ascending answers the questions.Obviously, Franz Ferdinand have not packed it in after the loss and two new members replace McCarthy, a keyboard player and a rhythm guitarist. Before his departure, McCarthy had co-written all the band’s songs. The last record Franz Ferdinand contributed to was their hugely successful 2015 collaboration Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Transangelic Exodus is a roller-coaster ride. Songs twist, turn, have sudden shifts in tempo, are punctuated by unexpected instrumental interjections, and come to a dead stop after which they resume their unpredictable course. Although Ezra Furman's musical touchstones of late Fifties pop and The Modern Lovers are still apparent, the follow-up to 2015’s Perpetual Motion People comes across as nothing less than a vigorously shaken-and-stirred take on pre-Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen.Furman says the narrative thread running through the frenzied Transangelic Exodus is his being “in Read more ...