• Father John Misty – Pure Comedy

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Josh Tillman is a multi-faceted character. You have to regard him as such when considering his work because what he does as a musician he does so with an elusive persona, an alter ego. There are many angles to consider when deconstructing his songwriting, which can often make for interesting debate with friends and among critics. He conjures a similar reaction to Marmite in that you either love him or loathe him. Nonetheless, he has managed to dispel the disdain his personality ignites by making his music the central element of his existence and by exercising thought provoking content throughout…

  • Future Islands – The Far Field

    April 10, 2017 - By 

    By 2014, the days of a hard-working band catching their break on late night TV were supposed to be over, at least until Future Islands proved everyone wrong. Clever synth-pop number ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’ was elevated so much by frontman Samuel T Herring’s performance on David Letterman that they were catapulted onto another level. His hip swaying, chest beating, growling run through the song was almost comically sincere, downright bizarre, and completely captivating. It soon went viral, inspiring GIFs and blog posts aplenty. It even collected prestigious ‘Song of the Year’ gongs from Pitchfork, NME, Spin and others, while…

  • Pharmakon – Contact

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Noise music mostly operates within the sphere of the modern avant-garde, but can be a deeply alienating experience for many; not only because of its tendency to be anti-everything – structure, melody, basic auditory comprehension – but because of its potential to generate actual discomfort in listeners. Despite this, its compositional strategies can be almost decadent in execution – when Lou Reed wanted to release his 1975 double album Metal Machine Music (mostly impenetrable but considered by many to be a pioneering Noise work), he wanted to release it on RCA’s classical arm, Red Seal. Reed, along with many proponents…

  • Wire – Silver/Lead

    April 3, 2017 - By 

    Wire have always been a band more interested in looking forward than back. On returning from their first hiatus in 1985 they famously hired a Wire covers band, The Ex Lion Tamers, as their support act so they could be freed up to focus exclusively on new material. So it seems entirely appropriate that they would celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut performance with another new album, their fifteenth. Although still most celebrated for their initial trio of envelope-pushing albums between 1977 and 1979 – the frantic art-punk of Pink Flag, the more effects-laden post-punk of Chairs Missing and…

  • Real Estate – In Mind

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    It has been a busy three years since Real Estate’s third album, Atlas was released. Firstly, founding member Matt Mondanile decided to leave the band with the intention to focus primarily on his band, Ducktails. Meanwhile, in 2015 frontman Martin Courtney took some time away to record his solo debut, Many Moons. Now, with the addition of Julian Lynch on lead guitar, Real Estate’s return with In Mind maintains the lyrical themes that has defined their output up to this point: the metaphorical utilisation of nature as a reflection of relationships; romantic as well as familial and platonic. And while the…

  • Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    You did not walk with me Of late to the hill-top tree By the gated ways, As in earlier days; You were weak and lame, So you never came, And I went alone, and I did not mind, Not thinking of you as left behind.   I walked up there to-day Just in the former way; Surveyed around The familiar ground By myself again: What difference, then? Only that underlying sense Of the look of a room on returning thence.   Thomas Hardy In July of 2016, musician Geneviève Castrée died.  She was survived by husband Phil Elverum and her…

  • Spoon – Hot Thoughts

    March 24, 2017 - By 

    There is a problem with longevity. Unless you’re Bowie, you’ll run out of things to say, or at the very least interesting ways to say it. Spoon, who’ve been rolling on for over two decades, seem to have finally reached that point. It’s been a long time since Kill the Moonlight, Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga graced our shelves. Now they’re on their ninth LP and the strain shows. Hot Thoughts isn’t bad, it’s perfectly serviceable. It hits all the target a record of this ilk should. Britt Daniel’s distinctive yelp is still offset by some killer…

  • Anohni – Paradise EP

    March 23, 2017 - By 

    Anohni is not afraid to be political. This was obvious with her previous release, 2016’s critically acclaimed Hopelessness, where songs like ‘Violent Men’ and ‘Crisis’ were an angry manifestation of a frustration at the state of modern society. While similar thematically, Paradise is a more despondent reflection, slowly building with the quiet and human admission that  “in my dreams, you don’t love me” (‘In My Dreams’). This refrain sets a scene for the emotions of the six-track EP. Paradise, Anohni’s sophomore release (outside of those albums she released as part of Antony and the Johnsons) shares the same anger, and…

  • Paddy Mulcahy – The Words She Said

    March 22, 2017 - By 

    The finest ambient music often finds the artist mining the barriers and plundering the gaps between analogue and digital. Julianna Barwick uses layers and loops to convert her own voice into a universe of sound. Ian William Craig feeds his operatic tones through layers of fuzz to create something quite brilliant and utterly unique. William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops chart the sound of old, decaying tapes, meant to be digitised – quite literally – falling apart as he lets them play out on rotation. The new record from Limerick’s Paddy Mulcahy has something of this feel to it. Mulcahy explores (in…

  • Tennis – Yours Conditionally

    March 21, 2017 - By 

    Making sweet sweet music with your significant other can go one of two ways. The chemistry you have as a couple (good or fractious – Rumours, anyone?) can translate effortlessly when improvising with lyrics and arrangements, eventually expanding into solid soundscapes. It’s akin to building a life or home together, it is a gradual journey that unfurls to represent the couple. On the contrary, a musical duo brought together in matrimony can spawn songs that are, at times, uncomfortable to listen to, presenting a sort of audio PDA. Tennis often waver between these scenarios. In the past they have written…