• Label Mixtape #001: Sargent House

    May 28, 2013 - By 

    Home to acts as spearheading and diverse as our very own Adebisi Shank (pictured) and And So I Watch You From Afar to Texan psych-rock five-piece Zechs Marquise and Zorch, LA based record label Sargent House is arguably one of the most exciting record labels in the world today. Formed in 2006 by Atlantic Records music video commissioner Cathy Pellow, it has grown in massive leaps and bounds over the last seven years. Through her own vision and seemingly faultless sonic intuition, Pellow has expanded the Sargent House name far from beyond its modest beginnings as a platform to release…

  • The Story Behind: Hüsker Dü (Part II of II)

    May 25, 2013 - By 

    With Husker Du’s drive and aspiration was going to come into conflict with the orthodoxy of hardcore,  for the world at large, their meteoric development was continuing to deliver the goods, and their second album of 1985 would somehow manage to raise the bar even further. Flip Your Wig boasted improved production values, giving the band a sparkling and clean sound for the first time, as well as highlighting the intensely creative and rewarding songwriting rivalry that existed between Bob Mould and Grant Hart. The two men had been peppering the albums with gem after gem, but Flip You Wig…

  • Classic Album: The Smashing Pumpkins – Adore

    May 17, 2013 - By 

    It starts with the sound of twilight, that special moment when the air seems to vibrate, and time stands still. Over plucked acoustic guitar, a breathy voice intones warm whispers, comforting and safe. “The sky’s cruel torch on aching autobahn.” It is a moment that signifies change, and just over an hour later, everything is different. Put simply, this was the end of an era. In a career categorised by controversies, Adore perhaps remains the Smashing Pumpkins’ most difficult moment. Music, and the world in general, was undergoing a period of transition, a tumultuous decade finally careering to a halt.…

  • OST: Our Krypton Son

    May 13, 2013 - By 

    In the first of a new feature, we implore Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son to take us through ten songs that irrevocably formed his not only his taste in music, but also his approach as a songwriter himself. Bowie, Cave, the Floyd – below is an aural insight into one of the finest music-making minds in the country. The Beatles – ‘There’s A Place’ “An underrated belter from their debut. Introspection in a pop song in 1962? Why, yes.”   Rush – ‘Tom Sawyer’ “Legends. The song that made the 13 year old me want to be…

  • The Round-Up: 10/05/13

    May 10, 2013 - By 

    The very first of what will be our weekly retrospective on what’s been happening in the music world – both local and much further afield – this week’s Round-Up is a decidedly English affair… Bow Down As has often been his way for five decades now, David Bowie got into a spot of bother on Wednesday for the religious imagery in his video for his latest single, ‘The Next Day’. Featuring the sixty-six year-old as a Christ-like figure, the video was taken down from YouTube for supposedly breaching its Terms of Use. It has since been returned with an adult-only…

  • Label Lessons: SST Records

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    The wonderful thing about a deplorable culture like that of the 1980s is that the counterculture is sure to be interesting; this brings us to SST Records, one of the landmark independent record labels filed away in the lower, yet equally storied recesses of popular music. Originally purposed as Solid State Transmitters – a small electronics business formed by a 12 year old soon-to-be founding member & guitarist of pioneering hardcore act Greg Ginn – SST Records opened for business in 1978 as a way for Ginn to release and distribute his own material with Black Flag, and shortly thereafter…

  • Classic Album: Boards of Canada – Music Has The Right To Children

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Having finally announced Tomorrow’s Harvest – the follow up to 2005’s magnficent The Campfire Headphase – Steven Edward Rainey casts his mind’s eye back fifteen years to revisit Edinburgh duo Boards of Canada’s landmark 1998, Warp-released debut album Music Has The Right To Children. _____ Gazing out at us, stand seven figures. Two are turned away, whilst the remainder are directly facing us. Against a mountain background, this sexless group of adults and children pose for a photograph, immune to the effects of time or geography, their faces rubbed away to reveal a smooth, featureless surface, betraying nothing. In a realistic…

  • The Story Behind: Hüsker Dü (Part I)

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    The sky is the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel. The ground is muddy and wet, and the detritus from wrecked automobiles are all around. Three figures stand, apart, but somehow together, and the air has the static charge of electricity. This is the Zen Arcade, and anything can happen here. When it was released in 1984, Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade immediately stood out as being something new. Previously, the band had been one of the initial glut of American bands inspired by the thrilling rush of punk, taking the form and making it harder, faster, more aggressive, becoming…