• 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…

  • Lawrence English – Cruel Optimism

    March 21, 2017 - By 

    I find it difficult to listen to Lawrence English‘s new album, Cruel Optimism. On first play, I thought it was “suitably bleak”. Further attempts sent me into a mini spiral of despair, thoroughly ruining whole days with its depressive claws. I left it for a while, returning to it tentatively in the hope of gaining more understanding. The album’s title comes from a work by Lauren Berlant, in which she posits that modern desires stand in the way of true growth. Whatever my inferences, English writes that the album is a “meditation” on the challenges we face in today’s world,…

  • HAWK – She Knows

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    HAWK are a Berlin-based, grunge-infused indie rock band who, since their formation in 2013 have had a tendency to address social and political issues through their music, all the while blending dark tones with sometimes delicate and sometimes ferocious arrangements and ethereal vocals. The band’s latest release, She Knows, builds upon the foundations laid by last year’s HAWK EP.  ‘Introduction’ starts the EP on the right footing, a largely atmospheric piece that builds into crashing drums, crunching distortion, and powerful vocals.‘Take it Away’ then, the EP’s second track shows the band embracing a newer, heavier sound. Starting delicately and quickly building into…

  • Sorority Noise – You’re Not As ___ As You Think

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    Like it or not, emo music has been revived. Acts like Julien Baker, American Football and Modern Baseball have gained enough scope to evolve and define what emo music is and what it aims to achieve, and while defining what is classed as emo music is an entirely different kettle of fish, it’s fair to say that associating it with long black fringes and pubescent frustrations is something of the past. On You’re not as ____as you think, their third album , Sorority Noise dive into the depths of depression and death and the ways of coping with them, firmly planting…