• September Girls – Cursing The Sea

    January 31, 2014 - By 

    For devotees and avid consumers of feedback-drenched guitar pop that once formed the backbone of the “Paisley Underground” or C86 scenes, it may seem like a long, cold Ice Age has been in situ.  September Girls could be those first green shoots emerging through the rocky landscape or the first of the small, furry animals to roll out of hibernation. This ain’t punk, and it sure isn’t nihilism. The songs on Cursing the Sea surf the wave of the Sixties and Eighties guitar bands and the influence of the sonic genius of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector.  For sure,…

  • Mogwai – Rave Tapes

    January 28, 2014 - By 

    “Blur are shite.” A simple, to the point, and even iconoclastic statement that Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite once saw fit to wear emblazoned upon his torso. While Damon Albarn & Co. may not be everyone’s cup of tea, what seems to have really stuck in the throat of the Glaswegian post-rocker was their laissez-faire irreverence that became a quintessential hallmark of the Brit-pop era. A bugbear that provides proof, if any is still required, that those in Mogwai view their craft as a fairly serious business. So, given that they could never be described as a particularly light-hearted collection of individuals,…

  • East India Youth – Total Strife Forever

    January 24, 2014 - By 

    Mostly instrumental and electronic, Total Strife Forever is the 11-track debut from East India Youth (William Doyle). Shostakovich and Brian Eno are just two of the influences cited, so it is clear from the outset that this album has some expansive ideas – ideas its creator often explores at dispiriting length. Total Strife Forever starts very promisingly with ‘Glitter Recession’; a swelling digital hiss supporting a series of harpsichord-style arpeggios. It’s emotional, tuneful, warm – the kind of thing that could be on the soundtrack to the movie Drive. ‘Total Strife Forever I’ (the first of four tracks of the same name) follows next. And…

  • Warpaint – Warpaint

    January 21, 2014 - By 

    With Warpaint taking three years to produce the follow up to their 2010 debut The Fool, and allegedly drawing inspiration from a desert recording session somewhere in the vicinity of The Joshua Tree, the history of popular music would suggest that any lingering doubts about the accessibility of their self-titled second album may not be entirely misplaced. And while the output is not as experimental as its recording process and subsequent promotion may suggest, if The Fool was slightly detached, on first listen Warpaint emotes the kind of welcome usually reserved for the most reticent of hermitages. Delve deeper however…

  • Lee Bannon – Alternate/Endings

    January 16, 2014 - By 

    Remember that excited, lose-yourself-in-something-primal feeling you had when music shook you so hard that you laughed but also cried at the same time? Well, let that explosive catharsis elude you no more, for 2014 has kicked off with Lee Bannon’s debut LP, a record fastened upon a foundation of shock, awe and a solid history of open-minded, experimental production. Having secured his reputation and cut his teeth producing hip hop that’s more avant-garde than balls-to-the-wall, Bannon continues to explore the junglist sensibilities he began to display in 2013 with his latest LP, Alternate/Endings. Bearing in mind that hip hop and…

  • Pixies – EP-2

    January 13, 2014 - By 

    Where were you the first time you heard The Pixies? I remember. I was fourteen years old, in the school hall talking about music with a friend of mine. He gave me his generic MP3 device to hear this strange and wonderful thing he’d just discovered. It was Debaser. There are very few things that can conjure the feeling that came over me when I first heard Kim Deal hammer those F notes into submission. For a brief moment, I seemed to have found everything I was looking for. First love is a thing of wonder. It’s been nearly a…

  • Snowbird – Moon

    January 14, 2014 - By 

    Snowbird is a transatlantic duo. Stephanie Dosen, a singer songwriter from Wisconsin, provides vocals over tracks originating from piano sketches by Simon Raymonde. Dosen already responsible for a couple of solo albums has also toured as vocalist with Massive Attack and provided vocals for several songs on The Chemical Brothers‘ 2010 album Further. Raymonde who has run the Bella Union label since 1997 was previously a key member of dream-pop pioneers Cocteau Twins. While the duo’s sound is admirably fleshed out by an impressive indie alumni (Midlake, Lanterns on the Lake and even a couple of Radioheaders) it’s plainly the…

  • Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Wig Out at Jagbags

    January 8, 2014 - By 

    Whether he likes it or not, Stephen Malkmus is one of the building blocks of indie rock, an essential strand of DNA that manifests itself in certain choices and attitudes towards music that have dominated the agenda since about 1990 or so. And since the messy dissolution of dear, departed Pavement back in 1999, he has more or less done everything he can to distance himself from that role, picking up his guitar, and soloing long into the 21st century, reinventing himself as a kind of Jerry Garcia for the post-Nirvana age. Which, it might generally be assumed, is a…

  • Various Artists – 30 Years of R&S Records

    December 11, 2013 - By 

    The compilation album has historically been a source of contention, usually compounded by the good and the bad and resulting in a scattershot collection of material that never quite satisfies. These glorified mix-tapes exemplify how little some labels actually care about providing good music to the consumer and it’s about time somebody gave the format a bloody good kick up the arse.  It’s with this in mind that we say thank you R&S records for dishing out said arse-kicking and delivering us from mind-numbing banality in the form of the celebratory collection, 30 Years of R&S which marks, funnily enough,…

  • Darkside – Psychic

    November 14, 2013 - By 

    With a sound residing somewhere between Tangerine Dream circa Thief and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, the debut full length from Darkside (Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington) makes for a compelling mission statement that should have the hippest of Brooklynites dribbling with pleasure. The New York natives have created something special in Psychic; unique even by contemporary standards and perhaps best measured by the spirit of independence that Jaar brings to the mixing desk and, just as importantly, by the melodic, bluesy sensibilities that Harrington offers.  This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. The sheer beauty of the soundscapes on this…