• Primavera 2017

    June 8, 2017 - By 

    After 16 years, there’s no doubt that Primavera is Europe’s premier festival, for everyone from the capped-up indie kids to right-on middle-agers seeking some escapism, from the techno heads on through to High Fidelity type nerf herders and vinyl hoarders. So: how does Europe’s best music festival follow up on a last year’s best-ever edition – a mammoth lineup topped by Radiohead. Well, partially through sticking with what works – every sub-genre well catered for and then some, and not just on the three main days at Parc del Forum, but in venues across the city in the preceding weeks.…

  • Preoccupations – Preoccupations

    September 13, 2016 - By 

    What’s in a name? For Toronto’s Preoccupations, their previous moniker ended up presenting more trouble than they could have anticipated. Releasing an EP and self-titled album as Viet Cong in 2015, their name seemed only to compliment the dark, unsparing and even brutal music that they played, with few reviews drawing any attention to the group’s political insensitivity (it had done little harm to their post punk forbearers Joy Division and Gang Of Four). However, as the band grew in stature so too did internet protests, questioning how four white westerners found it fit they should name themselves after violent Asian paramilitaries in search of some…