News
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The Carnival Is Over
Look. Squeaky-modern remastered version of Basilisk in exciting new compilation shocker. Please consume.
VC12 The Vanity Case Reality Tunnel Volume Two - The Carnival is Over
posted on Monday 8th October, 2012
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AMANDA PALMER AND THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA - Theatre Is Evil
Well. Shoot me for the faithless dog I am, because I wasn’t convinced that she could top Who Killed Amanda Palmer? but she’s gone and done it with headroom to spare. With Theatre Is Evil Amanda Palmer unambiguously announces herself as a major artist beginning to flex abilities that could, ... [more...]posted on Friday 7th September, 2012
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GEESE - All Property Is Theft; All Flesh Is Grass
This is the first album proper from David Lazonby’s Geese project, and it comes highly recommended to readers who like their bedroom psychedelia marinaded in bitter Leeds lemon before it is fried. Lazonby, your parents will remember, was the mangled knot of synapses behind briefly-fêted Nineties geekshow Lazer Boy, who ... [more...]
posted on Tuesday 19th June, 2012
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GUIDED BY VOICES - Let's Go Eat The Factory
It’s fair to say that Guided By Voices were always known for their scattershot approach, their albums typically comprising a handful of 'core' tracks in the style for which the band is best known – a melody-led variant of the early Who’s proto-hard rock – padded out with a larger, if cumulatively ... [more...]
posted on Friday 20th January, 2012
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Duncan Wheat
Duncan Wheat, who was a good friend and regular musical collaborator from 1989 and through most of the following decade, is dead. He was 46. I don’t yet know what caused it. Duncan was never what you’d call a happy bunny, and a forced move back to the ... [more...]posted on Wednesday 18th January, 2012
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M83 – Hurry Up We’re Dreaming
It is a truth universally acknowledged that in the post-YouTube world of everything-all-the-time access to popular culture the concept of “cool” – as opposed to “fashionable”, which is another thing entirely – is all but redundant. This is not always the unequivocal Good Thing it might at first appear to ... [more...]
posted on Thursday 13th October, 2011
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CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH - Hysterical
There’s this fellow I talk to occasionally on the internets for whose opinion I have a good deal of respect. He believes the first Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album to be the greatest American guitar band recording of the last decade. I just can’t see it. I mean, it’s okay and ... [more...]
posted on Thursday 29th September, 2011
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THE WHIP - Wired Together
A couple of years ago I used The Whip as my exemplar for a short piece about how even the most dowdy of contemporary B-list acts is considerably better than Shed Seven. So, um, I must have liked their first album a little bit. They’re back with the follow-up. I like this ... [more...]
posted on Tuesday 20th September, 2011
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KATHRYN CALDER - Are You My Mother?
Given the 'supergroup' nature of the mothership, it was only a matter of time before youngest and least ginger New Pornographer Kathryn Calder became a solo act in her own right. And with Are You My Mother? she’s arrived in style. The album was written over a two year period ... [more...]
posted on Monday 29th August, 2011
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HOLLY THROSBY - Team
Faced with one of those typical August release schedules that contains nothing by any act you’ve heard of and nobody whose press release suggests you’d have any particular interest in making their acquaintance, I girded up my professional loins and set about pinning the tail on the YouTube donkey. It ... [more...]
posted on Monday 29th August, 2011