Playlists
Feature: Soundtrack of our lives: Close Lobsters
Blasting off as they meant to go on with influential singles ‘Going to Heaven to See if it rains’ (October 1986) and Never Seen Before (April 1987), plus an appearance on the seminal C86 compilation from the NME, Close Lobsters immediately proved themselves to be leading exponents of scuffed up indie pop/rock. The band – …
Feature: Soundtrack of Our Lives – The Flatmates
THEY came bursting outta Brizzle on the back of one-foot-in-the-Spector-camp fizzbomb pop classics like “Shimmer” and “I Could Be In Heaven”. And this year, a mere 34 years after their first show, Bristol indie-pop-punk band The Flatmates released their eponymous first studio album and official debut LP on their alma mater, The Subway Organisation. The …
Feature: Soundtrack of Our Lives – The Special Pillow
The Special Pillow are old hands at this indie pop game, having recently celebrated their Silver Jubilee, but are still mixing up 60-pop with a touch of psychedelia here and a serving of antipodean 80s indie there. Their new mini-album ‘Worlds Finest’ is out at the end of the week, and see’s the band – …
Feature: Tim Wheatley – Lying Low plus Australian Playlist
Tim Wheatley is an Australian expatriate living in London who has just released a fantastic new single – ‘Lying Low’ – with incredibly prescient themes of isolation. Like many Australian songwriters, Wheatley’s ‘Lying Low’ somehow captures the widescreen horizons of Australia best from afar, as if it is wired in his genetic code: razor-sharp, observational …
Feature / Playlist: Every track (on Spotify) for every John Peel festive 50
Over on our Spotify page, alongside all the playlists we’ve received from artists, albums of the year, our monthly playlists, psych playlists, classic DJ sets, not forgotten series and other delights (you should really check it out and follow some of them), we’ve added a new, mammoth playlist – every track currently on Spotify from …
Feature: Merge Records celebrate 30 years – Interview and exclusive playlist
If you follow the brilliant Merge label, you’ll have had some insight into this. They’ve been releasing various limited edtion vinyl to celebrate it, but they’ve been going for thirty years. Started by Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk to release some of their own music (the first album on the label was Superchunk’s …
Playlist: Trembling Bells pick ‘tour bus jammers and tequila slammers’ playlists
On the verge of the release of seventh album Dungeness on March 30th, we asked Alex Neilson and Lavinia Blackwall from the band to come up with a playlist of tunes they might be rocking on the tour bus. Alex dragged in Trembling Bells associate and possible (we might be bestowing this title upon him) …
Soundtrack of our lives: Stephen Jones / Babybird
If you think it all began and ended with You’re Gorgeous, a song which catapulted Stephen Jones into the mainstream 22 years ago (number 3 in the UK charts) , then you’d be mistaken. He’d already recorded a handful of records by that point, and since then, with the help of bandcamp he’s released nigh …
Soundtracks of our lives: Athens based rapper Linqua Franqa picks us her most important records
Athens based linguist/rapper Mariah Parker, aka Linqua Franqa, has her debut album The Model Minority released today via HHBTM Records. As expected from someone with a masters degree in linguistics, the record covers a range of topics includingemotional instability, self-harm, depression and the like with skill, insight and a poetic sense of the real life. …
Playlist: Basque Post-Punks Belako choose us a Punk Top Ten
Ahead of tomorrow (23rd February) album launch, we spoke to Basque country post-punks Belako about their ten favourite punk records. The album,‘Render Me Numb, Trivial Violence’, was led by the singles Render Me Numb, Over the Edge and ‘Maskenfreiheit’, and is being jointly released Belako Records, El Segell del Primavera and [PIAS] (for the international …