indie albums
Album Review: Eels – The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett
Released just over twelve months after the well-received Wonderful, Glorious, Eels’ latest offering has one of those album titles that gives fair-warning about what exactly to expect from its content. E has straight out said that The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett is an album about his own failures in relationships, so anyone expecting …
Album Review: Select All Delete Save As – ‘Ultra Cultura’
Just when I thought I’d figured out ‘Ultra Cultura’, the new album by Select All Delete Save As, it continued to throw curveballs left, right and centre. Constantly exciting, always involving and brilliantly put together this is an album that makes each listen rewarding for multiple reasons. Achieving that is one thing but making this …
Not Forgotten: Bob – Leave the Straight Life Behind Reissue, plus interview
It might be unjustified, but I’ve always North London indie band BOB were in debt to me. I’d discovered them, as I did most things back then (then being the cusp of the 1990’s) by listening to John Peel, and there, shoehorned in between experimental electronica and dub reggae (probably) was this gorgeous, uplifting, glistening …
Album Release: The Crookes – Soapbox
Over the past few years I’ve been introduced to a lot of bands; I’ve witnessed the release of new singles, the creation of new music videos, and travelled hundreds of miles to see talented musicians play some incredible live sets. In all that time, only a few bands have stuck with me, and The Crookes …
Album Review: Real Estate – Atlas
You know I like apathy, discontent, and an overall general malaise in my art fix like the next guy. And a bit of snarky condescension always makes a song go down a bit rougher, yet satisfyingly cold as well. I mean really, wouldn’t you rather have disconnected sarcasm permeating the tunes you pump into your …
Album Review: Mogwai – Rave Tapes
It was July of 2004 and my best friend and I headed to Chicago to the Curiosa Festival. We were psyched, man. The Cure, Interpol, The Rapture, and a bunch of other bands. Who cares who else was there? The Cure and Interpol, that’s all we needed to know. So we arrived in the early …
Not Forgotton: Northside – Chicken Rhythms, and new spring tour dates
For me, it started with an apple. For there, in my local record emporium (the glorious Left Legged Pineapple in Loughborough) as I thumbed through Cocteau Twins, King of the Slums, Fuzztones, A.C. Marias, Blur, Diesel Park West, Lush and Bridewell Taxis records, I kept coming back to this record, with nothing more than an …
Album Review: Brad Laner – Nearest Suns
Seconds into “Be Gone”, the lead off track from Brad Laner’s newest solo album Nearest Suns you know this isn’t going to be your average listening experience. Part psych-pop, part Eastern-influenced, and all aural sunlit grandeur, Laner takes his Medicine magic and spreads it over 60s-influenced pop and makes a record that sounds quite magical. …
Album Review: Various Artists – A Sunday Matinee
Where would we be without Matinee Recordings? The Santa Barbara label is celebrating its fifteenth year of releasing indie pop, and have just released this compilation of track as a celebration of that fact. Straight away what’s evident is the worldwide appeal of both sides of the indie pop coin, the scuzzy and the twee, …
Album Review : Andrew Bird- I Want to See Pulaski at Night
I’ve seen Andrew Bird live twice in my life. The first time was at the Chicago Opera House back in early 2009. The second time was at the Murat Theater in Indianapolis, IN in the fall of 2009. Both shows were stunning, Bird displaying a mastery of musical art like no other. But both shows …