Merrill Garbus’ second release as the typographically confused tUnE-yArDs is nothing short of an adventure. Almost every song takes you down a different road of sonic peculiarity but for every one angular, discordant turn, there’s ten more that take you back into some curiously soulful grooves.
Garbus has admitted to a youth full of radio…

After almost three years, a number of blind alleys, recording studios and some failed experiments with what the frontman Robin Pecknold describes as “non-songwriter type music” Seattle’s Fleet Foxes finally found a home to record their second album in, a water-side studio where Nirvana put together Bleach….
Whatever about those musical detours, Fleet Foxes

Coming out of New York City, Wesley Eisold is the centre-piece of this synth-rock band; singer, writer and programmer – he does almost everything on this, his second album as Cold Cave, save some guest vocals. His own vocals are in the mould of ’80s monochromatic male pop voices, from Bryan Ferry to Dave Gahn…

There’s a lot of pleasure to be found in a live band who have an album in the bag and are playing small shows before its release. There’s no weight of people hoping to hear their favourites, the venues are more intimate and you’d imagine there’d be a hunger for the cut and thrust of…

There’s no hanging about at the Unthank household. Just over a year since The Tender Coming, we are presented with a new album, Last…. It is another part of their continued re-imagining of British folk and, as their successful 2010 live collaboration with the songs of Antony & the Johnsons attests, their approach

24 year-old Lykke Li seems to have been on tour since the ever-mounting success of her album Youth Novels… in 2008. Where this indefatigable young Swede found the time to write and record this album is anybody’s guess. One thing she didn’t do, is rely on the initial success of her smart, after-midnight twist on

With Let England Shake… not even a week old, PJ Harvey kicks off her live tour in the gorgeous amphitheater Cirque Royale in Brussels. It’s still definitely a winter’s evening outside but inside we’re boiling in minutes as with the cloakroom full we have to wear our winter coats into the venue. Thankfully cheap beers

State caught Glasser on the early leg of her European tour when she called into Little Vega in Copenhagen on a cold Sunday night. Appearing in a fanciful head-dress that looked like the seat of an old tractor with a tennis ball on it, Cameron Mesirow and her white jump-suit-clad band gave us a warm…

Glasvegas are back with the first song from their new album ‘EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\’ to be released on April 4. ‘The World Is Yours’ pumps up the wide Glasvegas sound even more and they seem to be fully utilising their new drummer Jonna Lofgren, not to mention the production talents of Flood, who they…

In 2007, White Lies came out of London with a bombastic indie sound and the widescreen voice of a youthful Julian Cope. Two years later their first album To Lose My Life…… was at number one in the UK, thanks to the aforementioned endearing qualities and its polished yet dark, urban feel (the drums sounding

At the end of December, State threw on its warm jacket and slid across roads of ice to Malmo to catch summer melody-peddlers Best Coast in the almost perfect Debaser venue. Seeking protection against the elements outside, we were given a short, cheery set of A-B-C guitar pop.
Some of the set seemed a bit…

Somewhere is Sofia Coppola’s follow-up to Marie Antoinette and the acclaimed Lost In Translation… and she manages to make a film even calmer and more relaxed of pace than Bill Murray’s time in Tokyo. A casual observer will waste no time in saying that nothing much happens but what the movie does convey, it does

Body Talk 3… is the concluding part of Robyn’s trilogy concept which saw her writing, recording and releasing songs while also touring extensively. As she wrote songs she was almost immediately able to test the results live and then release them in pocket-sized bunches every few months, with great success both in the constantly developing

We all know what it’s like to operate through December, with the party season tempting even the strongest out on school nights. What you need is a day off, a warm blanket, a friend to come over with chips and a coke and a soundtrack to get you from the edge of the abyss back…