Tag: arctic reviews

It’s true that one of the phrases you rarely hear whilst going about the activities of daily life is, “Hey, I could just do with some rather earnest Canadian indie rock right now – where dy’a think I could get me some?” Undaunted however, Les Jupes (That’s The Skirts, for…

From London via Rome, Turnpike Glow are a ‘Psychotropic’ (us either) quartet that pitch up somewhere in the vicinity of Vampire Weekend and The Shins. Whilst the latter are probably the tent-pegs which secured the American indie rock phenomenon of the Noughties, chief Glow-er Sandro Schiena prefers to be more…

Australian refugee Joe McKee could do worse than sow the seeds of his dream in the footsteps of John Grant, a man whose phoenix-like career renaissance in the last five years has been little short of phenomenal. Like Grant’s long and ultimately fruitless shift in Czars, here was a man…

Previously a crate digger’s wet dream, The Paperclip People‘s only album, 1996’s ‘The Secret Tapes Of Doctor Eich‘, was given a re-release in 2012. So what? Well, arguably it was significant because the awkward name was short hand for none other than Carl Craig, techno auteur and a central figure…

If as many people are saying dubstep is at some sort of crossroads, it’s fair to say it’s still far from creatively bankrupt. From Bristol – the counter punching early nexus of the genre along with Croydon – Pinch, label boss at Tectonic and known to his friends as Rob…

Like a giant recycling project, Danish trio Efterklang have constructed their fourth album partially from samples and found sounds captured at Piramida, a ghost town in the Arctic Circle abandoned by the Russians in the last century. As their brief accompanying Making Of video demonstrates, the ten day curation period…

For a long time Matthew Dear looked like he would remain steadfastly in the margins, ploughing an esoteric furrow that was loved by Lower Manhattan’s chattering classes but ignored by a considerable slug of everyone else. When we last came across the Texan-now-New Yorker he’d just released 2007’s ‘Asa Breed‘,…

Normally we baulk at albums which are described as ‘a cinematic journey through a fantasy world of music, both familiar and unreal, and as perfectly suited to bedroom dreamers as it is to nightclub dancers’, but we were in a generous mood that night. Although we were fuzzy from warm…

If the new-ishly reconstituted R&S label’s releases have taught us anything so far about what to expect, it’s been that by and large pop – and we know that’s a big-ass target to define right there – has continued to belong to another domain. An exception however can be made…

The funeral cortège moved slowly, with probably more respect than was due; the thousands of those lining the streets were smiling, but the feeling in the air wasn’t particularly sad, or triumphant, more one of relief. As the long, winding column of not really mourners, more seeing offers came to…

It wouldn’t have been so ironic if it hadn’t been a struggle. Unerringly left field, Pulp – or to that point awkwardly charismatic front man Jarvis Cocker‘s succession of backing bands – had been left in splendid anonymity by the UK’s uncaring record buying public for over a decade. Caught…

The problem with The Human League‘s ‘Don’t You Want Me‘ is that having long ago been appropriated by hen nights and fun pubs across the country, its been shorn of all its original context. That Phil Oakey and co. were one of the first acts to spot the…