In Undress, adoptive Mancunian Jesca Hoop’s acoustic reworking of 2009 release Hunting my Dress strips five-year-old songs down to the bare, scintillating bones with magnificent results. Welcoming Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Willy Mason, Erika Wennerstrom (of Heartless Bastards) and Samuel Beam…
Sam Brookes toured with fellow acoustic artist Emily and the Woods last year, where he sampled a small pocketful of his new material. It was, however, the right amount, to enlighten the very few standing before him. What they saw,…
If you’ve ever been unsure of quite what ‘dream pop’ means, the debut self-titled album from Lapland should leave you in little doubt. With everything slightly hazy and off-kilter, echoey and wading-through-treacle slow, if you got to the end of…
‘How Are You Just a Dream’ flings the doors open on …And the Nothing setting a shouty, pissed-off tone that’s not what long-term fans of Hinson will be expecting. You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d put the wrong CD in…
A full five years on from Withered Hand’s unembellished debut Good News, on first listen to New Gods you’d be forgiven for thinking that Dan Willson has spent those years sunning himself on some far-flung beach mending whatever heartbreaks and…
The Drive-By Truckers’ 10th studio album captures the sound of a group rediscovering the fun in making music. Because the three years since the release of Go-Go Boots have largely been anything but for Patterson Hood and his once merry…
Annie Clark’s 4th album under the ‘St Vincent’ moniker is comfortably her best work to date. Coming off the back of a fruitful partnership with lead Talking Head, David Byrne, Clark took just 36 hours off in between finishing the…
Crisp production and a stunning vocal performance combine to make Wild Beasts’ fourth album Present Tense a treasure of a record. Spanning a spectrum of colour and mood, the songs boast distinctive lyrics and expertly crafted structures. The synth, bass,…
Sheffield has a fine tradition of turning out bands and musicians who, with their wit and humour, become indelibly placed in the public consciousness. Pulp and Richard Hawley are two that spring to mind, as are Slow Club and, of…
Hannah Peel is no stranger to compliments, and she’s certainly bagged her share of supporters and collaborators in the few years she’s been releasing music. Having already worked with Simon Tong from The Verve and Gorillaz fame and gained a…