What an inspired place Tabernas, southern Spain was for writing such a broodingly atmospheric album. Ben Nicholls headed for the land where Sergio Leone shot ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ to pen the songs that would become Be…
Category: Records
Album | Dead Trees – Whatwave
Languid garage rock is the American subgenre that refuses to die. It has endured, barely evolving, since being invented back in the 60s by the Velvet Underground, or maybe the Seeds. Its popularity waxes and wanes, sometimes breaking into the…
Album | William Elliott Whitmore – Field Songs
‘Rootsy’ is a term that gets used a lot in describing that certain kind of Americana that draws heavily on rural country blues, evoking cotton fields and dustbowls. But if it’s actually possible to hear earth, soil, you can hear…
Album | Josienne Clarke – One Light Is Gone
Everything about Josienne Clarke’s music, whether live or recorded, is proper folk. Her debut album One Light Is Gone resolutely champions an authentic acoustic sound and instantly gained heavy rotation on this listener’s daily commute. Josienne’s songs are traditional and…
Album | Marissa Nadler – Marissa Nadler
Marissa Nadler has been perfecting her blend of ethereal beauty for years now and in this, her self-titled latest offering, there’s no massive departure from what’s been before. But that’s by no means a bad thing. Nadler is the epitome…
Singles round-up | Ben Howard, Avi Buffalo & Sam Airey
Ben Howard – The Wolves The Wolves have been kicking around for well over a year now, but they must be getting hungry (or rather Howard’s fat cat record label Island were) as the mellow summer beach ditty with its…
Album | Benjamin Francis Leftwich – Last Smoke Before the Snow Storm
In the wake of two EPs, a lovely cover of Arcade Fire’s Rebellion (lies) and a good bit of exposure on Radio One and Six Music it’s true to say that there has been a fair bit of anticipation surrounding…
EP: The Dufflefolks – Keep Safe Your Keepsakes
Last year The Dufflefolks opened The Greenman Festival after winning 2010’s Greenpoll; reaching the final as one of the fans’ choices before a judge’s panel comprising, among others, Bella Union head Simon Raymonde, Mojo editor Phil Alexander, and Stephen Bass,…
Album: Cashier No. 9 – To The Death of Fun
What do you get if you take the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Byrds, Phil Spector, New Order and stick them all into a cocktail shaker? Then serve the contents to five guys from Belfast? The result is Cashier No.9,…
Singles: Marcus Foster, Kyla La Grange, O’Death & Grass House
Marcus Foster – Rushes & Reeds Marcus Foster, possibly best known for having Robert Pattinson sing one of his compositions on the Twilight soundtrack curiously reminded me of a band slightly North of his London roots; Oxford’s Charly Coombes and…