Category: Reviews

Album | One Little Plane – Into the Trees

One Little Plane, a.k.a. Kathryn Bint, is often described as ‘gentle’, ‘soft’, and other words familiar to folk fans, but her second album shows that she can set herself apart. Into the Trees begins with ‘She Was Out In The…

Album | Emma Gatrill – Chapter 1

Musicians, like film stars and television broadcasters, are some of the most important cultural icons in history. Furthermore, instruments can carry as much, if not more, powerful symbolism than musicians themselves. Take the electric guitar, for example, and Jimi Hendrix…

Album | Anna Ternheim – The Night Visitor

In recent years Sweden has proved itself the prime producer of US-style cultural exports. In film and television, the likes of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Wallander have caught the imagination of viewers in the UK, appearing at…

Album | Admiral Fallow – Tree Bursts In Snow

Admiral Fallow spent two and a half years crafting the songs that made up their debut album Boots Met My Face before committing them to the tape, part of a slow-burning process that saw the record released twice before it…

Album | Smoke Fairies – Blood Speaks

If there’s been one constant in the Smoke Fairies’ story to date, it has been their refusal to stand still. From leaving their Sussex roots to spend time living in America and Canada before returning to London, to their frantic…

Album | Patrick Watson – Adventures In Your Own Backyard

Falsetto voice, piano, experimentation… It’s all been done before, right? What with the Jeff Buckleys, the Rufus Wainwrights and the Bon Ivers, there really isn’t much room in the market for more. Anyone looking to venture down a similar path…

Album | Ren Harvieu – Through The Night

Ren Harvieu’s debut LP, Through The Night, lays its cards on the table almost straight away as you press play: it’s a album about romance and it’s not going to be a subtle ride. The melodrama factor is cranked up…

EP | Paul Thomas Saunders – Descartes Highlands

The latest EP from 20-year-old singer-songwriter Paul Thomas Saunders is a shimmering kaleidoscope of eerie nostalgia and twinkling pianos, which, despite its melancholy air, manages to evoke optimism and euphoria in its hypnotic beats. Named after the area on the…

New Bands Panel | Eliza Shaddad – January March EP

Eliza Shaddad is a Scottish and Sudanese singer-songwriter with influences that range from childhood days spent at English folk festivals, the underground  hip-hop scene during her teens and to more recent postgraduate jazz studies at the Guildhall School of Music…

Album | Crybaby – Crybaby

Crybaby, real-name Danny Coughlan, seems very keen to be the new poster-boy for heartbroken storytelling. And with his self-titled debut, he may just achieve that status. This compact collection of poignant ballads will no doubt project Bristol-born Crybaby into the…