I’ll admit I’ve had a habit, purely on the basis of their name, of getting Kill It Kid confused with To Kill A King. Talk of killing things starting with ‘k’ and links to Communion Records were enough to leave…
Category: Reviews
Live | Petra Jean Phillipson @ St Pancras Old Church
Petra Jean Phillipson’s MySpace page boldly states: ‘Notes On Love… is NOT for AIRHEADS’. If this first, experimental yet accessible, album wasn’t for airheads then second offering, Notes on Death, is NOT for anyone who believes songs should have such…
Live | Slow Club @ Shepherds Bush Empire
How frustrating it must be to spend all your energy and creativity making a debut album that everybody loves, only to be labelled as something you never wanted to be. Slow Club managed to win hordes of wonderful fans thanks…
Album | Wilco – The Whole Love
Wilco know us too well. They know what questions we’re asking as we slot the Whole Love into the cd player. Chief among them is, as ever, ‘what kind of band are Wilco this time?’. After the killer one-two that…
Live | Spiers & Boden, Cambridge
Fondly known as one of the hardest working duos in the folk music world, John Spiers and Jon Boden were the hit of this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival. Their bombastic 11-piece big band Bellowhead played a storming set in the main…
Live | Treetop Flyers @ Hoxton Bar and Kitchen
Treetop Flyers are in many ways the quintessential band to have emerged from the collaborative Communion stable, and their old-time country courts ever increasing attention and buzz. At the launch of not-so-new single ‘It’s About Time’, the band that seems…
Festival | Bestival 2011
Sparky electro-pop and dance were more dominant than folk at this year’s Bestival, but it’s a cheerful mish-mash where sensitive strumming acts are welcomed (as long as they’re not upset by a soft background thud of drum and bass, as…
Album | Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
If Alas I Cannot Swim was Marling vs Fink and I Speak Because I Can was Marling vs Mumford, on A Creature I Don’t Know Laura strikes out on her own. This album doesn’t look to its contemporaries for influence…
Live | Rufus and Loudon Wainwright at the Royal Opera House
Central to the Royal Opera House’s opulent setting, three words oversee the gilded balconies and small red aisles. HOUSE OF RUFUS. They refer only in part to the similarly-titled nineteen-disc boxset Rufus Wainwright released earlier this month, but more than…
Album | Cocos Lovers – Elephant Lands
Recorded in a converted caravan in Kent, music has never sounded so wholesome. Made up of families and friends, the band’s camaraderie is woven through each song. And listening to Elephant Lands you feel like you’re being let into the club.