‘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…
Category: Reviews
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…
Live | Sea of Bees @ Portland Arms, Cambridge, 13 July
Sea of Bees, aka Julie Ann Bee, is a musical entity so adorable you want to cuddle her, but her haunting, elegiac melodies leave you in no doubt she’s seen a bit of life – and boy has it hurt sometimes.
Live | Avi Buffalo @ Brudenell, Leeds, 14 July
The ever-sweaty Brudenell Social Club played host to these knob-twiddling, bench-loving, bacon-lipped, monstrously talented Americans, and FFS had a good long look.
Album | Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest
Mellow, autumnal, amber-shaded moods abound in Gillian Welch’s first full-length release for 8 years. Read our review, and learn all about the letterpress printing of the astonishingly beautiful album cover.
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…
Live | Ed Sheeran @ Guildford Boileroom, 19 July
Seriously deft on the loop pedal, with the voice of a choirboy-turned-rockstar and a guitar that hasn’t left his side in years, it’s not hard to see why Ed Sheeran’s show at the Boileroom sold out in less than twenty-five…
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…
Live | Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Beirut, The Vaccines, Owen Pallett @ Hyde Park, London, 30 June
Arcade Fire played a pleasing smattering of hits, the best for me being ‘Roccoco’ (lots of good ooh-ing from the crowd), ‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’, which made me a bit teary, ‘Haiti’, ‘Intervention’, ‘We Used To Wait’, ‘Keep The Car Running’ and ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’. The band have written so many good songs, and seem to nail a half-disillusioned idealism that’s very definitive of music now, agreeing with Fleet Foxes in wanting to escape ‘the sprawl’ but not being sure if that’s possible. They’re also slightly in love with the dead shopping malls, the emptiness of the suburbs; their protesting edge is questioning, searching.