Manchester’s finest folk-hip-hop troubadour is to spread his sweetness on telly boxes all over the country tonight with a folkumentary on Channel M.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary is part of the series ‘Hitting Home’ produced by students at Salford University.
She & Him are not a band willing to live by clichés. By all means, the first collaboration between a guitar-wielding bluesman and a Hollywood starlet should be equal parts dull and self-indulgent. Volume One breaks the formula effortlessly from the heartbreaking opening vocals by actress Zooey Deschanel, one half of a team completed by M. Ward. The key is the wide range of influences audible in every track – there is as much room on Volume One for the softer side of Motown as there is for the livelier side of Les Paul and Mary Ford. ‘Why Do You Let Me Stay Here’ takes its leaf out of the latter’s book, a charming and energetic track in which one can hear every ounce of joy that the band have squeezed out of putting together their album.
Before this debut album arrived to review, I already had 12 Slow Club tracks on my iTunes, which gives some idea of how prolific they’ve been already. So here are 12 more (13 if you include the secret track), and, mostly, they’re a very welcome addition to the Slow Club cannon.
Stephen Wilkinson, AKA Bibio, is one hell of a busy guy, only six months after releasing Vignetting The Compost, his fifth release on Mush Records, he’s back on a new label (Warp) with Ambivalence Avenue a fascinatingly beautiful hybrid of folk and electronica.
How gorgeous is the new Beth Jeans Houghton EP? Still relatively new on the scene, Newcastle’s BJH brings an air of 1920’s to her understated alt-folk.
Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman jerks around the stage like Chris Martin. Which is a bit weird. It is good for the band, though, for without his eccentricity, a four-piece who’s debut album is a glorious indy-blues stomp would look distinctly out of their depth in the live arena.