SINGLE: King Midas Sound – Lost (with video)

King Midas Sound makes a welcome return to Hyperdub since ‘Waiting For You’ landed in November last year, making a large dub shaped dent in our world. With the album still ringing in our ears and the live show burning into our minds (if you were lucky enough to catch it), this stands as the […]
The Wombats came to represent everything that was wrong with the scratchy, post-Libertines indie scene. Their lyrics were not just dull, they were obviously stupid. Will moving to New York, a city that famously never sleeps, help you defeat insomnia? And is dancing to Joy Division ironic? No it will not, and no it fucking […]

SINGLE: The Wombats – Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)

SINGLE REVIEW: Darkstar – Gold

Last year, Darkstar laid out some concrete foundations with the ludicrously catchy “Aidy’s Girl is a Computer”. Their debut release on Hyperdub, the track managed to make its way around clubs, televisions and home stereo’s alike, and is still firmly lodged somewhere in my brain for the foresee able future (I still love it!) Since […]
The swash-buckling, sea-shanty-ing troubadours are back with an excellent, rousing single. The band that brought you an 11 minute tale of revenge culminating in a torture scene inside a whale’s stomach, have teamed up with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck (and his magical twelve string guitar) and Gillian Welch. ‘Down by the Water’ actually sounds a lot […]

SINGLE REVIEW: The Decemberists – Down By The Water

SINGLE: Musée Mécanique – Fits & Starts

Though it might be hard to believe, ‘Fits & Starts’ is one of the more upbeat moments from Hold This Ghost – an album of nostalgic, folk mastery. In ‘Fits & Starts’ it feels like Musée Mécanique are holding a warm, living person (though possibly dying), as opposed to a cold, clammy ghost. This is […]
Muffled drums without cymbals and purely acoustic guitars give ‘Rinse Me Down’ a sort of ‘farmhouse folk’ feel. It’s all in keeping with the very diatonic, upbeat folk of the moment. It is very lively – in an understated way – especially when the hi-hat kicks in before the second verse, bringing in an uplifting […]

SINGLE: Bombay Bicycle Club – Rinse Me Down

SINGLE: The Charlatans – My Foolish Pride

‘My Foolish Pride’ is a lovely, catchy, kitchen sink sing-along tune full of introspection and heart warming self-deprecation, straight-forward, nothing fancy, something lots of people will relate to. As the title may suggest, the song is a tale of regret, reflection, and just a little bit of self-pity, but if it was this and this […]
It’s hard to imagine now, but at the turn of the millennium The Manics were firmly out of favour. I remember seeing a picture in the NME of an overweight, dishevelled looking James Dean Bradfield with a caption saying something like, “Who ate all the pies”? Trust the NME to not see beyond the image. […]

SINGLE: Manic Street Preachers – (It’s Not War) Just the End of Love

SINGLES: The Minutes – Fleetwood

Irish rock trio The Minutes will have lovers of all things down and dirty paying close attention. There’s nothing radically original about new single ‘Fleetwood’, built on a fusion of early Fleetwood Mac and, as the three Dubliners will no doubt be tired of hearing, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s grunge. Where this pulsing, upbeat song […]
London duo Goldfrapp’s latest single ‘Believer’ is an honest effort as far as bright and buzzy electropop goes. But new album ‘Head First’ was clearly produced with ‘sales first’ in mind. No one would argue that it’s a problem unique to the decade. Yet established artists face a challenge in the current climate to retain […]

SINGLE: Goldfrapp – Believer