SINGLE: Björk – Comet Song

Eccentric Icelandic songstress Björk has recorded a song for the upcoming Moomins film. Though The Moomins is a distinctly Scandinavian film, with the scattered percussion and flickering panpipes, ‘Comet Song’ sounds like it would go better with a Studio Ghibli animated, native South American scene set in dense rainforest as opposed to the barren wastelands […]
Carefully written in a seamless fashion, ‘Lighthouse’ plays its colours dark grey colours well. It has a deeply brooding feel. The recorded space between the instruments gives it a chance to swell and reserve its layers, and allows the little charming snippets of its orchestration to chime through, giving an extra spangle to the song. […]

SINGLE: The Strange Death of Liberal England – Lighthouse

SINGLE REVIEW: Morcheeba – Blood Like Lemonade

Marking the return of honey-toned singer Skye Edwards, who left in 2003 following those pesky ‘musical differences’ that eat at every band at some point, ‘Blood Like Lemonade’ is the title track from Morcheeba’s seventh album.   It’s also the name of a cocktail apparently, the ingredients of which are listed on the back of the […]
The forty fourth release on Hyperdub sees South Africa & South London come together as LV hooks up with South African Kwaito artist Smiso Zwane (aka Okmalumkoolkat). Fusing their own unique styles, the pair’s meeting makes for a highly infectious set of sounds. ‘Boomslang’ kicks out a UK funky beat fired up by Kool Kat’s […]

SINGLE REVIEW: LV Ft. OKMALUMKOOLKAT – Boomslang

SINGLE REVIEW: Badly Drawn Boy – Too Many Miracles

You’d struggle to find a more down to earth, northern, quirky songwriter than Badly Drawn Boy. With his trademark woolly hat and delightfully Mancunian vocals, Damon Gough is the epitome of the North.  After three years of producing soundtracks, the hat clad, lyrical genius is finally back and releasing “too many miracles,” the first single […]
Britain’s leading exponents of “council-pop” – Britain’s only exponents of council-pop – are back with a new single, ‘Some Frontier’.  The track comes from Orphan Boy’s second album Passion, Pain and Loyalty, which was released in August. It’s got radio-friendly-hit written all over it, in that it’s catchy but there’s a slight air of blandness to it.  […]

SINGLE REVIEWS: Orphan Boy – Some Frontier

SINGLE REVIEW: DVA (ft. Fatima) – Just Vybe (Soule:Power Mix)

Hot on the heels of his last release, DVA comes through on Hyperdub for round two. ‘Just Vybe (Soul:Power Mix)’ took me by surprise. The track opened to the exact sound of ‘Natty’ (his first outing on Hyperdub), making me think that I’d somehow picked the wrong file or bounced back in time – I […]
‘Mona Lisa’ is the first single from Dinosaur Pile-up’s forthcoming debut album, Growing Pains.  The Leeds three-piece makes no qualms about their love of the Foo Fighters, and this single certainly makes a fitting tribute. From the get-go there’s a pervading US, 90s feel; the late 90s particularly, where grunge metamorphosed into jock-rock.  And like […]

SINGLE: Dinosaur Pile-Up – Mona Lisa

SINGLE: BLACK MOUNTAIN – OLD FANGS

This track is a taster from the eagerly anticipated third album from Canada’s psyche/stoners Black Mountain. The album “Wilderness Heart” is due for UK release on the 13th of September  2010 and will be supported with a full UK tour in September and October . I must confess I didn’t get around to buying the […]
For a few years in the mid 60s Bob Dylan attained a level of genius very few musicians have reached before or since. With humour, bile and impossible eloquence he spat out incisive songs that to this day seem to glimpse at some higher truth. Nick Cave has reached a similar plateau. The paranoid, often […]

SINGLE: Grinderman – Heathen Child