Minnesota trio Low have long been heralded purveyors of quiet, crawling despondency – miserable precisionists, if you like, who have soundtracked and soothed several generations-worth of melancholy-gripped minds since their Continue reading
As year’s go, Matthew E White‘s 2013 has already been pretty special. After all, debut album, ‘Big Inner’, received a near-unanimous tip of the hat upon worldwide-release in January and Continue reading
If you’re not already aware, Clean Bandit are on the brink of the big league. The member-shifting collective are an eclectic, dynamic and surprising pop juggernaut in waiting; the kind Continue reading
The story of Descender is pretty irresistible, no matter how much it has been embellished for the sake of intrigue. After all, here we have a Grammy-nominated New Yorker who Continue reading
Guards ‘In Guards We Trust’ (PARTISAN) ★★★★★ It’s pertinent that the optimum word in Guards’ debut album title is “Trust”, because this collection of Phil Spector-ish, psych-lite pop songs are Continue reading
If there’s one way to celebrate your sixth album and a stupidly good back catalogue that spans a decade, it’s serving up a British Sea Power sandwich with a TOY in the middle. That Continue reading
Given the near-unanimous approval Night Beds‘ heart-on-sleeve debut ‘Country Sleep’ met with early this year, it’s to be expected that tonight’s sold out London show is one of burdening conjecture. Continue reading
Of course, there’s no such thing as a mass-sweeping revival anymore; they happen at the same time, all of the time. So if this year’s Britpop and baggy-indebted B-Towners (Peace, Continue reading
Enveloping the room with richly-textured echo-pop, Wild Nothing wow with a wall of lush noise, coercing the crowd into a blissful daze – or at least, that’s the outcome hoped Continue reading
Tie-dye visuals. People dancing ‘The Swim’. A toy-like vibrato synth. Here in Hoxton, the Summer of Love is in full swing - or at least, it is in the hearts and Continue reading
Stornoway ‘Tales From Terra Firma’ (4AD) ★★★½ On their sophomore, Oxford oddities Stornoway conjure something that is earth-bound and at times majestic. Often treading the same bittersweet, roving folk path Continue reading
Duologue ‘Song & Dance’ (KILLING MOON) ★★★★½ The terms “fully formed” and “debut album” seldom co-exist underneath one heading, but the Jim Abiss-produced first full-length from Duologue is indeed that Continue reading
Imagine some time circa 1983, when garage-born bands fashioned airy pop songs with splashy snares, hip-rhythmic guitars and cooing vocals. It’s odd to think now that their self-styled mass-hooks, eye-pleasing Continue reading
Such is the steep, climbing trajectory of Surrey siblings Disclosure, this date at London’s Heaven already feels like a booking they’ve somewhat outgrown. Fans of the duo’s futuristic, balearic-tinged house Continue reading
“Our love is like the morning clouds,” bursts the opener, with one mammoth swell of Laura Mvula‘s heavily multi-tracked, honey-doused, vocals. It’s a grandiose, bold and classy introduction. An introduction Continue reading
Low Sea ‘Remote Viewing’ (Dell’Orso) ★★★ Low Sea’s Billie fled war-torn Bosnia for San Francisco and reluctantly joined a cult, before meeting Scouse bandmate Bobbie and settling in Ireland. It Continue reading
PYYRAMIDS ‘Brightest Darkest Day’ (Paracadute) ★★★ The coupling of Tim Nordwind (OK Go) and Drea Smith (ex-He Say, She Say) as PYYRAMIDS is bizarre enough to be worth your intrigue Continue reading
Imagine, come July, a golden shore peppered with vacuous teen posers; the ‘Suspicious Parents’-generation, if you will, who’ve come puff-chested and equipped with bronzed, Lynx-doused bodies, a penchant for indecent Continue reading
Fiction ‘The Big Other’ (MOSHI MOSHI) ★★★½ Three years on from the clever-silliness of debut 7” ‘Curiosity’, these Londoners have refined their early promise as trendy multi-instrumentalists to construct one Continue reading
Night Beds ‘Country Sleep’ (DEAD OCEANS) ★★★★ If his solo moniker isn’t clue enough, Winston Yellen’s debut is the work of a 23-year-old moonlighting as a one-man orchestra from the Continue reading
It’s ‘This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs’ and we have a sure-fire set of shows for you to see in the capital as we slope into the slightly less sombre Continue reading
Welcome to another This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs! The next 7 days could well be subjected to intermittent snowfall, but hopefully that won’t stop you travelling across the capital Continue reading
Exposure is our scrapbook of our favourite new bands. Today’s exposure features London grandiose-folk foursome Winterhours. Name: Winterhours Location: London, UK Genre: Jangly alt-folk For Fans of: Radical Face, Dry Continue reading
Exposure is our scrapbook of our favourite new artists. Today’s exposure features swooning, London-based folkstress Flick White. Name: Flick White Location: SW London-via-Bournemouth Genre: Harmony-laden Folk For Fans of: The Continue reading
Happy New Year! Now the over-gorge is all but a faded memory, This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs returns, with just one resolution for 2013: to continue flagging up great Continue reading
The Revival Hour ‘Scorpio Little Devil’ (ANTIPHON) ★★★★½ As collaborations go, this mouth-watering one between Sufjan Stevens-approved oddball DM Stith and John Mark Lapham (of Texan-Manc’s The Earlies) certainly whips Continue reading
The Wave Machines ‘Pollen’ (NEAPOLITAN) ★★★★ Four years on from this Scouse foursome’s undervalued, ‘Pollen’ is the cohesive work of a tight-knit group who’ve fully-bloomed rather than transformed. They haven’t Continue reading
Welcome to the final This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs of 2012! It’s 9 days until you can slap on a paper party hat or a fake white beard and Continue reading
It’s the Sabbath and time for another This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs! The annual commemoration is almost upon us, but whilst you eagerly anticipate necking a turkey dinner and Continue reading
Transcending leftfield eccentricity and becoming a prime time, arena-filling megastar is seldom going to leave a sweet taste for those who revelled from the outset, but never should that niggle Continue reading
Good afternoon there! Another This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs is upon us and we’ve got a short, but riveting, week of live entertainment lined up for you. Of course, Continue reading
Exposure is our scrapbook of our favourite new artists. Today’s exposure features enthrallingly eclectic, South East London producer Alex Light. Name: Alex Light Location: SE London, England Genre: Electro-tinged Dance Continue reading
St John-at-Hackney Church is an astounding place to see a gig, its cavernous beauty providing the near-perfect backdrop for a night of lush-sounding entertainment. Curated for a seventh year running Continue reading
If his UK #1 album and the horde of well groomed, parka-wearers shuffling into KOKO tonight aren’t testament enough, then the fact The Fly is met outside Mornington Crescent tube Continue reading
Missed The 50… First Aid Kit ‘The Lion’s Roar’ (Wichita Recordings) Our Top 50 Albums Of 2012 list was pretty on the money, right? But for the glaring omission of Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Night Works What? If the sleek, synth-pop of ‘Modern European’ sounds oddly familiar, it’s because you’ve Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Joel Gregory What? A list of notable Cheltonians on Wikipedia peaks with Rolling Stones-founder (and genius) Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Temples What? Oh boy, the sixties; what a decade. This writer wasn’t even nearly born, but Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Lowell What? Apparently, the origin of the word Lowell in both French and English means Wolf Continue reading
Classically trained, French soloist Melody Prochet makes the kind of floating psych as Melody’s Echo Chamber that evokes a dream within a dream. A lucid one, perhaps, in which a Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Ruby and the Rib Cage What? A voice. And a really haunting, world-weary one at that. Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Amusement What? Skewed-pop from South London is a tidy summation, but putting it that simply would Continue reading
Disclosing the new music currently clogging up WJ’s browser toolbar. Who? Today, WJ Bookmarks… Night Engine What? It’s been a while since four young men attempted to reinvigorate the ice-cool Continue reading
Piano-toting London boy, Tom Odell, should be an overnight sensation – although if he is suddenly blessed with wealth and acclaim it’s not because he’s an overnight success. Since his Continue reading
Who’d have envisaged this one year ago? For as hazy as it is to recollect, this evening’s audience spent last February still slightly bamboozled regarding the future of Bloc Party. Continue reading
It is desperately trying to snow in Soho tonight and there’s an insistent, nipping wind on the corner where Manette Street meets the Orange Yard, so the hazy glow of Continue reading
Whether it’s unequalled highs or (more often) crushingly bleak lows, the theme of love has always been Frightened Rabbit’s most prevalent – so it’s fitting that tonight they play their Continue reading
In a world pre-‘Pollen’ (their just-dropped second album), this Scouse foursome may have struggled to fill such a club-centric King’s Cross venue with pop that was suitably sleek enough. While Continue reading
There’s an icy, piercing wind that sweeps across Camden High Street on this midweek evening, which may go some way to explaining the mad juvenile dash spurred by the recently Continue reading
Welcome to This Week’s 10 Must-See London Gigs, which has, as always, unearthed a diverse range of excellent shows for you to attend in the capital over the next seven days. Continue reading
