Collaborative Music Blogging Project
Thursday night in Dalston and I head down to a residential side road to recently reopened Shacklewell Arms; a reputedly once sketchy local boozer-turned into a bustling pub/music venue. It’s one of those nights and one of those places where everyone here could be (and in most cases, probably are) in bands. Despite the aching…
Continue reading Ungdomskulen (supporting Civil Civic) @ Shacklewell Arms, Dalston, 9.06.11
Youthful Canadian four piece Braids are band that like to let their music do the talking. They met a few years ago while still at high school and have moved across their homeland perfecting their sound. And what a sound it is: big shoegaze-infused dream pop fills the room. It sounds surprisingly lush in…
Continue reading Braids @ Lexington, London, 24.05.11
Tonight is an evening of contrasts, we’re here in one of the last surviving old rock and roll venues and yet the stage is bedecked with a grand piano and an impressive array of noodling devices. By which I mean pedals and miscellaneous kit that emits strange and wondrous noises. It’s a curious juxtaposition…
Continue reading Hauschka and Samuli Kosminen @ 100 Club, London 10.05.11
It’s the night before the royal wedding, London is awash with bunting and the subjects of our little island are hurtling themselves into four day weekend reverie. I decide I need a little respite from the patriotism and head to the Ja Ja Ja night for some Icelandic indie pop instead, in the shape of…
Continue reading Feldberg @ Lexington, London, 28.04.11
Someone once mused that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, well, I’m going to do both, kind of. Melbourne indie-synth merchants return to the UK for the first time in four years, and I have to battle my way through a mixed throng of local hipsters and die hard fans. They admit that coming…
Continue reading Architecture in Helsinki @ XOYO, London, 12.04.11
Kill It Kid came back to Bristol last night, as part of their intense-sounding Pray on Me tour. I was really glad to see that this time Bristol showed up. Kid Vinyl has been one of only about 5 people at their shows too many times, which is a real pity because this band is…
Continue reading [In Pictures] Kill It Kid, The Fleece, Bristol, March 1st 2011
It might happen, truly, once in a lifetime; your partner drags you to a gig of a band that you’ve never heard of before, you don’t particularly want to go but you do it for ‘love’, but you come out the other side transformed. This is what happened to me five years ago on a…
Continue reading Wilco @ The Royal Festival Hall, London 14th September 2010
Sitting down to write this, I think of the Maxϊmo Park lyric “Write a review, well how objective can I be?” a question that often crosses the mind of a reviewer. This thought is even more pressing when tasked with reviewing a band I’ve been a fan of for more than half a decade.
As a relative newcomer to the Efterklang fold, I’m unsure what to expect from their live set. I’m certainly a fan on record and trusted friends have assured me they are a band worth seeing. They weren’t wrong, from the minute they step out onto the stage the band are captivating. Casper Clausen makes the…
Continue reading Efterklang, Shepherd’s Bush Empire 21.05.10
Alas I have no camera! Here is Ólöf Arnaulds performing the awesome ‘Crazy Car’ on KEXP radio, Seattle The Icelandic songstress narrowly avoids the wrath of the elements in her homeland to make her debut London appearance. The rather lovely Café Oto is a suitably boho haunt for Ólöf Arnaulds first foray into performing in…
Continue reading Ólöf Arnaulds + David Thor Jonsson @ Café Oto, Dalston, London 15.04.10
