Yesterday The Guardian contained an article by Alexis Petridis about how 2005 is a new golden age of live music in the UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1537784,00.html
Interesting sentiment (from someone who has no idea about what is actually going on in terms of music being performed at venues of a capacity of less than 200 people?), and it’s nice […]

Imagine you’re hungry, starving even. Then someone comes along and serves you up a delicious stew containing every flavour you’ve ever enjoyed.
It might just be that I’m peckish just now but that seems to me as good a way as any of summing up this terrific record.
The analogy, crap as it is, does genuinely stretch […]

Pancake Mountain!
http://www.pancakemountain.com/clip16.html

On the basis of this new EP (recorded with Aerogramme/Arab Strap/Franz comrade Geoff Allan), Glasgow’s Cayto truly are a band of two halves. The title track is queasy prog-fuelled indie-pop that offers a very brief nod in Muse’s direction; and ‘Lost Property’ treads a similar, if more schizoid/menacing path. Interesting, if a tad […]

No Hope Astronaut are new kids on the alt.rock block - “four lost souls” from Kingston-Upon-Thames who create music for “the disconnected, the isolated and the disaffected”. They’ve been lumbered with the slightly confused/confusing sobriquet ‘the pioneers of alternacore’, and this dubious tag highlights their conflicting influences. Caught between a(n edgy, indie-)rock and […]

For quite possibly the first time in living memory, something TRULY FUCKING EXCITING is happening in my town….
Harvest Time presents…
PALIMPSEST FESTIVAL
An all day event of new music and outside folk sounds.
Saturday 13th August, 2PM-11PMAll Saints Church, Jesus Lane, Cambridge
Featuring performances from:
Alasdair Roberts [Drag City]Josephine Foster [Locust]Mi and L’au […]

The Britpop revival that’s currently well under way has thrown up some fairly unpleasant new bands lately (mentioning no names …); fortunately My Luminaries aren’t one of them. After meeting at Reading Art College back in 2001, they’ve taken their time to emerge blinking into the sunshine, but it has been well worth the […]

I’ve been listening to Joeyfat’s album The house of the fat a lot lately. It really is very good indeed. Go and buy a copy.
That is all

A short (12 songs in under half an hour), sweet CD album, with clear, intelligent, well-spoken lyrics pushed to the fore, backed with richly melodic, simplistic guitar and some perky drumming. At times it verges on the jangly indie-pop side of pop music, with hints of Heavenly - perhaps due to the presence of Peter […]

This initially comes across as a mellow, gentle album; ever-so-slightly jazz-infused pop tunes played with finesse and that sense of playful style which comes across in bands like The Auteurs, Arco and Pulp. Indeed, the vocals are ‘very Pulp’ - dry, deep tones delivered knowingly with a cheeky edge. But then! It picks up, augmenting […]