NAF: BROKEN RECORDS / Until The Earth Begins To Part

Broken Records are a band I’ve heard snippets of recently and have been looking forward to checking out. They were on my Hinterland shortlist, but I ended up being somewhere else during their timeslot, and it turns out the played Tut’s just two days ago, so it seems I’ve missed them again. Never mind, to […]

NAF: GRIZZLY BEAR / Veckatimest

Bloody Nora! How’d you sum your first impressions of an album like this? It’s just so full of music that I don’t know where to start. In fact, if the vague impetus behind NAF was initially to convey that first-listen feeling of your newly purchased piece of plastic, this particular entry is going to suck. […]

Return of The Fist

For reasons that only a few people will understand, but which will take too long to go in to here (next time it’s a dark and stormy night, ask me to tell ye the tale…), I found this discovery by the Vandermeers in their latest expedition in the incredible repository of paperback entertainments, the Chamblin […]

Microcosmos

Really, really, REALLY enjoyed Nina Allan’s “Microcosmos” in Interzone#222. It’s thoughtful and immersive, and builds a complicated family backstory around the young narrator through hints at things unspoken and things that are spoken being not fully understood. Loved it. This issue of the magazine was one of those quirky, varied issues that just throws stuff […]

NAF: CAMERA OBSCURA / My Maudlin Career

It’s the Friday afternoon before the late May bank holiday. The sun’s shinin’. And we’re in the mood for something light and breezy to while away the last few working hours before the long weekend. Just as well the new Camera Obscura’s new release is on the feature rack in FOPP. My Maudlin Career carries […]

NAF: ZOEY VAN GOEY / The Cage Was Unlocked All Along

Okay, this week’s New Album Friday album is a bit of a cheat because I’ve had the album in question for almost a week, but it’s simply so good that it deserves to be featured. The thing about Zoey van Goey, as anyone who has seen their live performances can tell you, is that whatever […]

NAF: DREVER, McCUSKER, WOOMBLE / Before The Ruin

No “new” album today, but this one is new to me and comes recommended by Mike Gallagher, a man who knows his contemporary folk/rock crossovery kinda stuff. Like it a lot. The folk elements shining through in the instrumentation and voicing of the songs bring the album a mellow, chilling with a whisky in front […]

Hinterland

Okay, now I’ve got my brain back I’m going to attempt to summarise what I got up to at Hinterland Festival on Friday. In essence, I pretty much saw everything I planned to, although there was an early evening scare when the printed timetable had Isosceles on at a different time from the pdf I […]

NAF: THE BROKEN FAMILY BAND / Please And Thank You

Not overly acquainted with the BFB, but on first listen this album feels more rocked up than some of their earlier stuff. Not that that’s ever a problem for me, but it took me by surprise. May just be a production thing, but either way it’s good. The songs have a nice grungy quality and […]

Hinterland – The Plan

[Sort of] SO. I’ve done the Myspace trawl and found a lot of good new stuff. Which – when you add new finds together with old favourites and acts-I’ve-wanted-to-see-for-ages – makes Hinterland an exciting, if boggling, prospect. At the moment, my key plan looks to be like hanging round the Arches/Classic Grand end where I […]