All the best pop bangers have a yearning undercurrent: think Madonna’s ‘What It Feels Like For A Girl ‘, Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’, St Etienne and ‘He’s On The Phone’. This is also true with R & B- any number of artists, from The Supremes to Solange, mine dark corners of the dancefloor toContinue reading “Album Review: Debby Friday- The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life”
Tag Archives: 2025
Album Review: Allo Darlin’ -Bright Nights
Photo: Jorgen Nordby There’s something sweetly disarming about the new Allo Darlin’ album. It’s the way the organ comes in halfway through the bittersweet country grunge of ‘Tricky Questions’ like a warm embrace. These songs aren’t large or all-consuming, nothing elbows its way in: they take up little space. But they’re slices of life, vignettesContinue reading “Album Review: Allo Darlin’ -Bright Nights”
Album Review: Rival Consoles- Landscape From Memory
What a beauty. The gorgeous, endlessly inventive new album, from Rival Consoles, aka Ryan Lee West, invokes a kind of synaesthesia: you can almost hear colours. It’s textured, layer upon layer, like a kind of complex tromp l’oeil painting in sound. Tracks like ‘Catherine’, ‘Known Shapes’ and the stunning, shimmering ‘Soft Gradient Beckons’ appear likeContinue reading “Album Review: Rival Consoles- Landscape From Memory”
Glasto Queen: Self Esteem at Glastonbury Festival, BBC
It ‘s official now: Self Esteem performed one of the best ever sets at Glastonbury, televised by the BBC. Rebecca Lucy Taylor is now a bona fide pop star, from the moment she sashayed onto the stage with her anti- Handmaids to the euphoric finale with everyone in a conga line, kitted out in SheffieldContinue reading “Glasto Queen: Self Esteem at Glastonbury Festival, BBC”
Album Review: Frankie Cosmos- Different Talking
For over a decade, Greta Kline with her band Frankie Cosmos has been making her own brand of sweetly introspective indie pop, full of wry observations and a melancholic undertow. There’s more of this on her sixth studio album, but with some nice experimentation thrown in. Call it ‘Sad Girl Summer’ if you like. IContinue reading “Album Review: Frankie Cosmos- Different Talking”
Lost In Music: The Beach Boys- Good Vibrations
Another sad day. Yet again, we lose another musical visionary. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys has passed away at the age of eighty two. His story is legendary, full of battles with an overbearing,abusive father and manager Murry, mental health issues and the family association with one Charlie Manson. In spite of this- indeedContinue reading “Lost In Music: The Beach Boys- Good Vibrations”
Goodbye Sly
Sly Stone, aka Sylvester Stewart, has passed away at eighty two. Raise a glass to a true icon, whose multiracial, mixed gender band Sly And the Family Stone influenced everyone from Prince to Primal Scream. Even Pee Wee Herman covered ‘Stand’! Having formed the band with his family in San Francisco, he expanded the line-upContinue reading “Goodbye Sly”
TV Review: What It Feels Like For A Girl
All television is not created equally. Adapted from trans writer and activist Paris Lees’ memoir, and directed by Brian Welsh, Ng Choon Ping and Marie Kristiansen, What It Feels Like For A Girl is absolutely wonderful, a unique account of lived experience. It’s as raw as love bites, hilarious and often heartbreaking. I watched theContinue reading “TV Review: What It Feels Like For A Girl”
Sometimes, More Is Less
Pulp’s reunion has been all over the press here, and understandably so- they’ve not made a studio album in twenty four years. I was so excited to hear the latest fruits of their labour, as Jarvis Cocker is one of the UK’s most astute frontmen and waspish wits. I love the outsiders; the oddballs, theContinue reading “Sometimes, More Is Less”
New Release: Rival Consoles- Jupiter
Photo by Eva Vermandel Jupiter, the brand new single from Rival Consoles, sees the shapeshifter producer Ryan Lee West continue on his singular, spine-tingling electronic trajectory. It’s bold and beautiful, woozy and disorienting, full of hypnotic waves of distortion. It could easily soundtrack the rebuilding of our beleaguered planet, brick by brick. The forthcoming ninthContinue reading “New Release: Rival Consoles- Jupiter”
Hit The North 