London 21 November 2017 Over the last couple of years, Blues Pills have toured tirelessly and worked hard to become a big crowd-pulling concert act filling out large venues across Europe. So it was a bit of a surprise when they announced a rather intimate show at the small Jazz Café in London, but no surprise when the show sold out.
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Bristol 1 December 2017 Tucked in to the stage edges, Modulus III were a threesome of dual synthesizer drums and the rub of a cello, they cruised through some lovely motorik hypnotics. Musically siphoning their inspiration from a multitude of ports, but safely jutting out of entrapment, they notched up plenty of fireworks.
London 23 November 2017 “Dunkel. Dunkel ist die Nacht“.i It is most certainly dark tonight, the evenings now well and truly drawn. The winter solstice approaches. And, as is customary for such astronomical phenomena, we are gathering together tonight to celebrate by watching the rise of the strange, intense sun that is Laibach.
Bristol 30 October 2017 Motion in Bristol was home to two giants of the alternative music scene on the day before Halloween this year. The weather was clement, the venue opened on time and the mighty Godspeed You! Black Emperor had brought along friends and fellow sonic travellers Bardo Pond, so we knew we were in for a full on evening’s treat.
London 21 October 2017 On 21 October 2017, I was lucky enough to go see Frank Iero And The Patience at Omeara in south London. I did not arrive in time for the opening band, Paceshifters, unfortunately, but I did make it for the second half of the The Homeless Gospel Choir.
Apollo Victoria Theatre, London 1 October 2017 For the last five years, a growing audience of podcast listeners have been being amused, entertained and just plain weirded out by the small-town cosmic absurdism of the mighty Welcome To Night Vale – community radio from a little town somewhere in the desert
London 11 September 2017 Dark clouds were brooding all day before Coven’s first ever show in the UK. AS I left the tube station the heavens opened and a monsoon like shower sent everyone on the street running for cover. I braved the downpour and ran to the entrance of the venue where a few other soaked individuals were also huddled trying to get in. A large clap […]
London 12 August 2017 Téléplasmiste appeared through the crowd, all leper bells and bagpipes, before standing behind their modular bookcases like spiritual telephonists bending a self-help guru’s words into slurring stutters
London 27 July 2017 Our Black Heart, on a dingy sidestreet in the middle of Camden, is rapidly becoming one of the capital’s finest purveyors of underground heavy music. Not only does it once a year double as the command centre for Desertfest‘s weekend-long celebration of all that is doomy and stoned
London 27 July 2017 Growing up in North Carolina with a fair amount of Baptist and other mountain church influence, I have been no stranger to shape note, or square hymn singing. It’s a strange old thing which the London Sacred Harp group has perfected for the here and now.
Trinity Community Arts, Bristol 8 July 2017 On a roasting Saturday, a beautiful day in July, the wonderful Trinity Arts community centre hosted the juggernaut that was the fourth Bristol Psych Fest. Squeezing two dozen bands into one day on two stages was quite a feat to attempt, but seemed to go incredibly smoothly.
London 22 June 2017 Hindsight can be a famously cruel opponent. On the freezing New Year’s Eve of 1961, The Beatles drove all the way down to London from their native Liverpool amidst swirling snowstorms and treacherous roads. The following day, whilst the nation sipped delicately at some Alka-Seltzer and nursed its collective sore head, The Fab Four fired up their Vox amplifiers
London 14 June 2017 ‘Are you going to see Kings X?’, the guy in the pub says to me. ‘No, I’m going to see a band called Blood Ceremony at The Garage’, I reply. ‘They sound a bit weird to me, mate’; and with that he shuffles off, pint in hand.
Bristol 26 May 2017 The stage may have dwarfed her stature, but Little Annie‘s cabaret queen antics were larger than life, completely over-spilling the place. Cloaked in Eastern silk, her waist a blaze of African bracelets, Annie’s hoarse vocal was something to be treasured – both warm and vibrant, bursting with wit
London 11 May 2017 There’s a scene towards the end of John Carpenter’s turbo-charged 1982 creature feature The Thing when the titular metamorph – just before being blown to shit by Kurt Russell’s vengeful sticks of dynamite – writhes and transmutes in all its slimy, gory glory.
Bristol 12 May 2017 French violinist Agathe Max warmed things up with a stunning set of looped riches, her bow floating with the gymnastic gait of a trapeze artist as she filled the canvas with different textures and tonal depths.
London 4 May 2017 Einstürzende Neubauten are a band very close to my heart — indeed, they reside in tattoo form on my left arm, so it’s literally a matter of inches. So I am delighted when, having given up on seeing what’s billed as a Greatest Hits set due to lack of funds, I find out at the last minute that I’ve been assigned to cover it for […]
London 28-30 April 2017 Friday GP: It’s the one date on my calendar that I look forward to each year. Three days of having my ears pummelled by some of the heaviest bands around and a chance to see some artists perform in the UK for the first time, this is Desertfest. Across five venues in three days, Desertfest takes over Camden Town with heavy guitars and . Every year […]