live review
365 posts
Bristol 29 November 2022 Stereocilia plied an exquisite soundscape of guitar-generated ambience. A beaming iridescence of infinite frets blooming in circling sand, layered up and waspy, later sipping some sweet subterranean gloom splattered in shivering petroleums and graining howl. The back of the guitar’s neck sending thundery quakes on through, slowly airbrushed away on curving twilights as one track blends into another, cuts back into a cascading corrosion […]
London 5 November 2022 The UK 2022: it’s Saturday and it’s raining; not in a Blade Runner kind of way, with neon lights and futuristic vistas, but in a drab way that only the UK knows how to do with aplomb.
London 16 July 2022 Journey’s End is one of those rare “are we really in London” type of venues. A leafy relaxed, creatively crafted affair at odds with the industrialised ugliness of its surrounds, the gig itself taking place in what looked like a reclaimed school hall. UnicaZürn are first up, taking the lead from their new CDR (available on the night, and instantly acquired of course) the […]
Bristol 16 June 2022 Unfortunately got to the venue a little late, but luckily managed to pick up Stereocilia’s set somewhere at the midway point. Fresh from his support slot for William Basinski at St George’s, that guitar of his was ace, caught in a filigree of looped frets, melodically across a series of brooding landscapes. A textually torn building up of layers full of dramatic swings and […]
Bristol 30 April 2022 There is a definite aura of devotion around The Trinity this evening. The old church is hosting a band that boasts a devoted following, some attendees having trekked around after them since their first appearance in the UK back in 1994. While undertaking their world tour, Low have chosen to invite friends and young firebrands Divide And Dissolve as support, which is a homecoming […]
Brighton 28 April 2022 It’s difficult not to use words like “hushed reverence” for a band like Low, and you wonder if someone isn’t very much testing that by hosting them in a lovely church. I’m not sure if we’re “post-“Covid, but certainly being out and about, at a gig with lights and everything, is unnerving. I’m pretty sure everyone’s forgotten how to act in public and the […]
London 8 April 2022 Waiting for The Eggs to show, I notice singer / guitarist Holly Ross‘s Selmer Treble and Bass valve amp, on top of a double-miked cab. This, along with David Blackwell’s extensive drum set on the other side of the stage, all looks very serious indeed. Unfortunately, I cant quite see Holly’s pedals. Since I am ignorant of The Lovely Eggs prior to the show, […]
London 22 March 2022 The original Penguin Café Orchestra was formed in 1972 by guitarist Simon Jeffes and cellist Helen Liebmann. They released their first album in 1976, produced by Brian Eno and released on his Obscure Records series of recordings, and the band gave its first major concert in 1976 supporting Kraftwerk at The Roundhouse.
Bristol 10 March 2022 The acoustic charms of Stroud-based Maja Lena are first up, a songbird sweetness of voice attached to a fingerpicking deftness, that ’60s Yamaha neck dwarfing her fingers, her vocals skipping like wind-blown grass to gentle tonal shifts, then leaping unexpectedly in joyous abandon. The slumbering reflections of her Christmas-themed song reverbing to those silent quilted fields, the matted mulch of morning leaves.
London 22 February 2022 OK, so what with Covid an’ all, I haven’t been to a gig in OVER TWO YEARS (Julian Cope at The Barbican, if you must know, and yes, he was ace, and yes, once again I got lost in the venue for ages because Barbican) so it’s with some trepidation that I venture into The Grace to break this ridiculous losing streak. And while I […]
Bristol, 21 January 2022 This is a pairing of contrasting acts, both enterprising bastions of electronica, one coming from a cinematic sensibility, the other skewing the dance equation.
London, 15 November 2021 The sense of anticipation was immense, bathed in a blue haze, monitors staring out of it like Ewok eyes, the stage remaining empty as the words “Dream the name and I will answer to it” breeze in, tantalised in sparse flickerings and occasional birdsong roughed by the distinctive rub of a cement mixer.
London 13 November 2021 It feels very strange returning (and especially reviewing) live music again after nearly a two-year absence. Some things have changed, but much was the same as before. The big thing was the crowd reaction; and starved of live music for so long, people seemed hungry to see their favourite bands again. Maybe we won’t take live music for granted and support many of the […]
26 March 2021 This pandemic malarkey’s weird as shit, isn’t it? Watching gigs online and all that. Sure, the seats are comfier and the beer’s cheaper, but it’s still a little odd. However, this particular online gig by Wardruna is just what the doctor ordered, what with me not having been able to see anything at all on the one occasion I managed to catch them in the […]
London 29 February 2020 ChopChop’s music snakes round its orator like a slippery thing, cymbals replaced by the clatter of hubcaps on toms, cutlery-jammed guitars – there’s an itchy jazzy vibe to the melodics, fuelled by a fertile imagination full of bruised shapes and punkish angles.
London 12 December 2019 Stepping onto the stage at The Lexington for the final date of their European tour, Holly Golightly and her band look tired but ready to go. Holly welcomes the audience and notes that, as there is an election party scheduled to follow their gig – which was booked months before the vote had been called, of course – that the set will have to […]
London 13 November 2019 Lightning Bolt, once hilariously described to me as “a really talented drummer and bass player showing off” are back in London following the release of their ridiculously enjoyable album Sonic Citadel. Playing two sold out nights in The Underworld, it’s extremely comforting to see upon entering that they’re back where they belong, playing on the floor in a sweaty rock club.