Bristol, July 3rd, 2009 Sometimes gigs just leave you wondering why. Why subject an artist of Howe Gelb’s calibre to the confined, sweaty, and tonight, technically disastrous, Thunderbolt? For over thirty years, Gelb has...
French anti-folk surrealists GaBle´ are back in typically playful mood with new mini-LP I’m Ok. Touted as a response to Daniel Johnston’s Hi, How Are You?, it’s a genre-blurring mix of the folktronica of Tunng, the...
Fiddlers, Bristol June 17th 2009 A Hawk and a Hacksaw (AHAAH), despite being from Albuquerque, New Mexico are obsessively Eastern European in their sound. Multi-instrumentalist and former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer, Jeremy...
It’s been an interesting few weeks; big stretching weeks of dilemmas, minor disasters, and flirtations with decisiveness. My life seems to be at a crossroads: I am sat cross-legged inactive in the middle, letting the dust of a...
AU with support from Frederick Stanley Star The Cube, Bristol, Friday April 24th Luke Wyland and Dana Valatka, the duo that makes up the touring incarnation of AU have not slept. They have driven through the night from Cork to...
1990s live at O2 Second Academy 28 April 2009 Glaswegian trio 1990s released a refreshingly plucky debut album Cookies in 2007; it wore its influences unabashedly on its sleeve and captured the hedonistic glee of drugs and girls...
Nothing much is going on. It was raining when I left the house this morning; it made me both happy and sad. Happy because it actually came as a surprise that it was raining which in turn made me realise and recollect on how nice...
My train ticket from Bristol to Frome read ‘Bristol TM to rome; this typo afforded a grandiosity to my day that was entirely unwarranted. I was not visiting one of the founding cities of Western Civilisation, I was visiting a...
The Croft, Bristol – April 14th 2009 Chicago’s Casiotone for the Painfully Alone aka Owen Ashcroft has developed considerably as an artist in the decade since his debut album. With an array of instruments bolstering the...
Drag City Recordings Having ditched the Smog moniker for 2007’s Woke On A Whaleheart, Bill Callahan emerged more ambitious, eager to try out new textures. Although Whaleheart was a slightly disappointing progression when...