Everything Everything was recommended by Howard, the record shop proprietor, who said something like "They're poppy, but there's ... more to them than that." And I think that's pretty accurate. They're quite, I don't know, arty, I suppose, in the way someone like Interpol is. They remind me more than anyone of ¡Forward, Russia! because of the ( Read more... )

A few years ago, my brother bought me an album call "Songs in the key of Z," full of so-called outsider music. Music that clearly appealed to some people, and spoke to them, but what might just strike other people as frighteningly bizarre and odd. The whole alternating capitalization of tUnE-yArDs should have been a hint that this artist's brain ( Read more... )

I'm not sure whether or not I'd heard of Laura Marling when, a few weeks ago, a colleague pointed out that she was playing a gig in Guildford Cathedral, literally a couple of minutes from where I live, and that tickets went on sale the next morning. I'm always happy to go to a gig on a recommendation, especially if it is just round the corner, but ( Read more... )

The name "Smoke Fairies" makes me think that it's an instruction, but I suspect that's not the intention. This one was picked completely at random, by my girlfriend, without either of us knowing anything about the band or the style of music. It reminds me more than anything else of early Heart. Whenever I say things like that, I do feel like a ( Read more... )

Part of the reason I've fallen a bit behind with posting weekly is that I bought this Sonic Youth album, part of their self-published SYR series of typically more experimental stuff, and have not really got round to trying to give it a proper listen. I'm not sure I've really done that now, but it's probably time to move on ( Read more... )

Oh, a month since I have posted, but I have been buying records at roughly the requisite rate, and even listening to some of them. The next on the list is a band I had heard of - My Morning Jacket - but somehow supposed that they were some kind of young-person's emo band. I wasn't quite right in that judgement, which I guess I made based on the ( Read more... )

After a slight disappointment last week, I went for a newish album that I knew I'd like (because I'd heard it several times, and seen the band live) and figured I should actually buy the album. I'm sure I'd never had bothered to listen to Caitlin Rose, it being badged "country" if my colleague hadn't offered me a free ticket to go and see her play ( Read more... )

Bon Iver seem like one of those bands that people tell me I'll probably like, and I never get round to listening to. So I finally got round to it last week, when their new album was featured in the new albums shelf of the record shop. I've tried reasonably hard to like it, listening a few times, even though I didn't like it the first, then the ( Read more... )

I like this album. I can't confess to being aware of the band until reading a positive review of them in the paper the other day, but when I saw it on display in the record shop, I talked about them with Howard, who didn't seem overly enthusiastic about them, but said they were quite good - a bit like a girly Strokes with Phil Spectorish ( Read more... )

When I went into the record shop this week, Howard was playing the album D by White Denim. I'd never heard of them, but they sounded kinda fun. A bit psychedelic, I thought. I browsed through a few things. There was a new Vetiver album out. Another band I'd heard of, but didn't really know, so Howard played some of it, but it sounded a bit too ( Read more... )