Previews

I love indie-pop. I love it’s apparent simplicity. I love it’s sunnyness. I love the fact that when it’s done well it’s just so fucking catchy. I love it’s non-muso-ness. I also love it’s history and the fact that it never really changes. From Seapony, Beach Fossils and Tennis to late 90′s exponents Belle and Sebastian (my  [read more...]

Every so often as a reviewer you stumble onto a band that makes you think “How did they slip under my radar?” Last year one of those bands was undoubtedly Public Service Broadcasting, and it just so happens to fall in my favour that I get to repeat the experience over again. Love Thy Neighbour  [read more...]

Princess Chelsea’s music is a bit kooky. Right, got rid of the K word in the first sentence as I didn’t think I could get through an entire preview without using it and wanted to get it out of my system. With many artists kooky comes across as an excuse for desperately striving to be  [read more...]

Individual, thoughtful and passionate, Chris Wood is one of the UK folk scene’s biggest hitters. Inspired by the guitar work of Martin Carthy, Wood first made a name for himself playing in a duo with melodeonist Andy Cutting, before releasing his first debut album, The Lark Descending, in 2005. Wood, who also plays the violin  [read more...]

In my younger days “Madchester” was the first music scene that I understood and connected with. Happy Mondays, The Roses, Inspiral Carpets I loved them all. However Dublin where I lived was not exactly a musical epicentre. You could wait years for a band you loved to play, that is if they bothered at all.  [read more...]

Canadian four-piece The Besnard Lakes will be bringing their brand of psychedelic-prog pop to Brighton’s Komedia on May 27th. The band’s latest world tour sees them in support of their fourth album, the impressively named Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO – a sprawling 8-track record that makes you feel like you’re floating through a dream.  [read more...]

Plans are being made. In a handful of sparsely furnished bedrooms, front rooms and practice rooms across Brighton, melodies are committed to deteriorating magnetic tape, wave forms are tampered with and, yes, knobs are twiddled. This night is the launch of Sonic Anhedonic Recording Company, a “label/collective” with roots in various bands from the area  [read more...]

I have to admit going to see The Self Help Group with some trepidation back in February. You see, my music taste runs a little heavier (long hair, widdly guitars and, yes, the occasional bit of spandex) however I was, to put it mildly, blown away by this band.  At the launch of their album ‘Not  [read more...]

The Fresh And Onlys are one of those bands that sound like they’ve been plucked straight out of a 60s American suburb, having been fed a diet of Beach Boys harmonies and scuzzy, Californian pop. In fact, they are relative newcomers who put out their self-titled debut album in 2009. Hailing from San Francisco, they  [read more...]

Ulrich Schnauss grew up in Kiel in Northern Germany. Like many electronic producers he not only loved dance and electronica music but also loved more indie guitar based music. In his case the nascent British showgaze scene, in particular bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Chapterhouse. A move to Berlin in 1996 gave  [read more...]

I know a bloke who despite being a terribly talented writer, couldn’t get himself a publishing deal. All his friends had deals, juicy advances and hung out with Zadie Smith in swanky bars. Eventually he wrote a book about not getting published and yep, it was duly published.  Similarly, in 2010 Ron Sexsmith was featured in a documentary about his own  [read more...]

Half Moon Run is the latest name to hail from the ever excellent Montreal music scene and the band will be bringing their fresh yet familiar brand of Indie rock to the UK this summer. The four piece’s debut album ‘Dark eyes’ is due out in the UK this July, with the first single ‘Full  [read more...]

With seven albums under his belt it seems that the Texas born (raised in Venezuela) folk singer Devandra Banhart has renewed his eclectic sound and even banished that beard! In an exploration of the some-what subdued, his eighth album ‘Mala’ depicts the sad echoes of ruined affection. During the early years of ‘Oh Me Oh  [read more...]

Trying to research a band called Scott and Charlene’s Wedding causes you to have to trawl through a raft of Neighbours related ephemera. My eyes are sore with mullets, my ears with Angry Andersen (apologies to those too young or better culturally enriched to know what I am on about). I persevered through tales of  [read more...]

Out of all of the old skool hip-hop groups and rappers that are on the comeback trail The Pharcyde is the one that jumped out at me. Along with the even more nuts Cypress Hill, and coming along in the midst of West Coast Gangster Rap, they seemed at the time a two pronged weed-ridden attack  [read more...]

Not since seeing UK duo AlunaGeorge at The Great Escape last year, I am again raising my eyebrows at the prospects of enjoying electronic pop fused alongside female vocals. Across the pond, their counterparts MS MR from New York, also a boy/girl duo, are playing one of four UK dates with a visit to The Haunt.  [read more...]

Last year the Great Escape had an Irish band day at The Albert. It was dull. Dublin’s Fight Like Apes will make up for that, they’ll eat your Lydia Lunch and throw it up in your face. MayKay can have the voice of a banshee being dragged through barbed wire. No-prisoner, in your face fantasticness.  [read more...]

Everyone at Brighton Noise shouts out for Moon Duo. Last June we were part of a big turnout at the Green Door Store. Right now they’re travelling around the earth at enormous speed, with gigs across Australia, Asia, the US and Europe. This mass of orbital activity could account for their LP titles: ‘Escape’, ’Mazes’  [read more...]