Demob Happy

  FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Californian acid rockers Sleepy Sun follow up last year’s ‘Embrace’ with another serving of massive, sun-blasted riffs. On ‘Fever’, however,  they subvert the dynamics of ostentatious heaviosity by adding some infectious boy-girl folk pop ( ‘Ooh Boy’, ‘Rigamaroo’) and some compelling sonic curveballs that keep the listener guessing to [...]

[Read more →]

Beak>- Beak> 6.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Subterranean bass throbs, some cod-ghostly wailing and vaguely arabesque improvisations on a rusty sounding organ … ’Backwell’ is the opener of the self-titled debut album by Beak>, a new band including Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. With its slighty nauseating retro synths fanning out mechanically over chugging [...]

[Read more →]

Homelife – Exotic Interlude 7/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT The last time Homelife surfaced on my radar was with the 2002 Ninja Tune release ‘Flying Wonders‘, a whimsical and varied hotch-potch of exotic styles that was more than much of the hipster muzak coming out of the label at the time. Whereas [...]

[Read more →]

FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs 8.5/10 Perennial critics’ favourites Yo La Tengo return with an album that reigns in some of the magpie tendencies of 2006′s sprawling ‘I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass’ with a more focused set. ‘Popular Songs’ [...]

[Read more →]

FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Wild Beasts – Two Dancers 8.5/10 On their first album ‘Limbo Panto’ Wild Beasts got painted by some as peddlers of a contrived English eccentricity that was unfashionably arch, all barbershop harmonies and old world camp. While many were turned off by their falsetto front man Hayden [...]

[Read more →]

I never thought it would happen to me but finally I’ve succumbed to external pressures and have been unable to update this blog with any regularity. Firstly, I’ve been concentrating efforts on a new English-language website for my new home town, Grenoble, in south-east France. Secondly, I’ve recently become a father for the first time. [...]

[Read more →]

FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT White Denim – Fits 8/10 Such is the strength and depth (to borrow a football cliché) of music Stateside at the moment that I find myself with three acts on heavy rotation at the moment from Austin, Texas, alone. OK, so Spoon haven’t done anything lately but [...]

[Read more →]

Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle – Bill Callahan 8.5/10 Just as I thought I was tiring of the alt-country/new folk revival, along comes an album – from one of the scene’s relative old timers – of such immersive beauty that I can’t get enough of it. While there is much about Bill Callahan’s [...]

[Read more →]

Dirty Projectors -Bitte Orca 8/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Dirty Projectors are a band so singularly unconventional that I wondered how they had managed to gain so much popular attention – although their recent David Byre collaboration (the excellent ‘Knotty Pine’, from Red Hot’s much admired ‘Dark Was the Night‘ compilation) [...]

[Read more →]

FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Album Review: Magik Markers – Balf Quarry 7/10 Magik Markers are the noise rock duo hailing from Hartford, Connecticut, comprising two core members in Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan. ‘Balf Quarry’ is their first album on Drag City having previously released material on – among others – [...]

[Read more →]