Tracks - page 28

When I was leaving university, I had an idea that I would start a music magazine or fanzine of some kind. I wrote off to as many music labels as I could find addresses for,...

It was raining this morning, it’s raining now, and doubtless it will rain all evening. What better time, then, to find this slice of pure pop sunshine from Flyte, and its remarkably, painfully, joyously, cheesy,...

Favourite Elbow album is not an easy choice: I was originally going to go with Leaders of the Free World in support of its underdog status as the album that should have launched Elbow into...

Listen - forget your Sons of Lumineer Mumford thump-thump-holler-thump folk renaissance. Gather ye round the campfire; bring your uke, bring your flute, borrow a string section, and let’s have us some low-key harmonies and delicate...

Four years after her first recording for Weathervane's Shaking Through series, Sharon Van Etten returned with Torres to record 'New Skin', a version of which will appear on Torres' forthcoming album.

It’s possible that we’ve heard the last of Doves. No formal announcement of any forever split has been made, just that the band is currently on hiatus. However, with frontman Jimi Goodwin enjoying a stadium-sized...

Out of nowhere comes the first single from Ramesh, formerly lead singer of the sadly now defunct Voxtrot. Unsurprisingly, and very much in the traditional fashion for a lead singer breaking out...

I don’t normally pay much attention to the Brit awards, but in 1999 I was delighted to imagine the look on Pete Waterman’s face when he found out the words ‘Belle & Sebastian’ were written...

Stop the press! Stop the press several days ago!

The Eels dilemma rears its head once more…

So ethereal is Hope Sandoval’s presence on occasion that the thought of her being less here brings to mind the Cheshire cat, fading until nothing was left but his smile. In hope’s case, it wouldn’t...

What’s to hate about Morrissey, really? He’s puckish and mischievous, but he’s pretty harmless. When he pops out from his LA home now, it’s usually just to say something oh so controversial, with a wink...

Two guys with charmingly English and idiosyncratic names (J Willgoose, Esq and Wrigglesworth), who sample archive footage and chuck electronica, banjos and krautrock over the top maybe doesn’t sound like a recipe for greatness. When...

There’s something almost impossibly melancholy at the heart of Wilco at their best that makes me go all nostalgic and misty-eyed. It happens whether they’re singing about universal truths or an America I could never...

Apparently, while I wasn’t paying attention to what’s trending, Wolf Alice were busy being the most blogged about UK artist of 2013. I guess that’s the sort of thing I’d have noticed had I spent...

I will always have time for a particular brand of fun, bouncy, inoffensive, twee, light and breezy indie pop, especially when female vocals are involved (see Club 8, The Cardigans and many, many more). I’d...

I listened to this and its follow-up, Gang of Losers, extensively for a couple of years. Since then… not so much, but dusting it off again now I’m easily drawn back into the taut menace...

Southampton’s finest; extremely under-rated. Nearer Than Heaven from their début album Faded Seaside Glamour is as good as it gets, but their second album just about shades it overall. Brilliant melodic indie disco fare, as...

'More going on in The World Could Turn than meets the ear: an intriguing combination of old-timey piano and spacey sounds; the 12-tog string section and a lovely horn outro... beautiful.'

What is there to feel, listening to Elliott Smith now, other than sadness at the tragedy of a life cut short? From his early scratchy recordings, all the way through to XO and then Figure...