Music and Miles Fielder

Jazz pianist Dick Hyman in concert

The consummate musician who scored a dozen Woody Allen soundtracks

13 Jul 2009

You may not know it, but you’re probably already familiar with the music of pianist Dick Hyman. A composer, arranger, conductor and music director as well as a consummate player, Hyman’s long and diverse career includes scoring the soundtracks for a…

New York Dolls

9 Jul 2009

Having burned brightly for just a few short years in the early 1970s, seminal glam-punk band the New York Dolls reformed 27 years later for what was supposedly a one-off gig at the Morrissey-curated 2004 Meltdown festival. A rapturous reception from the…

White Denim: Fits

9 Jul 2009

The Texan trio who hit the ground running a year ago with their impressively disparate debut Workout Holiday are back with an even wilder polyphonic follow-up. Appropriately titled Fits, this schizoid record veers from avant punk to psychedelic funk…

Acoustic Ladyland - Living With A Tiger

25 Jun 2009

(Strong & Wrong) Acoustic Ladyland announced itself as something other than a jazz outfit with the release of its 2001 debut album inspired by the songs of Jimi Hendrix. The punk jazz label subsequently attached to the band confirmed founding members…

Dock Life - The Leith Festival

28 May 2009

So what’s The Leith Festival, then? It’s an annual community celebration that takes in comedy, dance, film, literature, music, storytelling theatre, visual art and children’s events – in other words everything. A small affair, is it? Hardly. Its…

Lost Robots - No

5 Feb 2009

EXPERIMENTAL No. Or yes if you’ve an ear for moody, noodly, semi-improvisational soundscapes. If you haven’t, then you’ll think this debut no more than a racket. However, those attracted to more esoteric aural adventures will be rewarded. ‘Beryllium…

Lambchop - OH (Ohio)

30 Oct 2008

After the melancholy of Lambchop’s last album, the illness-inspired Damaged, Kurt Wagner and his band return with a more upbeat – and occasionally up-tempo – offering. Their tenth album definitely has a lighter feel than its gloomy predecessor, but in…

Giant Sand - ProVISIONS

30 Oct 2008

Arizona-bred Howe Gelb has been reconstructing North American country music under various guises and with numerous collaborators for the past 20 years. Almost twice as many records later it’s hard to tell the difference between his solo projects, his…

Mt. Wilson Repeater - Mt. Wilson Repeater

16 Oct 2008

INDIE Named after the mountain that’s home to Los Angeles’ famous observatory, the Radar Bros’ frontman Jim Putnam’s first solo project is an appropriately spaced-out and pleasantly retro-sounding recording. The eleven largely instrumental tracks…

Calexico

4 Sep 2008

‘It’s not what some people have called a return to form, because there are new elements on the record,’ says Joey Burns, singer, songwriter and co-founding member (with percussionist John Convertino) of the idiosyncratic alt.country outfit Calexico.

David Holmes - The Holy Pictures

4 Sep 2008

According to Holmes his fourth solo album began as a cluster of instrumental tracks which lead him into a creative cul-de-sac until seismic events in his life – becoming a dad, the death of his parents – inspired him to pen some personal lyrics and…

Frank Satan In Person

Beguiling and bawdy drinking songs

14 Aug 2008

If you dig Tom Waits, Dean Martin and Hank Williams, then Frank Satan (pronounced ‘Say-tan’) is your man. The long-time alter ego of the Cameo Cinema’s general manager Ian Hoey is back after a lengthy break to regale audiences with a bawdy combo of…

The Wilders

Honky-tonk storytelling with added goatee

31 Jul 2008

As Ike Sheldon, the Missouri-born lead singer and guitarist of the country four-piece The Wilders, likes to say, ‘you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.’ Sheldon’s got the hillbilly sound in him. He can’t…

In control

Samantha Morton

16 Aug 2007

Samantha Morton is in control. The critically lauded, hard working and in-demand British actress plays the long suffering wife of troubled singer of legendary Manchester band Joy Division in the Ian Curtis movie, Control. Fresh from winning the Best…

Preston Pfanz and the Seaton Sands

1 Aug 2007

The marvellously monikered, suited and booted Edinburgh beat combo bring their bracing brand of twangin’, rumblin’ pre-Beatles instrumental rock’n’roll to the Festival with two dates in the capital and a third in Glasgow...

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

2 Jul 2007

When the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks made an off-the-cuff remark at a concert in London in 2003 about the band being ashamed of President Bush coming from their home-state Texas, there’s no way they could have foreseen themselves being subjected to…

Grinderman - album review

Grinderman

27 Feb 2007

ROCK (Mute) Grinderman sounds like Nick Cave and three of his fellow Bad Seeds locked themselves in a dank basement for a week and beat into shape 11 songs in a series of dirty blues jam sessions. Actually, that’s pretty much what happened when…

Dan Sartain - album review

Dan Sartain

27 Nov 2006

ROCK After the rocking good time garage punk, mamba and rockabilly workouts on Dan Sartain Vs The Serpientes this follow up is slightly disappointing. But then the boy from Birmingham, Alabama did set the bar impossibly high with his superb debut.

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

The devil plays guitar

13 Nov 2006

Tearing modesty a new asshole, Tenacious D describe themselves as ‘the world’s greatest rock band’. The D’s two members, Jack Black (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Kyle Gass (lead guitar and backing vocals), name check among their inspirations Kiss, Dio…

Hawk and a Hacksaw, A - album review

A Hawk and a Hacksaw

11 Nov 2006

AVANT GARDE FOLK Jeremy Barnes, late of Leicestershire and recently relocated back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico, former drummer in the influential American indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel, is a weirdo. And possibly a genius. His third album of…

Hawk and a Hacksaw, A - album review

A Hawk and a Hacksaw

26 Oct 2006

AVANT GARDE FOLK Jeremy Barnes, late of Leicestershire and recently relocated back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico, former drummer in the influential American indie rock band Neutral Milk Hotel, is a weirdo. And possibly a genius. His third album of…

Brothers of the Head

(18) 93min

2 Oct 2006

MOCKUMENTARY Brothers of the Head This British mock-rock-doc is something of a curate’s egg. It purports to tell the life stories of Tom and Barry Howe, a pair of conjoined twins who were snatched from the obscurity of England’s southern…

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

2 Oct 2006

This concert film, combining the two nights Neil Young played at Nashville’s legendary Ryman auditorium in August 2005 finds the Canadian troubadour in rude health and sounding as soulful as ever. Amazingly, Young played the two gigs just a few short…