Since finding myself on the press list for the marvellous post rock and electronica label Fluttery Records (and if you’ve not yet listened to Ana Never’s Small Years, stop reading this and go have a listen), I’ve enjoyed receiving their occasional updates about recent releases. Given I’m getting the music for free, I feel somewhat…
I hate it when you get spam emails you don’t want. Particularly from mailing lists which somehow you’ve found yourself on, don’t remember signing up for, and to unsubsribe from can often be fiddly. Such irritation was to the fore again the other day when I received an email from a record company called Fluttery…
MinionTV, about whom I’ve blogged before, will be releasing a new album in July. I’m a big fan of their music, and absolutely love their first, self-titled, album and their magnificent EP Arecibo. Called The Last Projectionist, it’s something of a departure for them. The Liverpool-based purveyors of beautful, arty post-rock have produced their first…
I blogged last year about Calamateur’s album Each Dirty Letter, and it barely seems like five minutes later that he’s produced another album – The Quiet in the Land. I mentioned in Each Dirty Letter’s review Calamateur’s vocal versatility, comparing his voice to Thom York. Such is his versatility, though, that I am going to…
You may remember me raving some time back about the self-titled debut album by Liverpool post-rock outfit MinionTV. The album was my favourite listen of last year, I think, and its opening track, We Are Ghosts, a magnificent piece of music that remains one of my most-listened tracks of late. You can listen to it…
Twitter is a great way of discovering great examples of the sorts of stuff you’re into, not least music. When you tweet about a certain topic, you will often find yourself being followed by someone who has searched for that same topic. The downside to that is the huge amount of spam on the go…
The new album by Explosions in the Sky came out earlier this week. It’s called “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” and it is excellent. There’s always a special thrill to a first listen of a new album by a favourite band. It has a reassuringly familiar sound but also exhiliratingly different and fresh –…
A while back I had the privilege through a mutual friend of meeting Andrew Howie, otherwise known as singer-songwriter Calamateur. Based in the highlands, Calamateur has churned out an impressive array of songs over the years, and I was lucky enough to be paying attention when it was announced recently that his entire back catalogue…
Some time back I was “followed” on Twitter by MinionTV, an instrumental rock band from Liverpool (who I assume found me in a search for the words “post-rock”). I checked them out and discovered they were right up my street – a thoughtful, energetic guitar/drum sound that I would probably describe as a a slightly…
Well, I say “new”. Pillars was launched in early July, and I was at the spectacular launch event at the Ironworks to see a great gig and pick up my copy of the album (the first physical music format I’ve bought for as long as I can remember). It’s only now, though, that we have…
I’ve been listening quite a bit to Malcolm Middleton‘s Waxing Gibbous and Mogwai‘s The Hawk is Howling since buying them two or three weeks ago. Admittedly, both albums have been out for some time (particularly the latter), but I’ve never exactly had my finger on the musical pulse, even with artists I am a big…
Instead of going to the Maps gig in Glasgow tonight, I am sitting at home listening to the album which I bought yesterday. I guess you’d pigeon-hole “We Can Create” as electro-pop, and is smooth, mellow, catchy and a little bit quirky. The sound is very lively, chirpy pop music, (mostly keyboards and percussions), with…