Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

Over the last decade, Animal Collective’s journey has been characteristically bizarre, feeling their way through various shades of psychedelic noise pop. Though what they do is pretty hard to pin down, from the gorgeous psych-folk of Feels and Campfire Songs to the whacked-out madness of Strawberry Jam and 2009’s critics’ choice Merriweather Post Pavillion, psychedelia seems a pretty strong place to start when trying to make sense of it all....

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Mixtape #7

Obligatory summer mixtape, promise I'll be back soon....

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Festival Preview - Latitude

For those of you still bitter about Glastonbury’s obligatory year off, Suffolk’s Latitude festival might just be your best bet. Now in its sixth year, Latitude has rightly made a name for itself in the festival calendar. This year the line-up includes headliners Bon Iver, Paul Weller and Elbow, among other favourites like M83, The Horrors, The War on Drugs, Battles, SBTRKT and Wild Beasts. Music not your thing? Well, probably don’t go. But...

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Laura Marling & Timber Timbre - Manchester Apollo (9th March)

★★★★ “You guys ready to rock n’ roll tonight?” Timber Timbre’s Taylor Kirk asks the steady collective murmuring of a restless support crowd. “…yeah I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Kirk’s extraordinary brand of spooky swamp folk, sounding like a cross between age-old delta blues and the ghost of M. Ward, unfortunately failed to really capture the imaginations of the seated Apollo crowd. As a big fan, I spent most of the set sulking to...

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Breton - Other People's Problems

Though south Londoners Breton take a lot of their sonic cues from the late 90s electronica of Mezzanine-era Massive Attack, it’s fans of the Rapture, Foals and the Maccabees that will be the most pleasantly surprised. It’s dark, pulsing electronica for established fans of indie rock, but there’s more to Breton than being the next NME poster boys. In fact, there’s a lot more. They’ve already built up quite a name for themselves with their talent as...

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The Twilight Sad - Ruby Lounge (10th February)

★★★★★ Having just kicked off the tour with a frenzied show in their native Glasgow, frontman James Graham reminisces: “…we came back to Scotland, and we played in a place called Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, and it was my Mum and Dad, and four of our friends that were at the gig, yet we were in New York the week before, playing to about a hundred-and-something people in a packed out venue”. The journey thus far has not been meteoric, but with steadfast...

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