TinPanAl has written the following articles:
Rock’s always been a little in awe of poetry, but rather like King Kong’s indelicate fumblings with Fay Wray, attempts at consummation usually mean it’s time to get the tanks in. One More Grain get around the problem by being not entirely either»
The first solo project to emerge from alumni of the on-ice Field Music project, David Brewis’ School Of Language debut Sea From Shore strips his former band’s sound of its instrumental niceties and hacks away at the remains like some kind of demented post-structuralist hairdresser»
Radiohead’s appearance at number 30 with ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’ strikes me as so important I’m going to devote a whole paragraph to it, but it’s not a very long paragraph, and in fact by the time you read this it will most likely be over.»
Benefitting from a roomy, graceful arrangement that tips its hat to a Big Music past without ever succumbing to scuffed-knee histrionics, 'That’s That' is the sensual yin to Bono et al’s pornographic yang»
"I’m really indulging a lot of very long-standing old interests of mine. Monsters, the death of saints, stuff I was into when I was a kid. John Darnielle talks about The Mountain Goats' new record and why baring your soul is hard work, actually»
Poor Radiohead... number one for the whole week on the midweeks then the singing hairdresser pips them at the post. They might be able to turn an entire industry on its head and bring EMI to its knees but they are POWERLESS to the might of Universal's TV advertising budget.»
A lumpen, bloozy slog redolent of ‘Blue Orchid’ with added Townshend power chords, 'i>Diamond Hoo Ha Man' is as tragically ruinous, in its way, of beer bellies blighting the once rakish frames of indie pin-up boys.»
In which Robyn sports a hairdo daring to revisit bleached bog-brush nightmare that was Roxette in their pomp-rocking heyday, while lusting after a man that looks like Preston off Celebrity Big Brother. The Ordinary who»
More so than the titular obfuscations which most immediately mark eighth LP Distortion as a departure from previous work, it’s the knowing affect in Merritt’s songwriting which continues to equally curse and bless The Magnetic Fields»
Leon Jackson still refuses to budge from his nest of strange non-sequiturs and laughable key changes at number one with ‘When You Believe’. Still, at least it's not the Eastenders Christmas special.»
Single of the Week... on which British Sea Power roll their eyes and offer an implicit, ‘don’t mind those guys with the pitchforks, they’re just jerks’, and clank hefty tankards with our Slavic chums in high style indeed.
Read more reviews of this week's singles here»
”Start your own currency, make your own stamp” is the helpful advice Björk proffers on new single ‘Declare Independence’. Tsk, doesn’t she know fascism begins at home»
Sex, Death Cassette sounds like the breathlessly-edited trailer for this year’s summer, pieced together with an adman-turned-director’s instinctive flair for fizzing fragments of bombast and disdain for narrative coherence»
Q: What’s more fun than writing a news story half-drunk on Pimms and lager?
A: A Yeah Yeah Yeahs remix of The Hives, that’s what.»
Like William Blake with a dirty mouth, Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum’s a flaming visionary, the opacity of his verse outweighed by the sheer visceral force of his imagery»
Genre-hopping, mouth and trousers hip-hop-esque star M.I.A. has had a good year. Kala has topped many best-of charts and here, its author takes time to discuss its formation and Cambodian couch-surfing»
Stern of visage and pneumatic of feet, 'This Rhythm' is great, populist future-schlock along the lines of New Order and Gary Numan, blessed with an uncannily Prince-like vocal turn from Late Of The Pier frontman Samuel Dust»
The Kills have revealed details of their third album to be relased in Spring next year on Domino.»
Manc indie rockers of some renown Elbow have released details of a new album and tour in Spring next year.»
Bloc Party have denied speculation their new album will continue where recent synth-driven single ‘Flux’ left off.»
'Lips Are Unhappy' is all icing and no cake, but it’s still a vituperative romp roughly in the vein of Camera Obscura tossing limp-wristed snowballs in the direction of The Housemartins’ raw potato heads.»
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting so fat both its ankles have broken and all the other fowl have begun to peck at its flesh. This goose is miserable, and it’s got a date with your dinner table.»
Berkeley trio Gowns' debut album positively groans with portent, like some forbidden text pronouncing heretical truths pressed into hesitant hands to be read, half-fearfully, away from prying eyes»
Having recently roused legendary NY no wave label ZE Records from an eternal sleep of reissued former glories, their debut is a minor revelation, a lost relic of an era, one of the few avenues unsacked by post-punk’s insatiable appetite for the new»
There’s an emerging truth about Penate’s dubious artform, and that is the more muted his breathless brand of infant joy appears on record, the happier everyone else is, just as a child’s excitement at seeing his father return home from work must occasionally jangle on his overworked nerves.»
The Ghost of Christmas Past haunts the charts this week, with classics of yesteryear from Mariah Carey, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, Wham! and Wizzard all reminding you of happier times and, by implication, what terrible people you’ve all become.»
‘Drive Away My Heart’ is more the sound of The Strokes jamming on a schooner in the Med with Rod Stewart popping out of his leopardskin undergarments»
David Thomas Broughton has magic to spare, lost in the disquieting quiet of a metafolk reverie, an utterly unique live act that’s equal parts avant-folk vanguardist Richard Youngs and Buster Keaton»
There’s something innately depressing about the very notion of a fourth single from a middleweight indie band’s lukewarmly-received second album, a pre-emptive melancholy that Maximo Park’s ‘Karaoke Plays’ unfortunately plays right into the hands of.»
Like a tweecore approximation of ‘80s Pulp and a sulking Damon Albarn sucking on his bogeys after being sent to his room for emptying cereal packets onto the floor searching for toys»
