TinPanAl has written the following articles:
With his Songs For Christmas five-disc box set out now on Rough Trade, DiS catches up with Sufjan Stevens to natter 'bout his relationship with cars and Christianity, and why commercial festive songs are so much better than traditional carols»
Scout Niblett's folksy numbers are largely tuneless and the grungey numbers are as shapeless as the heavy-knit sweaters the genre’s original proponents shared a sorry predilection for»
'Rockferry' is a rigorous pastiche roughly equivalent to putting Amy Winehouse in My Fair Lady; refined, mannered, but just a teensy bit dull»
It’s gone eerily quiet in the singles chart this week; it is, we fear, the calm before the almighty shit-storm that is the rush for Christmas number one.»
There will forever be a strain of English music that takes tea and biscuits before kicking down the doors of perception, and on this evidence Watford-based solo artist Young*Husband, aka Euan Hinshelwood, is a prime dunker.»
Deerhoof is a wipe-clean board, a musical Etch-A-Sketch on which the San Fransiscan trio can conjure any number of wayward daubings, and as any child of artistic promise will eventually demonstrate, they’re getting better at camouflaging their trails.»
Welding great slabs of end-of-level electro chic onto thwacking indie anthems, Midnight Juggernauts are the band primed to capitalise on Justice’s critical love-in with seductive chart action in 2008»
Its minimal drum patterns and playful touches speak of a deceptive lightness of touch, but The Raveonettes are making plain they know what it is to have lusted and lost, and therein lies the key to the record»
The song’s melodramatic delivery seems faintly ridiculous, as Breed wails portentously "what they don’t tell you is time passes!". Er no, Simon, that’s sort of a given.»
A second, inwardly-fluttering release of corseted demons and sublimated desire from Harvey's bewitching White Chalk album, the sound of slippered feet across candlelit halls or the proverbial madwoman in the attic»
The album charts are about as bare as Harry Potter’s balls this week, save for a few nonentities milling about disinterestedly - seriously, who are these people?»
Like The Buzzcocks running down the street with their pants round the ankles, ‘I Won’t Lie To You’ all but trips over itself to bowl the listener over in a frenzied rush of pop hooks.»
The world’s a grey old place. Why else would God have made Damon Albarn so talented? Gorillaz gave him the impetus to start writing pop songs again, but D-Sides adds nothing to the Blur man's critical stock»
Indie pop is usually premised on a certain cack-handedness in both concept and execution, intended endearingly but more often than not just plain irritating. Thankfully, Jim Noir is a cut above those paint flingers»
Indie noise-mongers ¡Forward, Russia! are to play a one-off London show next month, as they build up to the release of second album, Life Processes in 2008.»
You don’t come to places like this unless you’re interested in magic. Perched atop desolate moors a gnat’s tup away from the wind-battered A66 linking the nation’s northernmost reaches, the Tan Hill Inn is England’s highest pub»
Like the first rays of sun on ice after an arctic winter, Ólafur Arnalds' Eulogy For Evolution strikes a delicate balance between poignancy and lachrymose sentimentality»
This week's charts remind me of a cigarette butt dancing at the bottom of an escalator; I look upon it, and am filled with a sense of the futility of all existence, but, you know, it's poetic and that.»
Clipd Beaks work minor miracles in that hazily outlined gulf between order and chaos; pale sun and dust clouds settling in open wounds, the old ways laid to waste»
DiS speaks to Baltimore based duo Beach House ahead of their forthcoming UK dates to discuss their debut album, Cocteau Twin comparisons and the hating of 'folktronica'»
Once ex-Hefner man Hayman's ...The Secondary Modern’s country-tinged, shambling indie marches have you in their sly embrace, you won’t ever want to let go»
Here, as they say, is a dilly of a pickle: London four-piece Scanners are featured on this fair website this week, in an interview contriving to whet your appetites for their brand of electro-pop-rocking shlock. And I don’t like their new single. I mean, really»
There comes a time in every man’s life when he tires of dissing shallow pop records and craves something of genuine substance. The album charts probably think they offer exactly that, but they don’t. That’s because the album charts are comprised largely of AOR toss.»
A genetic three-way splice of the burlesque chic Christina Aguilera’s been peddling for the last 18 months to a worldwide chorus of ‘meh’s, Alison Goldfrapp’s vampish electro shtick and, quite literally, Feist’s ‘1,2,3,4’»
On ‘Creator’, Brooklyn-based electro starlet Santogold makes her wordless entrance and it’s like having seagulls wheel and circle above only to swoop down to peck ferociously at your bleeding bonce»
Another splendid gothic riff from the creaking top drawer of Glaswegian rockers Sons And Daughters, flashing across your vision like migraine blobs, bass notes yammering away at your brain with stalker insistency»
The band's pictured digging the graves of assorted bands, but they should pause to consider if they’re digging their own»
There are few gigs in this world that leave you feeling refreshed and altogether lighter of being, yet somehow also pondering the benefits a nice wine rack might bring to your happy home, but Rufus Wainwright is one of them»
There’s an interesting drinking game you can play with the new Britney Spears album: take a swig of ale every time Britney does a sex noise, and you're on your back in no time at all»
Apparently, David Shrigley doesn't consider his absurdist doodlings to be particularly funny. The ache in your sides might beg to differ, but you get his point»
