Chart round-up: like bad déjà vu
You’re probably not old enough to remember it now, but there was a time when indie didn’t rule the world with an iron fist, and those times looked a lot like this week’s singles chart»
Articles
TinPanAl has written the following articles:
Clarky Cat - Sightline
Sometimes when you’re hungover to shit the sound of yet another generic indie outfit peddling their wares just dances a jig of absolute despair over your scattered senses»
Gruff Rhys project bears fruit
Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys has assembled an odd cast of collaborators for his new project Neon Neon.»
Richard Youngs - Autumn Response
Richard Youngs’ latest long-player feels like a bit of a slog even as it impresses with the boldness and originality of its vision; it's a record dominated by Youngs’ disorienting vocals»
Why you being a dickhead for: Kate Nash hits out at her critics
It’s up with the most controversial couplets of all time. When Kate Nash sang “You said I must eat so many lemons 'cos I am so bitter / I said ‘I'd rather be with your friends mate 'cos they are much fitter’” a nation fell in love, fell about laughing and vomited into its collective cornflakes»
The Weekly DiScussion: Whose side are you on?
Side projects are traditionally a rum old do but this year's changed all that. Here, Alex Denney reasons why having a bit on the side is no longer a guilty pleasure. In his sights: Panda Bear, Grinderman, Von Südenfed, Sunset Rubdown and more»
Free Blood - Free Blood EP1
Free Blood holds your gaze in a way that says “I may be indie but I’m also sexually direct in a way you could never hope to understand”. As such, I both want to touch it and am innately suspicious of it»
Holy Fuck - LP
The best moments on LP share a panoramic quality which, while not exactly being rocket science, is an intoxicating high all the same»
Velofax - Velofax
Remember that moment in Big when Tom Hanks sleeps with that woman in his bunk bed and you suddenly remember he’s supposed to be 12? Velofax is like that moment...»
Chart round-up: grief-stricken parents
Journey South crush all who oppose them at 107 with ‘What I Love About Home’. Who remembers Journey South then? I do, they haunt my dreams every night.»
The Weekly DiScussion: Don't Stand So Close To Me
With rumours of Razorlight's imminent split proving greatly exaggerated, DiS takes a look at what happens when egos go bad, fall off shelves and just generally ruin our favourite bands. In his sights: Pink Floyd, Paul Weller and The Jam, The Clash and, of course, Well Known Sex Freak Sting...»
Canon Blue - Colonies
Part sweeping electronic collage, and part humdrum singer-songwriterly trawl, Colonies fulfils neither criteria particularly convincingly...»
Enon - Grass Geysers and Carbon Clouds
If at times in the past Enon have sounded like the kid at school who put his hand up for every question only to give the most fantastically erroneous answers, this is the record that sees them lose their milk teeth and sprout fangs...»
Robert Wyatt - Comicopera
Robert Wyatt grapples with weighty issues while using an unpretentious approach that retains a certain lightness of touch, making Comicopera a consistent pleasure to listen to...»
Chart round-up: grief-stricken children
If the charts were a noise this week, they would be the squeaky rasp of a slowly-deflating balloon at a child’s birthday party where a gin-reeking dad has just attacked the clown on suspicion of ogling mummy’s breasts.»
Sky Larkin - Molten / Keepsakes
’Molten’ doesn’t sound particularly arsed about pleasing you at all, which is brilliant, since please you it almost certainly will, just in a way that doesn’t go waving its ridiculous pouting arse down the high street while everyone looks away embarrassed...»
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Random Spirit Lover is a record that both suffers and benefits from that tendency in a certain strain of modern indie of using a too-rich sonic palette. But as with so many of the best albums in rock, the beauty’s in the overreach...»
Pete and the Pirates - Knots
The idea of using post-punk for nefarious pop ends seems a little old-hat these days, but Reading’s Pete And The Pirates are fast becoming one of the sub-genre’s finest practitioners...»
DiScover: William
Punk-funk. There’s a name we’d pay never to see in print again. But if you take the aforementioned epithet, loosen it at the bolts a little, add a pinch of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s quixotic brilliance, and some killer tunes to boot, you get South London trio William, and chances are you’ll be seeing their name in print plenty over the next year or so...»
You And The Atom Bomb - The Spirit Of Things
Busting out at the seams with clever-dick time signatures, new wave-y melodies and a seemingly psychotic aversion to repeating passages of any description, Bristol quartet You Me & The Atom Bomb are a fine thing to behold...»
Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
Smokey Rolls… finds our pied piper of neo-folk more mellow, a little paunchier round the gut, visionary instincts dulled to a comforting glow. Maybe it’s time to give the beard a trim...»
Chart round-up: not much brewing
There’s a twinkle in Sean Kingston’s eye as he spends a fifth week atop the single charts, the stirrings of a title assault on Rihanna’s ten-week crown perhaps in evidence.»
Shocking Pinks - Shocking Pinks
It’s the queasy balance between flick-knife aggression and more conventional lovelorn ruminating that gives The Shocking Pinks an unexpected depth which transcends the occasionally indifferent songwriting...»
Tepr - En Direct De La Cote / Minuit Jacuzzi
'En Direct De La Côte' arrives amid a blaze of flailing synths, yuppie sax refrains and shameless slap bass twanging away with all the satisfaction of a hearty tug on Samantha Fox’s thong...»
Keane to sound 'Chronic' on new album
Keane have suggested rap veteran Dr Dre could be a massive influence on their new album.»
Franz, Girls Aloud do Bowie for BBC comp
A 40-year anniversary compilation of covers for Radio One will feature a Franz Ferdinand and Girls Aloud collaboration on a David Bowie track.»
Edwyn Collins - Home Again
Blessed with a lucid production job and backed by a sympathetic band, Edwyn Collins does much to remind us of his clout as a pop writer almost without peer...»
Sex Pistols: back for sloppy seconds
The Sex Pistols return on November 8 with a performance at London’s Brixton Academy, ahead of the 30-year anniversary reissue of their quaint classic Never Mind The Bollocks.»
Zavvi buys out Virgin Megastores
Zavvi Entertainment Group has today completed a management buyout of the Virgin Megastores UK and Irish chain from Virgin Group.»
Chart round-up: Fiddy takes his ball home
No doubt some will see it as evidence that good always triumphs over evil, but personally I’d go for the less ambitious ‘average will always triumph over shit’ – liberal poster boy of rap Kanye West has trounced 50 Cent into the dust.»