Darren Hayman's January Songs review: part one
DiS's Michael 'michael_w' Wheeler limbers up to review ex Hefner man Hayman's song-a-day January project.»
Articles
michael_w has written the following articles:
Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Bad As Me sees Tom Waits reaching back into his bag of tricks to pull out a few favourites in a characteristically exhilarating, terrifying, heartbreaking, tear jerking, bone-rattling style. »
Richard Youngs - Amplifying Host
Despite rich promise, Amplifying Host never quite manages to meet these enticing expectations. »
Sufjan Stevens at Royal Festival Hall, Lambeth, Thu 12 May
While this should be goofy, it’s not. It’s just glorious.»
Let's Wrestle - Nursing Home
A dark collection of fundamentally flawed human beings continuing to bump into the same walls and trip over the same curbs, laughs or no laughs.»
Bill Wells, Aidan Moffat - Everything's Getting Older
Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat have created a stunning album that assures us of the death and decay that is to come, but equally, they tell us, as long as we are still around, there is life to be lived, and music like this to be heard.»
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Whilst everyone else continues to pelt fellow pastiche merchants White Lies with sticks and dried lumps of shit, I might unfortunately suggest Cherish The Light Years to be an equally deserving recipiant of your faecal ammunition. »
Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
Whilst Build A Rocket Boys! is still ultimately an album that, above all, celebrates enduring friendships and successfully fought-for dreams, it is the intelligent, eloquent and heartfelt balance of light and shade, as ever with Elbow, that gives the music its strength»
Micah P Hinson at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Lambeth, Sun 14 Nov
A night when brevity and restraint reign.»
Various - Tradi-Mods vs Rockers
This brilliant collection becomes more than just a quaint and perfunctory exercise in interpretation, and instead often exists as an enriching ballad to the joys of musical imagination and inspiration.»
DiS meets Let's Wrestle
Over the last few years, I’ve gradually become a broken record when it comes to declaring the brilliance of Let’s Wrestle and the genius of their music. So if you didn’t get their debut last year, you’re probably a fucking idiot. But that’s ok because it’»
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern - Essex Arms
Darren Hayman has crafted another remarkable record out of the most unexpected of source materials, but its brilliance will stick even if you don’t get a little thrill of familiarity by hearing him sing, "the Rayleigh boys, will fuck up all of Southend". »
Timbre Timbre at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London, UK, Mon 27 Sep
Watching Kirk live, you get the feeling that, for all the gothic grace and lurking eloquence of his recorded snapshots, he’d rather be getting deeper into the woods and lost for longer than any conventional song structure would allow.»
The Walkmen - Lisbon
If You & Me was the sound of a band holding on tight to make sure they got everything just so, Lisbon is the glorious expulsion of breath that comes after the win. »
Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep
The 12 tracks of elegant and aching soul-pop sucker-punches that make up Losing Sleep demand your thought.»
Lower Dens - Twin Hand Movement
Lower Dens know when to hold back and when to push forward, how to manipulate the dynamics of a rhythm for maximum effect, when empty space is more powerful than noise, and when noise is perfectly placed to suffocate and exploit an open space. »
The National at Corn Exchange Theatre, Brighton, Fri 09 Jul
Although a fine performance, it is the wealth of quality material that really stuns.»
DiS meets The Wave Pictures
The core elements are there to situate The Wave Pictures in the Stones’ alternate universe, but we’ve been happy (myself included) to have kept them in the box labelled indie-pop»
DiS meets Love is All
Gothenburg-based gonzo twee yelpers Love is All have been charming us something fierce ever since their superb debut Nine Times That Same Song came tunefully screeching out of the special Swedish traps something like 2006-ish. DiS's indubitable Mike Wheeler caught up with frontlady Josephine Olausson vis the medium of email, ahead of a smattering of forthcoming UK dates, including one at Camden's Proud Galleries on the 12th, and at Indietracks on July 24. HERE IS WHAT SHE HAD TO SAY.»
Micah P Hinson at Union Chapel, Islington, Wed 02 Jun
Do we still crave authenticity from our prophets, our storytellers, our troubadours, our balladeers? Is that all we’ve ever really»
The Wave Pictures - Sweetheart
It’s sort of… I mean it’s quite….well, it’s just sort of… sort of indie, I guess…y’know? Really, really good indie. Pop. Indie-pop. Amazing indie-pop. »
LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
Even though this is a fine, fine record, a really very good album without an awful track or even the hint of a real mis-step, it never quite matches the ragged rush of Sound Of Silver.»
The Fall at Keele University, , Sun 02 May
Mark E. Smith saunters into the light all arms and mouth, the former looking slightly too long for his frame in a short-sleeve shi»
Disappears - Lux
It feels like Disappears have managed to kidnap the very essence of what Rock and Roll is, or has ever been, and torture it until it cries out in pain for twenty-seven sinewy, scabrous minutes »
Doves - The Places Between
Ultimately it doesn’t connect as an album in its own right and will only push you quickly back towards the four previous records. »
Love Is All - Two Thousand and Ten Injuries
Love Is All… LOVE Is All, yeah?»
Bill Callahan - Rough Travel for a Rare Thing
It would appear then that Callahan’s soul, like everyone else’s, is still up for grabs, but until the next record indicates what direction he’s decided to take or what road events have forced him down, Rough Travel For a Rare Thing is a darkly beautiful reflection of the continuing struggle. »
Holly Golightly and The Brokeoffs - Medicine County
There’s a chance that Deadwood creator, writer, executive producer and all round driving force David Milch is still pretty sore af»
White Hinterland - Kairos
After listening to White Hinterland and their enveloping, elegant outsider-pop, you can’t help but think that there is a much more interesting female artist trading under a more typically ‘band’ name that people should be paying more attention to. »
DiScussion: Choice Paralysis
DiSser Michael Wheeler ponders whether we should all calm down a little and consider a step or two back from the infinite jukebox in the cloud...»