rescuing musical virtue in distress.
California indie-pop band The Corner Laughers are back in action — exploring themes from climate change and pastoral ponderings to childhood to the nature of time itself. Temescal Telegraph, the new album out June 5 via Big Stir Records, stands as a lively testament to the longtime band being back in full bloom. After 2015’s... Continue Reading →
For those keen on jumping to conclusions, the connection between current lockdown isolation and the theme of this song will not be lost. Those who dig a little deeper will quickly realise that the isolation here relates more to loss and regret, and to moving on, emotionally rather than the current state of enforced affairs.... Continue Reading →
I’ve been commenting on it a lot lately but I can’t help but be heartened by the amount of artists who feel driven to use their creative channels to comment on the current state of the world. To me, it ha always seemed like a wasted opportunity that having worked hard to get people to... Continue Reading →
Hindsight is an interesting thing. A couple of years ago I was probably still bemoaning the fact that music had, by and large, lost its political bite. That something which had been so potent, from rock’n’roll to political soul-funk, from punk to hip-hop, was now being used to wax lyrical about the most inane subjects... Continue Reading →
Whilst this latest gem from Brighton’s The Academy of Sun feels like it is wandering through the same sort of territory that Nick Cave has explored from time to time, whereas the emotions our antipodean dark lord builds from err towards the bleak and torn, Rose Devoid of Form uses a more elegant, lilting beauty... Continue Reading →
It’s an age old story. A small town girl dreaming of leaving the backwater that she was until now called home and heading to the bright lights of the big city in search of a fresh start, in this case, the glitz and glamour, sun and surf of California. And as BODA narrates the story... Continue Reading →
I think you could make a fair argument for the idea that the more we have embraced technology, in a musical setting at least, the more we have lost something along the way. It might be taking things a bit far to say that the raw passion, the energy, the very soul of rock and... Continue Reading →
After years of being presented with images of smart looking young men with tidy beards, clothing with costs a fortune in its effort to look just thrown on, skinny jeans and a wide brimmed hat, as soon as I saw the picture of Shaun Mykal Walker on the cover of the single, my guard was... Continue Reading →
Although ideas of isolation and abandonment, loneliness and longing have always been subjects explored by musicians, especially those who follow a more alternative path (after all, these subjects don’t lend them self to a particularly perky pop format), the fact that this sophomore release is the product of a band trying to plough their creative... Continue Reading →