rescuing musical virtue in distress.
When you look at the singer-songwriter, perhaps the purest form of modern music, it is easy to think that nothing has really changed over the 50 or so years since its late 60’s/early 70’s boom. But that is a fairly short-sighted way to view things. Okay, the genre, if indeed it can actually be seen... Continue Reading →
Some might say that it is a bit early to start thinking about Christmas, but perhaps with the way that this year has gone it is only natural to want to have something to look forward to. And anyway, Christmas With You is about more than just Christmas, it is about nothing less than love.... Continue Reading →
The very thing that makes singer-songwriters often all sound the same is actually the thing that sets them apart. In recent years the middle ground between the mainstream and the more cultish underground scenes has been awash with skinny-jeanned, gap-year troubadours, usually in wide-brimmed hats, trying to impart their wisdom on the listener and seduce... Continue Reading →
With a name such as The Castlebuilder it perhaps comes as no surprise that the message here is one of unity. Drawing on the experiences of a life lived in three countries and also the world that passes by his current Twin Cities window, this debut single is both a wonderfully simple and powerfully poignant... Continue Reading →
Music is at its best when it becomes one with its subject matter, when it evokes the very essence of the thing it I trying to describe. To do so the sonic platform being built should reflect and embrace the lyrics it supports or in the case of purely instrumental music, such as this, it... Continue Reading →
Any musician worth their salt will tell you that what they do has no final destination, that albums and gigs are just way-markers, that the whole thing is a continual journey, a long learning curve with no finish line, not one that actually means anything at least. And right from the off Brazil sounds like... Continue Reading →
In a world where roots music seems to be going through a watering down process to try and make it seem “cool” to the “kids,” where words like alt-, anti- and post- get attached to generic labels which have done the job just fine for years, Sam Lewis is like a breath of fresh air.... Continue Reading →
We like Nelson King here at Dancing About Architecture, of course we do, just look at the amount of times we have written about his music. But of course the real test of a musician's worth comes not so much in the studio but in the live arena. Of course there is an art to... Continue Reading →
It’s always great watching acts grow to fulfil their full potential. It’s one thing to have good songs, and Ben Sydes has never had a shortage in that department, but it is tough to deliver the song that is in your head when you are racing around the country in a solo, plug in and... Continue Reading →
Folk is a big word. Okay, not physically big but the connotations of such a label are certainly broad having to take in traditional, Arran sweater sporting, finger in the ear folkies through indie re-inventions to the dream-like folk-pop of the modern age. And whilst Jim Chorley’s latest release certainly echoes with a 60’s sensibility... Continue Reading →
There probably was a time when there wasn’t such a thing as a singer-songwriter but it was a long time ago. And over all of those years since then, from medieval troubadours to 60’s Greenwich Village agitators to the modern pop guitar slinger, little has changed in the format. And why is that? Well, because... Continue Reading →
Books and covers eh? Looking at the band name it would be easy to think that you are about to encounter something a bit synthy, a bit dancey, a bit electronic and experimental. After all I did. But as Fortified emanates from the speakers you realise that it isn’t that at all. In fact it... Continue Reading →
It feels almost like getting the full set. I’ve recently had music in from both Tamsin Quin and Phil Cooper and as this little pop-folk triptych seem to swirl around in various matched and mixed combinations popping up on each others records or playing in each others bands, it seem entirely right that I have... Continue Reading →
Even though it is demonstrably not true, I have been tarred with a reputation for hating covers of songs and those who make them. But I will say that if you are going to attempt a song already in the popular canon, especially one as well known as this, then you need to be either... Continue Reading →
One of the things about being a largely labour of love site is that I can pick and choose what music I cover without worrying about following fad and fashion or pandering to big names and breaking acts to keep the wage bill covered. It also means that unlike many sites who get bogged down... Continue Reading →
Genres will only get you so far. The most interesting and revolutionary art attacks are made by people who have either torn up the rule book or perhaps never knew that there was a rule book to be followed in the first place. I feel that the wonderfully named Lounge Act Jam was never given... Continue Reading →
Usually, in the context of music reviews at least, when I stumble across someone who warrants the label “multi-disciplined” it is often nothing more than an artist who perhaps plays in a covers band, writes their own songs and maybe does the occasional bit of acting on the side. Damion Sharpe however is more than... Continue Reading →
“I need a cigarette, those fuckers talked over my whole set,” I love this album already and that’s after just the first two lines. There is something in that wonderfully honest couplet that really resonates with the world I work in, that reminds us that away from the big events of the big bucks, throw... Continue Reading →
This tender little musical morsel has graced these pages before, in fact its was the first review of the year and it was easy to fall for its numerous musical charms, then as now. The delicate lilting grace, the line it walks between gentle honesty and a more tongue in cheek look at relationships and... Continue Reading →
I have to start by addressing the elephant in the room. When someone you recognise from one creative field turns up in another, usually, as in this case, a recognisable actor making music, it suggests one of two scenarios. Either they have become so recognisable that their agent has calculated the laws of diminishing returns... Continue Reading →
Much like last year's wonderful e.p. Homeless, which marked Fred Abong’s return to music following a prolonged stay in academia, Pulsing is a stripped back and often stark affair. As before, it is a collection of songs forged largely around guitar and vocals. The former is pushed through all manner of brutal and raw effects... Continue Reading →
When it all boils down to it, music generally falls into two categories, music intended to make you listen and music intended to make you move. There are obvious examples in the genres of music, classical is music to listen to and absorb, while pop and dance is for the feet, an expression of joy.... Continue Reading →
I’m always drawn to creative people bucking trends and Bluebird ‘64's mission to release ten, full, 10-track albums over as many years is a wonderful and outsider undertaking in these days of bands dropping one single every couple of months. The Bird On The Branch kicked things off last year and true to his word... Continue Reading →
Rarely have a I heard such an intimate album as this, you’re invited into a closed world, a snap shot of music played out in real time, almost as if the music is being made up on the spot and being revealed as and when things happen. This is the music of Ben Bedford and... Continue Reading →
It says something that in the three years since With Wolves The Lamb Will Lie came my way it has never yet found itself filed alongside its fellow musical platters but has remained lurking in rarefied company next to the stereo all this time. That speaks volumes especially in a house that sometimes feels more... Continue Reading →
The instrumental pieces on The Humors, the second full-length album from NYC-based freelance guitarist Ryan Dugré, are meant to create mood and space. Drawing influence from film music, sparse scores such as Neil Young's music for Dead Man, as well as the more melancholic pieces found on Marc Ribot's Silent Movies, Ryan's music is graceful and meditative. Dugré composed the majority of the record in... Continue Reading →
Fans of Dublin duo Morrissey & Marshall will not only be familiar with the type of music the boys play but will also be familiar with the songs on this album because they’ve rerecorded their 2014 debut album ‘And so it Began’ but in a stripped back acoustic fashion. Now this is all may sound... Continue Reading →
For a man who has spent most of his career as a saxophonist, composer and producer in more avant-garde and psychedelic circles, Always All Around You seems to follow some classic and conformist lines. Not that that is in anyway a bad thing, of course it isn’t, the very definition of the term classic is... Continue Reading →
No one likes a joke more than I do. We’ll maybe my brother, my neighbours, the postman and the local amateur dramatics society. Okay, most people like a joke more than I do but I have to say that this cool little parody from David Schipper was not only wonderfully mirthsome and well thought out,... Continue Reading →
It is nice to know that in this world were a lot of rap and hip-hop has been dumbed down to mumbling bedroom wannabes talking in street tough cliches over the same off the shelf meandering beats, that occasionally you can still stumble across something which reminds you of the golden age. Call of War... Continue Reading →