spawk has written the following articles:
Volume 3 is essential listening and another triumph.»
I keep wondering if I’m broken. It’s not that I don’t react; it’s just that it never seems to be quite the way we’re supposed to. In popular culture, someone gets bad news and they throw up. They sink to the ground. Their face crumples. Cue t»
If you’ve ever seen Songs: Ohia live, you’ll know there’s time to anticipate every note in your head, and savour it when it’s struck, or strummed, and sung; time enough to realize that everything’s deliberate, every line is crafted with care. Every slight change in delivery, too, reminds us the songs are living things, and every change in the words (a He to a She, say) is a matter of including someone else in these archetypal narratives...»
A sad chapter, but it’s an epic story. Keep reading. »
Like Zidane, Mogwai’s second soundtrack is one of their most vital releases in years; a collection of fully realized pieces that could be the closest they’ll come to an unplugged album.»
Pedestrian Verse continues the trajectory of its predecessor, but whereas the charm of the first two Frightened Rabbit albums was an urgency that didn’t allow for polishing, and the third sounded more expansive, the impact of the fourth comes from the quality of the songwriting. »
Sounding big may be a pretty good way to get a support slot with the biggest bands in the country and, in time, the world, but after a point you need more to say. »
Guided by Voices's third record of 2012 re-unites the line-up who made Under the Bushes, Under the Stars (1996). »
If Transcendental Youth is the best thing The Mountain Goats have ever done, it’s only because it’s about five per cent tighter and better-played.»
Michael Gira: “The Seer took 30 years to make. It’s the culmination of every previous Swans album, as well as any other music I’ve ever made…”»
Bonnie “Prince” Billy, RE-ISSUES: Ease Down the Road (2001), Master and Everyone (2003), Greatest Palace Music (2004), “Now Here’s My Plan” EP (Domino, Jul. 23 / 30)»
Over the course of 70 minutes and 16 tracks, David Lynch’s combination of lap-steel, processed vocals, and subliminal synths is genuinely captivating, and varied enough that even if 'Mr Lynch' were a complete unknown plucked from the slushpile, he’d get favourable notices somewhere.»
Early Day Miners were the great slowcore / post-rock crossover band of the past decade. Now re-branded as EDM have they truly re-invented themselves, or simply re-shuffled with a few new cards to play?»
Make your own argument what punk is, was, and should be. The materials are all here. »
If Spencer Krug wants to keep the fans guessing – mission accomplished. If he really wants to lose them, he’s going to have to try a lot harder to stop writing those tunes. »
In a nutshell, this record sounds like Can, Neu!, or Harmonia with the acid-freak ranting replaced by a torchsinger (which is a good nutshell to be in).»
The Celestial Café collects the diaries of Belle & Sebastian's frontman, and lyrical genius, Stuart Murdoch, from the years the band toured the world. »
Our Lost 10 of '10 list rumbles on with Alexander Tudor's pick...»
If Marnie Stern feels she has less to prove, and less to say right now, then there’s still plenty to feel, and she’s more than deserved a chance to stop analysing and just express some joy.»
It’s 1978. Tom Waits is still a Nighthawk at the Diner, yet to embark on his game-changing Frank’s Wild Years Trilogy. Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are about to trade one-take / lo-fi folk for synth-gospel. Bruce Springsteen dominates the airwaves with»
This album isn’t a step forward for Les Savy Fav, and Root For Ruin is marginally less vital than Let’s Stay Friends, but LSF are a step forward for the music we grew up with, so keep listening; these are our songs. »
There’s a track on Marnie’s forthcoming record called ‘Female Guitar Players Are the New Black’, which (for the moment) has a rather delicious ambiguity to it. Does she mean something like John & Yoko did, with a certain cringeworthy song, o»
DiS went to Summer Sundae last weekend. We had a stage and everything. Here, three DiS scribes share their highlights from the weekend that was...»
Hawk is the most energetic record yet from the pair, with several pointers towards the sound of the enduring record they may well have in them. »
Admiral Fell Promises is another set of exquisitely detailed portraits of places and people, bound by no compunction to invent a narrative or moral (which can easily kill the realism), but just to keep alive the time you shared, to honour the person, or the spirit of the place. »
With Tony Doogan producing, Wintersleep have added strings and brass, and for tension-building effect, gone back to the scratchiest riffs to start songs rather than diving straight in, as before.»
Last year, Jamie Stewart’s solo shows proved that less can be (frighteningly, excoriatingly) more, because one man onstage – s»
Fans of Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown, Destroyer et al. make magnificent third album. Available to download now, or pre-order CD (due April 27th).»
IT'S BACK: DiS' Alexander Tudor gets a first listen to The National's forthcoming album, High Violet.»
Having de-camped to Buenos Aires, and taken on Neil Young’s producer (David Briggs), The Bad Seeds could have been succumbing to rock-star cliché, but Cave found all new inspiration in the favelas, where the local buskers played a kind of stripped down, acoustic murder ballad – improvising their lyrics over frantic, percussive, chordal guitar playing. In 1992, The Year Punk Broke™, they sounded like no-one else (as the sleevenotes point out), but they also managed to be more punk than most grunge bands, showing up the banality of the fashion-sense, the narrowness of the musical pedigree, the superficiality of the production values. »
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Drowned in Manchester #15 – May 2013
armchair dancefloor 39: Mount Kimbie interview, Bobby Browser, Powell, Move D, Leon Vynehall...
DiS meets John Lydon - Part 1: The Man
DiS Does Singles 20.05.13: Paramore, Laura Marling, The Replacements
DiS joins the Music Alliance Pact + May 2013's global MAP compilation
Drowned in Bristol #12