Features
17 May 2012
Review | Beach House
Bloom, Beach House, Sub Pop Though they’ve been around for eight years, it feels as though on the music scene Beach House are barely saplings, deemed by the blogosphere as indie darlings and suddenly thrust into the direction of our collective wayward gaze. Their 2010 album Teen Dream put them on the map, the unexpected affections of Beyonce & Jay Z towards them led to whispers in circles not ordinarily associated with scaled back dreampop duos and with the release of their appropriately titled new album, Bloom, their success is set to grow. (more...)17 May 2012
Review | Friends
Manifest! Friends, Lucky Number, 4 June OK. There just has to be something in that East Coast water. For Manhattan and co., it seems commonplace to bear some of the finest fruits to fall from the trend tree. Does JD Samson quite literally sit around all day in some chic studio pad overlooking Madison Avenue banging out rhythmic hits with the Phenomenal Handclap band? No doubt, Deee-lite are still grooving in the heart with their club cool sounds further down the hallway whilst Grandma Funk is rapping at the door with some feisty spats and mama-knows-best guitar licks. It’s one hell of a party but a party that Brooklyn’s freshest and sassiest quintet, Friends certainly conjure up through such a virtuous debut. (more...)16 May 2012
Introducing | Lizzie & the Yes Men
What do you get when you cross the greying landscape of ‘This is England’ with a spot of French New Wave cinema? It might look a little like the brand new video for the Tarantino inspired, surf pop cool sounds of Brit quartet, Lizzie and the Yes Men. Many a renowned act has been built on the band name formation; Bill Haley and His Comets, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and, more recently, Florence and the Machine. It’s a common connective and a paint by numbers guide to naming your group after maybe, the loyal number based moniker [B-52s, 10,000 maniacs] and the timeless letter trick, your Bony M’s and your Jessie J’s. But, does a plus in your band name equal a top score of hits? (more...)16 May 2012
Introducing | Beaux Saunders
Photographed by Gem Hall for the girls are. If the early twenty-first century can be summed up in one unfortunate phenomenon, it’s probably the rise of the over hyped, major label conditioned, spectacularly average woman artist. With her sultry jazz sound, Beaux Saunders serves up a summery sweet anthem in brand new single, ‘Ain’t That Beautiful’ out at the end of this month and is here to prove that there’s more in the term female than just the ‘male’. A fresh faced take on solo artist demeanour and righteous independence in her femme strong lyrics, we caught up with the pop pianist to muse over the London and New York scene of late, how the recession makes for more uplifting chart numbers and chilling back stage with Kings of Leon, baby… (more...)16 May 2012
Review | Garbage
Photographed by Emli Bendixen for the girls are. Garbage @ Troxy, London, 9 May “So what have you been doing in these seven years? What have you loved? What have you looked at? What have you dreamed? You fucking crazy miracles!” Shirley Manson is a fucking crazy miracle. She keeps thanking the audience for their thunderous applause, calling the welcoming her band are getting after an extended break “an unbelievable surprise”, but if she saw herself perform, she too would go crazy, just like the over 2,000 people at this sold out show. (more...)15 May 2012
Review | My Bloody Valentine
Kevin Shields isn’t a man to rush things: taking the phrase ‘difficult second album’ to new, stratospheric heights, My Bloody Valentine’s second full length album, Loveless, was two years in the making and their live shows were - and since their 2008 reunion once again are- notorious for what is known as “the holocaust section” where the band delight and terrify audiences with a half hour assault of white noise. So it’s only fitting that now, seemingly aeons after the idea was first broached, MBV’s two albums have been re-mastered and reissued alongside a compilation of four of their EP’s and a handful of rarities. (more...)10 May 2012
Review | Norah Jones
Little Broken Hearts, Norah Jones, Blue Note/EMI Norah Jones releases her latest record, Little Broken Hearts a decade after she politely yet surely burst onto the scene with her ‘nice-as-pie’ debut, Come Away With Me. Her swoony pop-jazz style that followed has been a hit with the masses and she has sold millions of copies, but her repertoire has often been relegated to background music and she has not always been taken seriously as an artist. Now however, Jones moves away from her previous, somewhat boring label and presents a credible and noteworthy collection of originals. (more...)9 May 2012
Review | Camden Crawl
photographed by Jeff G for the girls are. Charli XCX, Stealing Sheep, Throwing Up, Veronica Falls, Johnny Foreigner, Micachu & The Shapes, The Raincoats @ Camden Crawl, various venues, London, 4-6 May The weather may be crap, but the festival season is open! And though Camden Town is not a field in Yorkshire, it works perfectly for this urban labyrinth musical hopscotch, Camden Crawl. With your wristband, you get a map of the 27 venues packed around the area, and already it feels like a treasure hunt adventure. Apart from an enormous amount of live music, there’s comedy, spoken word, alternative media expo (that’s zines!), a record fair, bingo and quizzes, hardcore bands playing in a church on a Sunday; the whole shebang. There’s even an outdoor stage under the tunnel in Camden Gardens, loud enough to keep the whole neighbourhood awake. If you can handle it, you can do a whole regular working week’s hours, but in two days, and of pure fun. And then still have your Bank Holiday to sleep it off. Who would say no? (more...)9 May 2012
Introducing | Viktoria Modesta
It gives us great pleasure to introduce Viktoria Modesta - a multi-talented, down to earth, and incredibly lovely creative genius who has not only got her finger on the pulse when it comes to her unique take on pop, but also on her own inimitable style. After suffering an accident as a child, Latvian born Viktoria Modesta Moskalova underwent a voluntary amputation to her left leg - before going on to flourish as an alternative model, starring in videos for the like of both Peaches and Paloma Faith. (more...)
9 May 2012
