• Pile hitting the road…

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygr-59o8Ulc] The wonderful noise peddlers, Pile, have a couple of announcements: -They are recording a new album this year. Tracking begins in September. -They are on tour, the US dates are: July 21 – Everybody Hits (Philadelphia, PA) July 22 – Mahall’s (Cleveland, OH – HELLO CLEVELAND!) July 23 – Subterranean (DOWNSTAIRS) (Chicago, IL) July 24…

  • Spotify Playlist: Praline

      The economic uncertainties brought by political change, the nastiest of all changes, pulsates fiercely through our minds. “At least we still have music” will the pollyanna-minded ones proclaim. Others will scoff and smirk, thinking that music amounts to a hill of beans in the larger political spectrum. I can’t offer any political solutions. I…

  • The Lost Gem: Absinthe Blind – Rings

      This one I have some history with. Flashback to 2011. It’s late November, the city of Sheffield is the coldest it has felt in ages and the amount of lab work I need to do for my PhD is staggering. On a personal note, things are going a little south in a relationship and it…

  • Review: Psychic Twin – Lose Myself

    “So why Psychic Twin?” “When I was composing and recording these songs [Dream State//Strangers], it felt like there was someone else there, like a twin that never existed but that you could feel.”  I had a long interview with Erin Fein, who is Psychic Twin, back in SXSW 2014. That interview never went published because I could never…

  • Review: Leapling – Suspended Animation

    Usually, the fine music peddled by Exploding in Sounds swerves between pot-infused rock (Pile), post-hardcore (Two Inch Astronaut) and poetry-fuelled rock & ravings (Kal Marks). The closest you get to folk is Palehound. Leapling manages to infiltrate EiS HQ with the pleasing sounds of 70s folk pop, with fine tuning courtesy of chamber pop. That’s an impressive list of label mates and…

  • Video: Palehound – Cushioned Caging

      Dry Food is a gorgeous bay window into the world of Palehound, a folk rock outfit. ‘Cushioned Caging’ is one of the fiercest tracks from this album and now it has a video, directed by teen students from Real to Reel Filmschool and Raw Art Works.  The topsy turvy nature of ‘Cushioned Caging’ and its ever changing moods comes across…

  • Review: Ladyhawke – Wild Things

    It’s a strange beast, the whole 80s revival. It’s been going around for more than ten years and now that the 90s revival is peeking through Venetian blinds, it seems there’s enough of an audience for both to coexist. Even more, the once clear divide between 80s and 90s revival seems blurry at best. Having lived…

  • Video: Sur Back – Trophy Daughter

      Dark, foggy nights on this warm summer night. The city’s cacophony  is a pandemonium today. It’s the holiday season and a myriad rented cars chokehold the city’s arteries. Still, I walk home, humming along. A song bounces with a trip hop demeanor, glitching from time to time as I feel the pavement sink and…

  • Review: Mark Kozelek – Mark Kozelek sings favorites

    This conversation is 95% unedited.  “Uh, so he’s covering that fuckin’ depressing Sondheim song? As if Send in the clowns needed to be more miserable…” “Don’t knock it, it’s a great track.” “He’s gone Rod Stewart on us! Is he singing or rapping like Abe Simpson on ketamines?” “Singing. And I dunno, there’s more to…

  • Video: Molly Anna – Horror Show

      A few clusters of days ago, Molly Anna‘s video for ‘Horror Show’ was released (and managed to get a well-deserved award too!). Under the lustrous veneer of its pop-folk diorama, a darker current underlies the songs from their EP. This is pretty much the premise under Molly Anna‘s music and ‘Horror Show’ manages to engulf…