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Long before country music crossed over into the mainstream and the pedal steel started cropping up on every record you swung your lugholes at, five Saskatonians were making the sweetest roots music you could imagine in Saskatoon, one of the few cities in the world named after a berry. Those five men went by the [...]

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After last year’s bumper crop of albums, 2011 has again been a mighty strong year for alternative music, with a mixture of old favourites and feisty new pretenders to the throne releasing a sensational string of albums, from PJ Harvey’s Mercury winning “Let England Shake” to EMA’s bleak and heavy post-grunge debut. But in the [...]

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New Music: Family of the Year

9 November 2011
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Now we’re not saying the mainstream record industry is full of short-sighted, one-eyed idiots, but it’s a funny thing how no-one seems to have picked up on the vast chasm – no, the gargantuan void – just crying out to be filled by a guy/girl group playing smart pop music with guitars and harmonies. It [...]

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Gig Preview: Givers, Concorde2, 6 November

6 November 2011
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Givers are, without doubt, not your quintessential pop band. The Louisiana five-piece’s tendency to eschew traditional pop song structure on their debut album “In Light” had reviewers thrilled and perplexed in approximately equal measures, thanks to the boldness of its songwriting approach. Here was a band willing to take numerous detours within a four minute [...]

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Interview: We Are Augustines

30 October 2011
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Bill McCarthy, singer, guitarist and frontman of Brooklyn three-piece We Are Augustines stands at the front of the stage, drenched in sweat, and smiles. “A rock’n’roll show, yeah?” he grins at the front row of Brighton’s Old Market venue. And he’s right, it is a rock’n’roll show. Bouncing around the stage with the enthusiasm of [...]

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Gig Preview: Communion feat. Nimmo & the Gauntletts, The Hope, 27 October 2011

24 October 2011
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Fresh from playing at the Duke of York’s with the inestimably lovely Emmy the Great, the band’s mentor of sorts, the equally lovely, quirky and ultra-talented Nimmo & the Gauntletts head up October’s Communion line-up at the Hope. If you missed the band’s previous performance at Communion earlier in the year, the redemptive music gods [...]

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Gig Preview: Noah & the Whale + Being There, Brighton Dome, 18 October 2011

12 October 2011
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It’s always tempting to talk about Noah & the Whale’s musical trajectory alongside those of Mumford and Sons and Laura Marling. All part of the same scene, it was Charlie Fink’s Noah who first came to the public’s attention, releasing three singles on Young and Lost Club, and hitting the charts with “Five Years Time” [...]

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New Music: Israel Nash Gripka

10 October 2011
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Anyone who hasn’t had their classic American songwriting cravings sated by Ryan Adams’ recent album release, may care to swing their ears briefly in the direction of a new kid on the alt-country block. You might not immediately associate the name of Brooklyn resident and songwriter Israel Nash Gripka with rootsy, countrified rock’n’roll music, but [...]

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New Music: Oh Minnows

5 October 2011
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Anyone pining for some retro space-age synth pop in the continued absence of Empire of the Sun might very well enjoy the new project of ex Semifinalist Chris Steele-Nicholson, whose new solo effort is a luxurious audio treat of laid-back pop glossiness. Don’t be fooled though, where EOTS were big and shiny, taking the kitsch [...]

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Gig Preview: The War on Drugs, The Haunt, 16 September

13 September 2011
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With sometime band member, collaborator and fellow sonic adventurer Kurt Vile making inroads into popular appeal in the last year, it’s good to see The War on Drugs gaining some critical acclaim of their own with new album “Slave Ambient”. Their previous long-player, “Wagonwheel Blues” had plenty of densely raw roots rock moments, particularly the [...]

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