The Wind Up Birds From: Leeds, United Kingdom The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be ...

Learning how to play a new instrument could really broaden your range, and help you becoming a better musician. For example, if you sing and play guitar, you might try learning percussion. You dont have to become a great percussionist, just take a few lessons or workshops. Youll notice how you begin to feel rhythm differently, and how it helps you groove a little better. But the biggest advantage is being able to articulate what you want from the other musicians more clearly. If you know what its like to play percussion, and you know some of the techniques, you ...

The Wind-Up Birds are from Leeds. They are named after a book by Haruki Murakami. They use good Yorkshire words like owt and nowt. They write songs about independent record shops, the reality of life, the monotony of work, and escape. They sound like the Fall stalking Art Brut in The Wedding Present's library. It's somehow fitting that, in the month that the Centre For Creative Arts launched their impressive project to release John Peel's record collection on-line, a gang of indie throwbacks, for whom Peel band would be a badge of honour, release their long awaited ...

Artist: Black Moth Album: The Killing Jar Released: 2012 Style: Stoner Rock Format: MP3 320Kbps / FLAC Size: 88 Mb Tracklist: 01 – The Articulate Dead 02 – Blackbirds Fall 03 – Banished But Blameless 04 – Spit Out Your Teeth 05 – The Plague of Our Age 06 – Chicken Shit 07 – Blind Faith 08 – Plastic Blaze 09 – Land of the Sky 10 – Honey [...]

Inocente The Job [Cumberland, Sunday April 29, 1:30 pm] The primary scene of this documentary is a French corporate boardroom of a job recruitment agency that pits a panel of headhunters against a ten job-seekers of varying ages and job experience.  As the perspective changes between four static, strategically-placed cameras, the viewer gets to observe the often-tense situations the job candidates go through over the course of two days. With the two days entailing entailing role-playing, mock debates and intimidating panel discussions, candidates are often confused with the techniques and at times even feels border-line demeaning. But there is ...

In recent times, the city of Leeds has been producing a clutch of bands, such as Pulled Apart by Horses, who crank their amps loud and play hard, leaving venues across the UK a shaking mess of blood, sweat and rattling teeth. The latest troupe to come from this newly emerging hard-rock hub are Black Moth , who this week drop their own stoner/desert rock inspired juggernaut The Killing Jar . As well as current geographical pedigree, the band have also drafted in Grinderman and Bad Seed member Jim Sclavunos on production duties to add further weight to their sonic barrage ...

Weasel Walter has been on my to-interview list since I started Heavy Metal Be-Bop, which is now in its second year of interviews with musicians who help bridge the gap between jazz and heavy metal. Not only is Weasel Walter a voracious, articulate, and exceedingly well-informed champion of both free-jazz and extreme metal—you need his [...]

He’s crap at painting, and shit at sculpting, yet Jeremy Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 with just a map of thoughts. Jeremy Deller is a modern maverick who thrives in uncomfortable situations. He dragged the exploded wreckage of a Baghdad car bomb around America to foreground a grim reality lost on TV. He insisted a brass band plays acid house anthems as an oblique unearthing of political subtext. Whilst many see his obsessive reenactment of the Miner’s Strike flash point ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ - replete with ten thousand actors, policemen and former miners in a brutal ...

First up, a couple of truly stunning transmissions from Evan Caminiti. Slated for release later this month on the impeccable Immune Recordings, Night Dust represents the undoubted high-point of his solo output thus far. Recorded purely to four-track, and Read the full story on DrownedinSound.com

Sean McCann & Matthew Sullivan Vanity Fair [Recital; 2012] by Matthew Horne Rating: By this point, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who is familiar with Sean McCann’s or Matthew Sullivan’s output that their newest record would be a tough one to pin down. Vanity Fair , like much of their oeuvre, is top-notch drone and clearly beautiful, yet when it comes to expressing exactly why Vanity Fair and its contemporaries are so engaging, words don’t offer too much help. This doesn’t sit too well with me. I hear moments in Vanity Fair , the second release on McCann ...

With "Tung," "Hertz," and now "Bong," Deniz Koyu is beginning to articulate his own distinct style -- a musical identity, as it were. Why is this important? Call it the Afrojack model.

In his brilliant, if bitter book ‘Bad Vibes’, Luke Haines traces the birth of what went on to be know as Britpop to the Select magazine of April 1993, the one with Brett Anderson of Suede on the cover striking a coquettish pose against the back drop of a union jack. The text of the ‘Yanks Go Home’ article was about combating the influx of American grunge music by supporting home grown bands that specialised in ‘Wit, glamour and irony’. Almost exactly a year later, notes Haines, Kurt Cobain killed himself and with him the domination of America music. If ...

I have a secret. Sometimes, when I’m walking home from work listening to music on my headphones, I fantasise that I’m in the band, singing or playing the songs. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, the fantasy almost always involves impressing someone. It's a childish thing to do, and I’m sure even an amateur shrink would have a field day with that information. I like to think its something everyone does or has done and kept it as a little secret, like pulling faces at themselves in the mirror or enjoying the ...

I have a secret. Sometimes, when I’m walking home from work listening to music on my headphones, I fantasise that I’m in the band, singing or playing the songs. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, the fantasy almost always involves impressing someone. It's a childish thing to do, and I’m sure even an amateur shrink would have a field day with that information. I like to think its something everyone does or has done and kept it as a little secret, like pulling faces at themselves in the mirror or enjoying the ...

Oberhofer is led by 21 year old Brad Oberhofer, former resident of Tacoma, Washington, now a New York Brooklynite and up-and-coming musician who creates shambolic yet melodic indie anthems. Sipping on a cup of hot tea and honey, Brad Oberhofer is trying to wake himself from a well deserved nap after a very long day two days of promotional activity and a recent long haul flight from Coachella (which he - after a quick stint in Paris - will be returning to). He sits back on the sofa in his Letterman jacket, glad to hold something warm in his hands after his ...