Unexpectedly Unforgettable: Orla Gartland Live Review
Orla Gartland | Live at Cyprus Avenue
21 July 2022
It didn’t take long for my girlfriend, Elen, and I to choose Orla Gartland’s gig at Cyprus Avenue to fill an evening during our holiday in Cork. She was the only artist we had heard of performing that week. A marriage of convenience undoubtedly, but one that would become unforgettable. We knew about Orla from our previous unlikely trip to Glasgow to see indie-pop and YouTube star Dodie. Orla is in her band, and I thought ‘Dodie wasn’t exactly my thing, but there was a good atmosphere, and this could be fun.’ We arrived at Cyprus Avenue just
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“Introvert”: The Mind-blowing Opening Track to Little Simz Fourth Album
Little Simz | Introvert
9 April 2022
Little Simz sprung back into the limelight on 21st April 2021 when she released the first single for her upcoming album Sometimes I Might be Introvert. “Introvert” is a mind-blowing and tumultuous self-reflection discussing her political awakening and internal struggles. I find the latter most impressive, with Little Simz delivering her bipolarities between being an artist and a person: “Simz the artist or Simbi, the person.” It is a peek behind the curtain of one of the UK’s best rappers, revealing the tortured soul behind the genius. After everything Little Simz has achieved, it is heartwrenching yet understandable to hear her
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Tranquillity in Chaos: Easy Life at Truck Festival 2019
Easy Life | Nightmares
7 April 2022
I adore the chaos of Truck Festival, held every year just half an hour from my home and sometimes named “the UK’s most warped village fete.” I stagger from mosh-pit to mosh-pit with the people I care most about under the fog of several cans of cider before settling down to chat with new friends long into the night. Yet 2019 was different because, on a stacked line-up including Foals, Wolf Alice, Jonny Marr, and Two Door Cinema Club, me and one of my friends were most excited for the intensely chilled out indie-R&B and hip-hop band Easy Life.
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“It’s All Good”: A Change of Perspective with Biggie Smalls
Biggie Smalls | Juicy
6 April 2022
I was a middle-class teenager growing up in a small town in Oxfordshire, a position of absolute privilege 3,400 miles from Brooklyn, when a school friend decided to take issue with my music taste. At the time, it was limited exclusively to the work of other middle-class teenagers from the home counties. That day after school, he sent me a link to “Juicy” by Biggie Smalls, an artist I was totally ignorant of. From the opening monologue, Biggie Smalls transported me into a different world, sharing his experiences a million miles from my own. Teachers promising him he
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How Chris de Burgh Reimagined the Nativity
Chris de Burgh | A Spaceman Came Travelling
23 December 2021
On the first Christmas, the bright Star of Bethlehem guided travellers and wise men to the stable where Jesus Christ was born, or so the Nativity tale states. Precisely what the Star of Bethlehem was is unclear: a supernova, a comet, a “great conjunction,” or an alien spaceship burning as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. The latter is the theory posited by Chris de Burgh in “A Spaceman Came Travelling.” It is a Christmas song of epic scale and ambition, and restraint. While telling the story of the spaceman coming down and meeting Jesus and his mother, de Burgh’s
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My Love Affair With House Music
808 State | Pacific State
4 October 2021
I am first and foremost an indie music fan, and I think about 90% of my listening is held within the constraints of the indie genre. As a teenager, I started to look slightly outwards and began listening to John Kennedy’s X-Posure Radio X show. At 10 PM one night, he played a track that blew my mind. John Kennedy is a regular DJ on the predominantly indie radio station, Radio X. He plays a bit of everything, but most importantly, it is brand new. Every indie artist in Britain worth their salt has had tracks played on John
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“We Skipped the Light Fandango”: The Greatest Opening Verse in Music History?
Procol Harem | We Skipped The Light Fandango
29 September 2021
“We skipped the light fandango Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor I was feeling kinda seasick But the crowd called out for more The room was humming harder As the ceiling flew away When we called out for another drink The waiter brought a tray” I don’t listen to a lot of 60s music, I probably can’t name more than a handful of 60s bands. They are the kind of tracks you hear on a radio station once in a while and never pay much attention to. Sometimes though, they are used to perfection in film and TV, forcing me
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Spector’s Reeperbahn and The Best Gig of my Life
Spector | Reeperbahn
22 September 2021
It was a warm summer’s evening when I queued outside of Scala in London for my first proper gig. I was sixteen and my brother had managed to secure tickets from a stranger on Facebook to see my favourite band at the time: Spector. When Spector eased into ‘Bad Boyfriend’, an overwhelming sense of belonging washed over me. The room yelled back the lyrics louder than any PA system, and I could finally see how much this band is loved outside of my close friends. The track I remember most that night was ‘Reeperbahn’, because of the way the
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