MARK DAVISON

Review: Warpaint – The Fool

27th October 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

Even a cursory search for Warpaint on the internet turns up some truly terrible descriptions of the LA-based girl group, including such categorisations as 'wooze rock', 'experimental art rock' and, worst of all, 'magical psychedelia'. In truth to get a good idea of the band's sound, all you have to do is look at their collaborators. The well-connected group (among their former members are the actress Shannyn Sossamon, sister of...

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Review: Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

12th October 2010 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

A few years ago news of a new Sufjan Stevens album would not be met with such anticipation. Not that there was a lack of interest, as Stevens’ popularity grew steadily with each sensitive, folk-tinged record he put out, but rather due to him being extremely prolific, after all many music critics and fans took his desire to write an album for all fifty of America’s states at face value....

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Review: The Pixies at The Troxy, London

10th June 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Out of the many band reformations currently going on, The Pixies' might well be one of the strangest. During their original run in the late 80s and early 90s the alt-rock legends quickly descended into acrimony and in-fighting splitting up before they could reap the rewards of their innovative sound. Now their reunion continues into it's sixth year (only one year short of the band's original lifespan) and they have as...

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Review: Yeasayer at Koko, London

1st June 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

The current trend for everything 80s is in full effect at Koko this evening, with the mix of people on the dance floor downstairs clad in an assortment of day-glo colours and checked shirts (the crowd who avoid the scrum by hanging out on the balconies are generally more sensibly dressed, but a fair amount of them were probably old enough to be wearing this...

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Review: Joanna Newsom at the Royal Festival Hall

12th May 2010 | 4 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

When it comes to articles about Joanna Newsom, there are several observations about her that seem to practically be compulsory to mention. These include: how attractive she is (which indicates how sexist music and music journalism can be as rarely is music performed by men judged on how attractive or not they might be); her elven, fantastical appearance (or in recent interviews, an attempt to prove the opposite and that...

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Review: The Magnetic Fields at the Barbican, London

25th March 2010 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The Magnetic Fields aren’t your average indie-rock band, not least because of songwriter and band mastermind Stephin Merritt declaring his disdain for the genre in the concert’s accompanying programme notes, but that by putting on an entertaining, witty and intimate concert, they actually manage to achieve the impossible and get a London audience to shut up and pay attention.

Even before the band enter onto the stage, there are clues as...

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Review: Yeasayer – Odd Blood

25th February 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Brooklyn hipsters Yeasayer came to prominence among the Pitchfork reading crowd with their debut album All Hour Cymbals in 2007. Mixing Prog-rock instrumentation with Afro-beat rhythms and a general sense of doom-mongering, it’s hardly surprising that they didn’t reach a wider audience beyond that, despite high profile tours with the likes of Arcade Fire, MGMT and Bat for Lashes. In fact, after the brilliance of their live-show where the bizarrely...

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Review: The Magnetic Fields – Realism

8th February 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Marking the return of prolific singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephin Merritt to the band he is best known for, Realism is the third part of the band's (fairly self-explanatory) 'no synth' trilogy, started with 2004's I.  Since the band’s early days as a synth pop outfit, The Magnetic Fields have come to be known for both their literate lyrics and sheer ambition, as best demonstrated on their most-well known record...

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Review: Owen Pallett – Heartland

26th January 2010 | 2 comments | 3 people like this

It's customary for every article on Owen Pallett to start by mentioning some of the high profile artists he has worked as a string arranger for, something that Pallett himself seems to have little problem with, considering both the vast list of well-known names mentioned in this album's acknowledgements, and the fact that the second track opens with a blatant lyrical reference to Arcade Fire. Now, with the release of...

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