Marika Hackman's Big Sigh is everything a 4th album should be. Really good songs, good scheduling, sophisticated arrangements (brass and strings accompany many tracks). The album has variety - from the mysterious instrumental interludes of The Ground and The Lonely House (opening sides A and B of my/your bottle green vinyl copy) to stand out singles (Slime, No Caffeine) to epic album tracks (Hanging, The Yellow Mile). It has an impressive musicality and most of all, it has real depth. A truly great album is one you can climb into. Every listen reveals something new. Keep listening and your fav ..read more

Fran Healy and his band Travis have this longevity thing down. Firstly, you must have a love and addiction to music, as something magical. Secondly, that magic is for you to create - making music to nobody’s expectations but your own. But thirdly, you get lucky. As Fran says in episode 3, Season 9: “The chances of a shit kicker from Glasgow going on to win the best band in the world is a billion to one. How can you be proud to be lucky?” Well okay, but as all bands that ever got a break know, you have to be in it to win it. And for 35 years now, Fran has been in it - always mining for that s ..read more

After 25 years in the music business, both as a major label priority artist and as a jobbing musician, Ed Harcourt still has big ambitions.  “My greatest achievement would be to write a song I would never get bored of singing”. Cards on the table, Ed Harcourt’s two instrumental albums made between 2018 and 2020 (Beyond the End and Monochrome to Colour) got me through the pandemic. Well, they certainly helped. But Ed didn’t sing on either, so it comes as something of a relief to have Ed Harcourt back in the world of songs. Not only that, but his best batch of songs for a while - held toge ..read more

Try playing a Crowded House record (any of them) then let Spotify play on…you will get just the best selection of really great songs. Go on, try it and you’ll see for yourself. This discovery may well make drivetime radio programming a heck of a lot easier, or possibly redundant altogether. You may of course be a Crowded House fan and like, know this already. You may be a casual admirer, or even a sceptic. In which case, take the time to enjoy this shared revelation. But let me tell you that this is simple proof of Neil Finn’s songwriting skills. Certainly it’s more to do with that than mathe ..read more

When Real Estate's fifth album The Main Thing was released to fairly mixed results, was it time for a reset? In a sense, yes. For band leader Martin Courtney, it was time to get back to songs. After all, without songs, bands are just jamming, right? He set the bar high too, inspired mostly by the 1992 R.E.M. classic Automatic For The People. Besides, you cannot call in a producer like Daniel Tashian without being able to play him songs of exceptionally high standard. For a start, Tashian produced Kacey Musgrave’s modern classic Gold Hour, as well as writing a bunch of understated classics with ..read more

Like many women creators in music, the Staveley-Taylor sisters aka The Staves, bring a sense of humbleness to everything they have achieved, how they are positioned today and indeed, what the future holds. Is it possible that The Staves are better than they think they are? It seems so. Originally signed to a major label of some reverence (Atlantic, just before the hypergrowth of Spotify, social media and TikTok), it is likely that their major label A&Rs saw in them a modern version of a classic rock band of old - the golden years of CSN, Carole King, Joni Mitchell et al. And why not? Back ..read more

After the fiasco of having to cancel Beirut’s 2019 tour, Zach Condon knew he needed to take the time out to fully recover. Multiple infections, colds and in the end complicated throat ailments had led him to a total burnout, until finally: “My manager and my tour manager saved me from myself. They told me I can’t keep touring. I threw in the towel and dissolved the touring group. I later saw the fiasco over refunds and all that, and I felt horrible about it”. This adversity though, perhaps inevitably, led to Beirut’s latest project Hadsel, which may well be as close as a record can come to bei ..read more

Metric has become one of those bands that have paved the way for independence, along with Aimee Mann, Chance The Rapper and the other self-releasing copyright owning pioneers. Their fifth album Synthetica (2012) as it turns out, is a favourite of the band’s front woman and main co-writer Emily Haines. Even though it didn’t reach the commercial heights predecessor Fantasies did, it was a mature and ambitious record, setting the tone for Metric’s accomplished and reliably strong catalogue.  It brings us to the band’s recent projects Formentera (2022) and this year’s sibling album Formenter ..read more

I had invited Half Moon Run onto the podcast after first hearing Salt - imploring their BMG PR to arrange it as a matter of priority.  Speaking with Dylan Phillips was an insight behind the creative process of the (decades long) making of one of my favourite records in ages. Also, I had never spoken to a drummer who is simultaneously a keyboard player, but that is part of the modus operandi of Half Moon Run - a continual swapping out switching up of instruments between the band’s three members, Phillips, Devon Portielje (also lead vocals) and Conner Molander.  Half Moon Run was forme ..read more

So many bands have a complex relationship with their biggest songs (probably because they essentially set a one dimensional benchmark - that of popularity) but dealing with that and playing those songs like it’s the last time you ever will, is part of doing the work. The Doll’s most biggest song and most recent tour are no exception: “Robby convinced me, play Iris last. But that’s what bands do when they only have one big song! So everyone has to stick around and hear all the other songs before you get to the hit”. But you know what, it works, so we play Iris last”. Well when you have one of ..read more