I’m not exactly sure of the reason behind it, but lately loads of rappers and hip hop artists have been reigning in singer-songwriters to guest on their record: the latest to join their ranks is Kanye West, who has roped in Chris Martin of Coldplay to sing on Homecoming, one of the leaked tracks off [...]

A couple of weeks ago I highlighted the release of Kala, M.I.A.’s second album, which I now possess- this is a comprehensive review of her Mercury nominated album. First off, what’s changed since Arular? Well, she seems to have focussed her sound, only not in the way you would expect. If it’s possible, there are [...]

Academy 2 peformace (from BBC)
The Courteeners- Cavorting
Since a little band called Oasis swaggered onto the music scene over a decade ago and promptly left a gigantic legacy, many bands have attempted to take that throne- in recent years I can highlight a few: Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian and The Libertines, all of whom made valiant attempts [...]

Pretentious, or a really smart advertising move? What’s your verdict?

Oh, Hard-Fi, what have you gone and done? It’s not exactly in keeping with your “Staines is a shithole” image to pull some pretentious bullshit for your second album proper. Let me explain- Once Upon A Time In The West, the follow up to Stars of [...]

For those of you who have been reading for while now, you might have noticed that I’ve been writing about some bands very frequently at the moment (example- Reverend And The Makers). Just to say that this is because I want to get all of these Lowlands stories out of my system so I can [...]

In the age of iTunes and MySpace, I think it’s easy to lose appreciation of what buying music is all really about. My iTunes library currently stands at a paltry 17.69 GB, something which I am not proud of and am trying to fix at the moment (my iPod died a few weeks ago, along [...]

The synth set, with attached deer antlers and christmas lights
As is usual at Lowlands, the main headliners each day start their set at 10 PM, after the much anticipated build-up at the largest stage, Alpha. Just before their performance, a buzz spreads through the crowd, numbering some 35,000 people on average, situated inside the [...]

True to my word, I spent an intensely enjoyable hour watching Reverend And The Makers set at Lowlands, and within the first ten minutes it was blatantly obvious that this band is going to be huge. Reverend is a true performer, a talent which has been sadly wasted up until now- debut album The State [...]

Woohooo! That’s the only succinct way to describe my completely amazing weekend spent at Lowlands festival. After leaving last Thursday lunchtime I worked my way north through the country towards Lelystad, the part of Holland where this three day event took place. Lowlands 2007 was nothing short of fantastic- the line-up was in my opinion [...]

Over the next couple of days I doubt there will be much action on The Cold Cut. I’m going away to Lowlands music festival on Thursday and will be back on Monday next week. For now, I should be able to post a few time over the next couple of days but I just thought [...]

I was browsing through my iTunes library the other day and saw with a sharp pang of familiarity the name ‘Ours’. They were a bit of a favourite in my family whilst we lived in Houston a couple of years ago- I have fond memories of listening to them in the Chrysler convertible on hot [...]

I’ve been meaning to update the overall look of this blog for a while now, and today I finally got around to creating a new header and some better templates. Hope you like it- there will be some more changes coming over the next couple of weeks.

A wave of sadness/joy was felt when Test Icicles broke up last year, shortly after releasing their first album, For Screening Purposes Only. Made up of three young guys by the names of Rory Atwell, Sam Mehran and Dev Hynes, the latter of whom has started his own solo-project in wake of their breakup. Lightspeed [...]

For every generation or progression of music there is a band who are unmoving, who inexplicably never get the popularity and commercial acclaim they deserve. For my father’s generation he would be quick to tell you it was G.E.N.E, and in Moke I have unfortunately found the most recent representation of this principle. It’s a [...]

With the mercury prize shortlist released a couple of weeks ago, there has been the usual talk of how the prize always goes to an artsy-fartsy jazz group or a classical artist. Well, those people can rest assured: the only dud this year is an album by Basquiat Strings, which sounds hugely thrilling, wouldn’t you [...]

Hey guys and girls; I’ve been investigating easier ways of file hosting over the last couple of weeks and this is my final solution. I’m using FileDen now but all you need to do is right click on the links to download the files- just select save file as or the nearest substitute depending on [...]

Chromeo are a band with a sense of humour. In an age of Kele Okereke’s (Bloc Party) and Tom Smith’s (Editors) who try to win fans through the pure force of their moodiness, Chromeo are a breath of fresh, and fun, air. Describing themselves jokily as “the only successful Arab (Pee) Jewish (Dave) collaboration since [...]

“You no like the people,they no like you

Then they go and set it off
With a big Boom
Every gun in a battle is a
Son and daughter too”
Mathangi Arulpragasam is a pretty special woman: known simply by the acronym M.I.A. in the musical world, she’s a Hounslow, London born [...]