Reviews
A Year In Records: 2012 ROUND-UP
End of the year list, we meet again. 2012 has been another exciting year for records, even in the middle of the usual “music is dead” rhetoric. So we approached the round-up game this time deliberately wanting to set a list of ten records which symbolized and represented the last twelve months. The idea was simple: write down your twenty favourite records, see how many get championed in every list and take it from there. Unsurprisingly, this simple idea became an exercise in arithmetics and statistics, once we realized the unanimous choices were very few. Read the rest of this entry »
LDWT goes PRIMAVERA CLUB 2012
A year later, we return to the scene of the crime. Primavera Club, the winter and smaller version of the Primavera Sound festival, is now in its sixth edition (and running for the first time in Madrid, Barcelona and Porto) and until now has never failed to bring the established acts with the up and coming ones which in a few months’ time will see on bigger stages. We arrive to Madrid to not so good omens, the festival has been plagued by organizational problems (how we would have loved to see Cat Power) and at the last minute the local authorities have decided to downsize one of the venues and increase security so that during the space of the evening we will be asked many times to produce passes and passports. Read the rest of this entry »
1234 SHOREDITCH: A photo report
Sean McLusky may not be a name familiar to many outside London, but back at the start of the noughties he was almost single-handedly responsible for saving the capital’s nightclubbing, inventing what he called Future Rock’n’Roll and booking the new post-punk indebted acts, like Liars and Ikara Colt, next to legends like Suicide. Five years ago, his Sonic Mook Experiment inaugurated a festival, 12345 Shoreditch, an alternative to the hugely crowded Reading and one of the very few chances to see all the best bands in a day without leaving the city. Read the rest of this entry »
A MONTH IN RECORDS: March 2012
March was female. Fact. Julia Holter returned with “Ekstasis” (RVNG Intl.), just a year later after the word of mouth success of her debut “Tragedy” and keeping on her own personal research of ancient Greece iconography, field recordings and world music. The surprise effect may be gone (and hopefully so will the constant comparisons to Joanna Newsom) but the songwriting is more focused and accessible. Recalling both Broadcast and Laurie Anderson, it’s avant-pop but with the stress on pop. The earthy Marienbad, the vocal experiments of Four Gardens, the open structure of This Is Ekstasis are glimpses of the Los Angeles musician’s creative impatience and exquisite constructions. Don’t let it pass by unnoticed. Read the rest of this entry »
A MONTH IN RECORDS: February 2012
We are late. There is no excuse. When we promised to give you a monthly round-up of the best (and the not so good) albums released, we didn’t exactly plan to make you wait another month to actually read about them. But it happened. And we still want to be friends, right? So here is what february brought us: a few (huge) disappointments, but at least four records which will feature prominently in the end-of-the-year lists. Read the rest of this entry »
A MONTH IN RECORDS: January 2012
And they say january is a slow month for record releases, lost in the of haze of the remains of the christmas rush and the endless repackaging/rereleasing nostalgia trips. Not so this year, for sure, as our unwritten rule of cutting down the list to nine or ten titles left more stuff out that we could have predicted. And we are not so sure that we’ll manage to stick to that rule anyway. Read the rest of this entry »
2011 ROUNDUP: Music
End of the year lists or roundups, it’s been said, are more fun for those who compile them, unless masochistic instincts actually make you enjoy all the criticism that those lists inevitably attract. Still, it’s a guilty pleasure, who doesn’t have one? It has also to be said that the more easily available music becomes (trust us, there are dozens of new records released every week), the harder making lists becomes, as there’ll always be that record which escaped you. Read the rest of this entry »
A month in records: November/December 2011
The last two months of the year are usually slow times for record releases, and yet this year we were rewarded with some of the best albums we heard all year. David Lynch surprised almost everyone (except those who remember that he cowrites most of the soundtracks to his movies) by releasing his debut, “Crazy Clown Time” (Sunday Best). Not the grand folly or the enigmatic concept Lynch’s name is usually to, but still it is a fine achievement of moody blues and atmospheric electronica, and in songs like Pinky’s Dream (with the help of Karen O) and Stone’s Gone Up a terrific one too. Calling it cinematic is stating the obvious, so we’ll just say we’d love to see the movie it would make a great soundtrack to. Read the rest of this entry »
LDWT goes PRIMAVERA CLUB: Saturday 26th November 2011
And so we come to the final day of this year’s Primavera Club; to be honest, there’s still another couple of bands lined up for sunday – hurray for EMA, meh for Fleet Foxes – but we have reached a level of consumption of energy drinks and caraquillos which demand for immediate withdrawal. And a bed. We better make the most of the last night in Spain, then. Read the rest of this entry »
The Future Is Bright: THE FRESH & ONLYS 
Better Than Something: Interview with Ian Markiewicz and Alex Hammond 
Filming The Music: AG ROJAS 
Coyotes in My Backyard: TRAVIS MILLARD 
The Alchemy of Love and Fire: NEIL KRUG 
Drenched in The Rain of Dreams: Dimitri Drjuchin 
I CAN SEE FOR MILES: The Art of Jacob Escobedo 