Speaker Face feat. Rachel Sermanni – ‘Vertical’ [Review]
I’ve never heard anything quite like this.
The automatic response to the unfamiliar is often to find a quick way to dismiss it, to chuck it in the metal box labelled Read more…
Eliza Doolittle & THOS / Bat and Ball / Tweed & Hyenas / Tusks [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 9/1/15]
The fact that this show even happened is a true testament to the strength and indomitable passion of its organisers. Few life experiences are as devastating as losing a friend or family member to cancer; when that happens, most of us would become too overwhelmed to function, and with good reason. Nobody would have blamed Tom Morley and the team behind Smile For Hatti (a campaign set up to support the courageous and inspiring Hatti Sandall, who sadly passed away only three days before this gig) had they rescheduled or cancelled this fundraiser – but they didn’t. For that, they deserve all the respect in the world – not to mention the sheer success of this awesome event, which raised over £2000 for Smile For Hatti (which is in the process of becoming a new charity, to which future donations will be directed) and Sarcoma UK.
As far as opening acts go, Read more…
TMMP’s EPs & Tracks Of 2014
I have a very strong emotional attachment to many of the releases listed below. Choosing this list was exceptionally tough; I’ve been fortunate to discover some incredible bands and artists over the past year, and it’s safe to say that outside this list lie a great many immense tunes that can be found via a quick browse through TMMP’s archives when you’re done with this lot. However, the following choices are the cream of the crop. Read more…
3LAU Feat. Luciana – ‘We Came To Bang’ [Review]
It’s been a while since TMMP featured a Luciana tune – but with Friday night upon us, now is as good a time as any to remedy that. We Came To Bang – created in collaboration with American producer 3LAU – is still another winning addition to Luciana’s burgeoning back catalogue of banging electro-pop songs. Read more…
Nigel Stanford – ‘Cymatics’ [Review]
TMMP is all about boundary-breaking – and the video for ambient musician Nigel Stanford’s Cymatics definitely fits the bill. Whereas many electronic artists settle for stuffing their videos full of barely-dressed women and fully-clothed dudes posing somewhere in the background, Stanford’s team have taken a very literal approach to the visuals for Cymatics. Read more…
Reel Big Fish / The Magnus Puto / The Jellycats [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 11/7/14]
When viewed from the outside, alternative music venues can be easily misunderstood. Judging by the expressions of mainstream Friday night revellers heading toward Casino or Dusk or wherever, the queue of kids snaking around The Boileroom might as well have been the aliens from Mars Attacks. Some people don’t seem to understand that it’s not necessary to spray yourself orange and wear clothes so tight that you look like one of the X-Men after a Topshop makeover in order to have a good time.
Good times were definitely on the agenda last night, fastidiously trendy clothing or not. With jelly babies waiting in bowls behind the door and a mood-setting ska soundtrack engulfing those heading bar-ward, thoughts of the affluenza-ridden masses outside were quickly forgotten. Then a few bands played, and they were a bit good… Read more…
Dave Audé vs Luciana – ‘YOU ONLY TALK IN #HASHTAG’ [Review]
The Easter weekend is always a good time to let your hair down, forget the workaday world, and just have some fun. You can drink, you can dance, and thank that guy with the crown of thorns and Men’s Health covershoot abs for giving you the opportunity. Read more…
Princess Slayer / Jamie Lenman / Natalie Ross / CeCe [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 31/1/14]
The last couple of months have been a little quiet on the live review front – but this show marked the ideal moment to get back into the swing of things. As the Boileroom’s contribution to Independent Venue Week, it was guaranteed to be a stunner before the doors even opened; and it really goes without saying that the night was incredible, from start to finish. Read more…
Approaching The End: Face-To-Screen With The World’s First Humanless Opera
The crowd is getting impatient. An eclectic mass of humanity presses up against the Théatre du Châtelet’s glass-fronted façade like extras in a zombie film. Across the Seine lies the Isle de la Cité, the floodlit Gothic towers of Notre Dame clearly visible. I am the only one who looks in this direction. Contemplating the night before, my first few hours in Paris.
Hatsune Miku awaits her audience inside as the doors open. Bulky security staff search bags and guide the Miku-hungry horde into the Châtelet’s lobby. A programme seller advertises his fashionably-bound paper products next to a Miku mannequin decked in a custom-designed Louis Vuitton dress and her signature twin teal pigtails, sculpted here as if she were stood before a professional-grade fan on a magazine cover shoot. The programme seller is ignored as the Miku mannequin fills dozens of smartphone screens, each one frenetically blinking as its operator strives to capture the perfect memory.
I make my way to the merch stand, considering a twenty-euro CD and an eye-catching t-shirt and thinking about the level of diversity present here. I’m at a concert starring a Japanese pop star who technically doesn’t exist, and yet there are relatively few examples of the socially inept über-geeks one might expect from such a billing. A good number of the people around me are arty types, clad in designer clothing and affecting haughty airs; others fit the bill of alternative music fans, skinny jeans and trendy t-shirts, while another portion is made up of female pop fans, predominantly Japanese, excitedly squealing and taking selfies on the stairs.
A mutually confusing encounter with a cloakroom assistant and an exchange of apologies later, I am ushered to my front-row-centre seat. I take in the wide semi-circles of the multi-tiered balconies and the imposing curtain, adorned with a disturbing expanse of faded imagery simultaneously suggesting contemporary surrealism and barbaric medieval torture scenes.
Behind this curtain, we are told, the performance is now ready to start. Voices in three languages ask us to take our seats. The demonic curtain finally rises, revealing a plain black expanse. The second curtain is lifted. This is the beginning of The End.
Hatsune Miku is not like other pop stars. Whereas Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, and Justin Bieber had to be born, trained, discovered, and tweaked by image consultants, Hatsune Miku is coming the other way.
This is possible because she is not human. Hatsune Miku is both real and unreal. She exists as a concept, an idea. She exists in terms of digital information, the neural firings of those who discover and worship her, and in the beams of light projected onto screens during her live concerts. But this has not stopped her from attracting a legion of followers who treat her as if she were in fact made of flesh and blood, like you and me.
In short, Miku is a meme taken to a whole new level. Read more…