Mike Vennart has a reputation for turning musical messes and chaos into moving, engrossing, living and breathing songs. With To Cure A Blizzard Upon A Plastic Sea, he’s at it once again. This album can be chalked up as another success, awarded the latest approving check mark on a list of long-playing releases that date back to his work with Oceansize and Read more…
Discovering a band with tons of potential is always a rewarding experience – and EMPIRE (sometimes stylised as EMP!RE) are one such outfit. Over the past six years, these guys have been busy making a name for themselves in the British rock underground and, of course, putting in the work that led to this album’s creation. Glue is the sound of a band who remain a work in progress, albeit one that seems sure to grow into Read more…
Although I wrote an entire book about why good bands break up, I didn’t see these circumstances coming. From the sound of it, neither did anyone else. Only two weeks ago, Arcane Roots debuted their first ever experimental electronic set at ArcTanGent, false starts followed by a promising showcase during which Indigo stood head and shoulders above its peers.
“Just say the word, and I’ll go, if that’s what you’re saying…”
Nobody at ArcTanGent was prepared to Read more…
Music has always had the ability to transport listeners into parallel realities. Within such dimensions we can escape from worldly concerns, explore fictional realms, and relax as the musicians behind it all weave stories through chords, beats, melodies, riffs, and lyrics. For Boston Manor, however, escapism, prog-style fantasies, and tranquil chill sessions are definitely Read more…
After spending many years immersed in music, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’ve heard it all. Then, along comes an Afro-psych-doom band interpreting an assortment of mythical spirits, employing a dairy farm’s worth of cowbell while deep-pocketed riffs batter your ears into submission and Read more…
Although Dance On The Blacktop deals with self-directed negativity, misanthropy, and our species’ cosmic insignificance – and its title is prison slang for rec-time beatings and assassinations – this is not an album you should listen to while operating heavy machinery. Nothing have their signature brand of gritty, heavily distorted shoegazing so extensively refined that they can even Read more…
Although attractiveness is subjective, ArcTanGent happens to be situated in an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – and if you visit it and look around, you’d probably agree with the government’s judgment for once. As for the music you can expect to experience at the UK’s most respected prog, math, and post-everything festival, it may serve a very specific niche, but the fans who love the styles in question tend to Read more…
This interview contains one of my favourite answers of all time. Boss Keloid open the Yohkai Stage at ArcTanGent in about a week’s time – so check out the video below to see why they should not be missed, and read on to see if you can guess which response was the clear winner… Read more…
When a festival’s lineup includes an insane number of inevitably epic sets, it’s hard to know where to start – and ArcTanGent 2018 is packed with intriguing prospects. Hopefully, this list will help prog-math-post-whatever fans overcome option paralysis, and start you off on the path to the perfect ATG experience… Read more…
Relocation is usually key to creative development, whether it be stylistic, mental, or physical. New perspectives, directions, lessons, discoveries, and opportunities rarely come when people sit and stagnate – and Trophy Eyes have never been ones to stick fast and stand still. That fact has earned them plenty of detractors, but it’s also Read more…