The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

Posts by Ed Biggs

REVIEW: James Blake – ‘The Colour In Anything’ (Polydor / 1-800 Dinosaur)

by Ed Biggs Throughout his short but dazzling career thusfar, James Blake has always come across as somebody determined to re-cast electronic music into something deep, innovative and distinctively modern. Anyone who heard his chilling, minimalist deconstruction of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love’ half a decade ago, a demonstration of his ability to say so much with so little, to utilise the silence in and around his skeletal music to his

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REVIEW: Radiohead – ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ (XL)

by John Tindale Radiohead may be the most talked-about band the UK has ever produced, always trying to stay ahead of the curve on their records and in their approach to the wider industry. So, on the 3rd of May when new single ‘Burn The Witch’ was made available after a cleverly orchestrated social media blackout, understandably the whole world went into pandemonium – this is the band’s first album since

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REVIEW: Death Grips – ‘Bottomless Pit’ (Third Worlds / Harvest)

by John Tindale It takes approximately four seconds to be entirely captivated by Bottomless Pit, the fifth record from Sacramento three-piece Death Grips. By combining punk aggression with experimental hip-hop Death Grips have a sound completely unique to them that has seen them gain a cult following featuring the likes of Björk and Robert Pattinson to name but two. Previously alluded to opening track ‘Giving Bad People Good Ideas’ is an

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FROM WORST TO BEST: Ash Singles

by Ed Biggs In the two decades since Ash first demolished the British charts with their debut album 1977, few can claim to have been such a quintessentially ‘singles band’ as the Northern Irish three-piece. Rock music’s perpetual adolescents, stuck in a Neverland-like mindset of endless childhood summers, first romances and house parties, their singles were the essence of teenage lust, of unrequited desire, of both shyness and youthful confidence.

REVIEW: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – ‘Nonagon Infinity’ (Heavenly)

by Ollie Rankine Australian psychedelic rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard don’t have an off switch. Since forming in 2010, the band have managed to release eight studio albums, four of which being in just the last two years. From their Thee Oh Sees inspired debut 12 Bar Bruise in 2012 to the jazzed-up, prog-infused tones of Oddments, King Gizzard’s rapidly expanding back catalogue lacks any predictable development. Constantly succeeding

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REVIEW: Live At Leeds 2016

by John Tindale and Ollie Rankine Live At Leeds is now in its 10th year, and has already built a strong reputation for itself as being the best inner city festival in the UK. But after creating a certain degree of excitement, the news of headliner Jess Glynne pulling out mere hours before the festival’s start the day hardly begins on a strong note…

REVIEW: Drake – ‘Views’ (OVO Sound / Young Money / Cash Money / Boy Better Know / Republic)

by John Tindale Widely known and hyped up as Views From The 6 until approximately 24 hours before his release before he ‘did a Kanye’, Views provides an insight into Drake‘s home city of Toronto. However, at a painfully long 81 minutes, this fourth album proper feels overly self-indulgent and too far of a return from the excellent 2015 mixtape-album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late to a re-tread of

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REVIEW: Brian Eno – ‘The Ship’ (Warp Records)

by Ed Biggs Nearly 50 years after his career began with Roxy Music, the legendary musician, composer and producer Brian Eno is still not content with resting on his laurels, still intent on breaking new ground and staking new territory for himself as well as his peers. Occasionally, his music fleetingly fits in with or fuels the zeitgeist (check out his 1974 debut Here Come The Warm Jets or 1977’s Before

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REVIEW: Katy B – ‘Honey’ (Virgin EMI / Rinse)

by John Tindale Kathleen Brien, better known by her stage name Katy B, is the definition of an artist with underground qualities becoming overtly mainstream. After collaborations with Benga, Magnetic Man and DJ Zinc she has firmly put forward her mantra for developing well-done pop with excellent production. It is from this idea that her sleek, sophisticated debut album On A Mission was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2011.

REVIEW: Rufus Wainwright – ‘Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets’ (Deutsche Grammophon)

by John Tindale Throughout Rufus Wainwright’s career he has long been able to combine mesmerising piano performances and an emotive vocal that could match many. But for the past decade he has more or less completely immersed himself (barring the oddly out-of-place Out Of The Game in 2012) in the art of classical music – in Take All My Love: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets we see Wainwright take on another expansive step

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