by Ed Biggs A quarter of a century after the release of Spiderland, the second and final studio album by the short-lived Louisville four-piece Slint, it’s extremely difficult to imagine the state of the modern guitar music scene without it. Released on Corey Rusk’s Chicago-based Touch And Go label, one of the impressive network of indies that made up the 1980s American underground, it sold virtually nothing at the time, and
Continue reading…
by Ed Biggs Much more than most reunions, the return of Sleater-Kinney in 2015 after nearly a decade on hiatus didn’t just feel right, it felt necessary. When they called it a day in 2006 shortly after their excellent seventh album The Woods, singer-guitarist Corin Tucker, guitarist Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss had built up a bulletproof reputation, with a substantial cult fanbase and enough critical praise to match some
by Ed Biggs The gap of six years after 2010’s Barking may be the longest wait between albums in Underworld’s history, even for a band that has only really ever operated infrequently, but that hiatus has been productive for both Rick Smith and Karl Hyde. Smith worked closely with British film director Danny Boyle, both on the original score segments for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and on Boyle’s 2013 movie
by Ed Biggs Given what has happened to so many of their contemporaries from the early ‘90s, who’ve either disappeared into complete irrelevance or are desperately coining it in re-touring their old albums, Primal Scream have become some of the hardiest survivors in music. Just when everybody has written them off as an irrelevant museum band, Bobby Gillespie, his trusty crew and an ingenious producer reinvent Primal Scream once more with
by Ed Biggs Since his untimely death in 1997, Jeff Buckley has cast a shadow over popular music that’s vastly disproportionate to the tiny catalogue he left behind. One seminal album released during his lifetime (1994’s Grace), a double album of rough, unfinished material (Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk) are the only studio material in existence, alongside half a dozen live documents of varying quality that have been released to
by Ed Biggs Once upon a time, The Coral were one of the most inspired and promising new bands of the British indie scene, standing out even among a glut of bright young things that emerged in 2002 with their bold, psychedelic slant on Britpop. That year’s self-titled debut album remains one of the best debuts of the decade, with the jaunty ‘Dreaming Of You’ becoming an indie disco staple. Maintaining
by Ed Biggs To describe Robert Pollard’s output rate as ‘prodigious’ would be the greatest understatement in music. As the lead singer of the obscurantist indie heroes Guided By Voices since the mid ‘80s and latterly as a solo artist, Pollard has more than 1,700 songs registered under his name with various performing rights organisations. Of Course You Are is his 22nd solo album since 1996, indicating a man who truly
by Ed Biggs As the former lead singer of The Beta Band, Steve Mason has forged a strange path that has kept him running parallel to, yet separated from, the evolution of British indie over the last two decades. The band he founded with Gordon Anderson in the mid ‘90s produced one of the most criminally overlooked back catalogues of the latter-day Britpop era. Imagine if Pink Floyd had disbanded upon
by Ed Biggs Having made one of the most distinctive British indie albums of the ‘10s with their self-titled debut, Yuck suffered a devastating blow three years ago when lead singer and chief creative force Daniel Blumberg quit to release his own music. Many feared for the group’s future direction, but guitarist Max Bloom stepped into the spotlight and made their second record, 2013’s Glow & Behold, a minor success that
by Ed Biggs Unquestionably one of the definitive acts of the noughties, Soulwax seem to have always been around, and yet have not really done anything for a very long time. During the second half of the noughties, Stephen and David Dewaele toured across the world on a punishing, relentless schedule that saw them play roughly five times a week, every week, for half a decade, delighting fans across the world
