A conversation with Shannon Lay

“Yeah, it’s kind of the idea that we put other people before ourselves a lot of the time, and to have the realisation that you are the most important person in your world. It’s important to remember that in the end we’re all we have, so you can’t go looking for the missing piece in someone else at huge detriment to yourself and your potential, and that should be clear as day.”

I spoke to Shannon Lay about her captivating new album August, and you can read that right here.

Album Review: Ty Segall - First Taste

“What pushes First Taste well beyond being just another set of tightly written fuzz-rock rippers is the broader palette of unexpected instruments and production choices. Throughout the album the riffs are bolstered by a host of diverse string instruments; mandolins, koto and bouzouki all bringing unexpected shades of glee. Elsewhere there are families of wailing recorders, hair-raising brass giving a queasy edge to the songs’ wayward turns, a gurgling of harmoniser trickling beneath – and a fully a capella song in ‘Ice Plant’.”

I reviewed the muscular new album from Ty Segall, First Taste - have a read.

The 405 meets IDER

“I think we are both really interested in psychology and people and emotions; mental health and relationships... so our friendship really formed from that. We’ve always been friends and written music together, we’ve never known one without the other, so I think that they were already interests of ours, which is what created that friendship initially, that’s what we talked a lot about and still do. That’s the foundation of the music, those conversations.”

I spoke to IDER about their glorious debut album Emotional Intelligence. You can read that over here.

Live Review: Mac DeMarco... Will See You Now at Dreamland Margate, 29th June 2019

I had a fun day in Margate seeing the likes of Mac DeMarco, Thurston Moore, Girl Ray, Yellow Days, Tirzah and Aldous Harding - read the full write-up over here.

Album Review: Mannequin Pussy - Patience

“Mannequin Pussy’s overall songwriting is much stronger and the production much cleaner, but it doesn’t mean the tales told in Dabice’s songs aren’t frequently just as messy and regrettable – what it means is that their now bigger and better sound now makes her words all the heavier.”

One of the unquantifiable breakthrough successes of the year is Mannequin Pussy’s Patience - here’s my review

Album Review: Bill Callahan - Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest

“Bill has fallen in love, settled down and started a family, welcoming his first child in 2015. Now, he returns to music a new man in a new state – mentally, physically and emotionally. His objective this time out seems to be to tell a good dose of truth, after all he’s had plenty of inspiration these last few years. Musically, Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest stays at a mild canter throughout, as Callahan takes circuitous and fantastical approaches to express his observations on life.”

I want in-depth on the long-awaited new album from Bill Callahan, Shepherd In A Sheepksin Vest. Check it out.

Album Review: Flying Lotus - Flamagra

“It’s not until we reach the fourth track, ‘More’ featuring Anderson Paak, that we feel the heft of FlyLo’s inimitable style really kick into gear. For starters, ‘More’ doesn’t let you settle, with Flying Lotus setting out a smooth jazzy intro before pulling the rug out and switching the tack completely, with Paak nimbly skipping over the gap, hopping from his loquacious flow to a more chipped outpouring in the second segment. This is an occasion where the use of a collaborator on Flamagra works to the utmost, with the producer and his partner bouncing off each other in thrilling ways.”

I tackled Flamagra, the new album from Flying Lotus, for The 405 - have a read.

The 405 meets Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief

“I think the entire Earth’s vibrations are running through all of us, and that we’re also made of the Earth and the more wounded the Earth becomes we can feel it in ourselves. When other people are suffering I think we can feel that suffering, because I do think there is a collective unconscious, something that is collective and shared. We can totally isolate ourselves from that and feel it less, but I think it’s a certain amount of numbness or being desensitized, and I think when you actually feel it it’s pretty intense”

I got to meet a hero of mine, Adrianne Lenker, and discuss Big Thief’s new album U.F.O.F. Read the results of the encounter over here.

Album Review: Big Thief - U.F.O.F.

“Lenker is a hyper-empath, and manages to put this across in her delicate poetry and voice, which is then gilded perfectly by her open and aware bandmates. Often she places herself into the bodies of others in her songs, to investigate a variety relationships. Pain is a large factor in her song writing here, but it is held aloft as beautiful; this could be when she’s screaming in agony at the end of ‘Contact’, or when she gently intones “you don’t even know why when you cry,” in ‘Cattails’. The hurting always resounds with feeling that comes from beyond her own body, and it’s always held up resplendently and with dignity in Big Thief’s simple but sophisticated songs.”

My absolute faves, Big Thief, put out the best album of the year in U.F.O.F. - you can read my reasoning in my full review.

Live Review: Weyes Blood - Islington Assembly Hall, London, 25th April 2019

“To say they kept us rapt in a state of pure fantasy throughout the entire night might seem inconceivable, but by following up the opener with a trio of ‘Something To Believe’, ‘Everyday’ and ‘Andromeda’ they pretty much had us floating on air. Mering and her bandmates submerged the audience in the cinematic scope of Titanic Rising, painting grandiose works in each of our imaginations.”

I had the chance to see the utterly captivating Weyes Blood in London, check out my review with photography by Rachel Juarez-Carr

Album Review: Kevin Morby - Oh My God

“In using religious language, ideas and images in Oh My God, Kevin Morby has made his own version of a holy text. There are stories in here, but they are not to be taken literally; they are meant to be read and understood in however the person experiencing them happens to relate to them. They are universal and they are forgiving, and only a songwriter as soft and deft as Kevin Morby could have pulled it off so charmingly.”

- My review of Oh My God by Kevin Morby can be found here.

The 405 meets Kevin Morby

“The way I like to see it is in the first song I’m boarding this airplane, and it starts off with the hammering of the piano keys, it’s sort of like this chaos, and then it’s sort of this sombre thing and then it’s like the flight you’re on takes off and you’re above the weather, and you’re existing in this place above the clouds. Then you kind of stay there until the end of the record. The narrative is kind of being in this elevated state; heightened emotion and being in this sinister kingdom or something”

I had a lovely chat with Kevin Morby about his new record Oh My God - you can read it here accompanied by great photos from Flore Diamant.

Album Review: Priests - The Seduction of Kansas

“In a time when the Washington DC band lives in the same city as the most objectionable Leader of the Free World ever elected, they’re picking apart the tenets of the American Dream, chipping away the last of the artificial sheen, and putting the results on display on their own terms. Listening to their second full-length, The Seduction Of Kansas, feels like witnessing the cutting out and re-arranging of their nation’s touchstones into a gleefully gruesome and debauched collage.”

• I think Priests’ second record The Seduction of Kansas is a damn fine piece of work - my full review

The 405 meets La Dispute

“On this record I wanted to be more focused on a synthesis of the last two records, where it’s like dialling the microscope in from that theme on to a more specific relationship between individuals. I kept thinking about the drive that I would take, that was the initial spark for the record, seeing memorials along the road and hearing stories from my partner about people that she knew or people that her family knew. Everything in the record is taking place in this one long drive, it made sense to think of it as kind of either a panoramic photograph or a long tracking shot from a film, so it was really just meant to keep it to the idea of the record.”

- I got to sit down with Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute (on my 31st birthday, no less) and have an in-depth disussion about La Dispute’s new album Panorama - check it out

The 405 meets SASAMI

“I use the words “you” and “I” in the album’s lyrics a lot because the songs are kind of like lovers in that way. More than diary entries, a lot of them are lovers saying the lyrics to the other person.”

I spoke to SASAMI about her brilliant debut album SASAMI - read up over here

Album Review: Stella Donnelly - Beware of the Dogs

“A few years on from those early songs, Stella Donnelly’s Beware of the Dogs sees her having grown musically and emotionally, and attacking various hard-hitting topics, both personal and political, with a more worldly perspective. However, the tracks on Beware of the Dogs brim with a character and cheekiness that brings enough levity to ensure unbridled enjoyment while dealing with these angering topics.”

Stella Donnelly’s debut album Beware of the Dogs is one of my favourites for a while - read my full review here.

The 405 meets Stella Donnelly

“Absolutely. I feel like sometimes you can only really tell something in video or art or music; sometimes it’s the more subtle things that you can’t really get through in just a Facebook post or chatting to people. Someone like Julia Jacklin really manages to tell these really subtle nuanced stories in her songs; ‘Body’ and ‘Head Alone’ both do that. It’s a complex thing she’s talking about, it’s in a relationship sense, and she manages to get that across.”

I got to speak to the luminous Stella Donnelly all about her debut album Beware of the Dogs - check it out

Album Review: Hand Habits - placeholder

“Listening to Hand Habits’ new record Placeholder is to wreathe yourself in mental indecision and insecurity, but from the inside of Duffy’s creations the feeling is one of relief; you are imbued with the knowledge that these are universal struggles, and that in itself is beautiful.”

The new Hand Habits album placeholder is an absolute stunner - read my full review

The 405 meets Jessica Pratt

“I would pretty frequently have dreams where I was playing a song, where I was hearing a song and then you wake up and you can’t quite recall it. It felt so much like that to me, where the words are indistinguishable and the melody is just barely there when you wake up. I feel like that place is where all of my music comes from, wherever dreams or your unconscious lie, it all comes from there. It’s very representational of something really important.”

Jessica Pratt’s new album Quiet Signs is a thing of true ephemeral beauty, so I jumped at the opportunity to sit down and discuss it with her. Check out our conversation over here.

The 405 meets Jealous of the Birds

“When I was at uni I was doing English with Creative Writing, and I did a big poetry dissertation, and all those poems are written in a very different style and different mind-set than I bring to writing lyrics. I definitely strive to make my lyrics feel as much like poems as possible, but I definitely think of them as a different kind of animal too, because they’re always married to the music and those things enrich each other. With a poem there’s only what’s on the page, so I think poems have to be more muscular.”

I sat down for an illuminating conversation with Northern Irish singer Naomi Hamilton aka Jealous of the Birds - check out what she had to say over here