Albums Of The Year 2018
Kacey Musgraves has gone from the rebel of Nashville to its rising star to its Country Queen in just three records, quite an accomplishment for the 30-year-old. And third record Golden Hour isn’t more of the same from Musgraves its predecessor Pageant Material was...
Meet The Palestinian Artists Breaking Borders Through Music
Palestine Underground by Boiler Room documents the resilience of a burgeoning music scene undeterred and fuelled by political restrictions, building bridges through a shared sound and identity. The 25 minute documentary by Boiler Room documents the thriving...
Iconic Artist Images Exhibition By Norman Seeff At Proud Galleries, London
Running from 23rd November until 13th January 2019 Proud Galleries have another brilliant exhibition entitled Sessions In Sound: Photographs By Norman Seeff, an intimate collection of Seeff’s acclaimed photographic sessions featuring influential 20th Century musical...
Iridesce Don’t Look Back On Rise (Curtain Call)
By looking back, Iridesce have found a new beginning. While working on a new acoustic version of their single Rise, premiering on RockShot Mag today, the London-based alternative-rock band were reminded of what really matters: the songs themselves....
Ennor The English West Coast Beach Boys
It was the Beach Boys who became famous for songs about the west coast of America. Ennor are doing the same in 2018, however their west coast is more rugged and dramatic. In its title alone, Ennor’s West Coast forms a suggestive link between their roots in the south...
The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Cant We?
There are too many life defining albums to choose from, I could be here all week. For National Album Day I have chosen to share on The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Cant We? (1993) and the 1993 version, not the remastered one that came later with...
National Album Day: Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins; the album that gave me the power to get through my teenage chaos years and forever find other ‘Pumpkin heads’ in life, making life long friends out of them. Back from the times when you actually listened to an entire album, from...
National Album Day: Bad by Michael Jackson
Bad was the very first album that I have a conscious memory of wanting to absorb in its entirety in the way that seems trivial these days; pouring over the fold out album booklet from my father’s cassette tape and consuming the videos on television over and over...
National Album Day: Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrisette
An influential album that means so much to me, even after twenty-three years, is Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill. Morrisette’s trailblazing third studio album, and international debut, spoke to me. It was angry, urgent and directive, supplying a poetic...
National Album Day: Live Through This by Hole
For National Album Day we’ve chosen Live Through This by Hole. Maybe an obvious choice, but we’d rather be honest than cool. Iconic female rock stars were (and still are) sadly under represented in music. Courtney Love is the embodiment of a rock star, yet fiercely...
National Album Day: Solid Air by John Martin
Solid Air is an album that had me hooked from the opening few seconds on first listen. For me, John Martyn is (was) one of the finest songwriters out there. The way he captures raw emotion is staggering and songs like May You Never, Over The Hill and the title track...
National Album Day: Achtung Baby by U2
Yes, The Joshua Tree has the bigger hits, but U2's seventh studio album is a far more interesting prospect. Dark, tortured, experimental, it's the sound of a band who were trying to find their way, just a few years after Time magazine had called them "Rock's hottest...
National Album Day: Moving Pictures by Rush
In 1987, I was nineteen years old (please don’t work it out). On a warm summer’s night and after an extremely alcoholic trip out, my friend Stuart James put on Moving Pictures by Rush. I didn’t know what it was and I’d not really heard much Rush to that point. I had...
National Album Day: Low Slung Town by Beef
I have never met another person who owns this album, which is a terrible shame because it is one of the few albums from 1990 I still play from start to finish without cherry picking tracks. Beef, (not to be confused with a different band with the same name who started...
National Album Day: Amused To Death by Roger Waters
I remember sifting through my father's album collection as a teenager and the cover of Roger Waters' Amused to Death immediately caught my attention. A decade ago, album covers had so much importance and careful attention was placed on providing listeners with a...
National Album Day: Let It Bleed by Rolling Stones
The one album that I could not live without is Let It Bleed by Rolling Stones. When I first became interested in music Glam Rock was at it's height. I was surrounded by Ballroom Blitz-es and New York Groove's. I was being urged to Bang A Gong and even try a Glass Of...
National Album Day: Nevermind by Nirvana
When someone asks me about my musical inspirations first to mind comes The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, AC/DC, Janis Joplin, and Nirvana to name just a few. But if anybody wants to know the album that changed my entire life and made me who I am now, that has to be...
National Album Day: Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan
Blood On The Tracks is an album for every season. I first heard it as a teenager and it seems as deeply intriguing, as powerfully emotional and as satisfyingly comforting to me today as it did back then. Hilarious and tragic, soothing and bitter, lonely and redeemed,...
National Album Day: Violent Femmes
I first caught wind of the Violent Femmes six years after the release of their debut album, at the tender age of 14. Followed in quick succession by Hallowed Ground and 3, the Violent Femmes’ self titled album speaks to a younger audience, with the consequent...
National Album Day: Choose Your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote
This album blew me away from the moment I pressed play. I’ve always appreciated quality musicians who make you feel every note, chord, phrase, drum beat or symbol-tap, alongside eccentric melodic lyrics all delivered with passion and emotion. For me this draws me into...
National Album Day: Last Of The True Believers by Nanci Griffith
Before, Texan, Nanci Griffith secured a lucrative album deal with MCA, she made four albums for the Philo record label, the best of which is The Last Of The True Believers. At the time it was lauded as one of the best ever country music albums and bought the worlds...
Darren Hayman Celebrates Thankful Villages
Released on 9 November, to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, Thankful Villages Volume 3 is the final installment of Darren Hayman’s epic study of rural British life. A Thankful Village is one where every soldier returned alive...
Video Premiere Of Adam Giles Levy’s The Ghosts
Adam Giles Levy gives us a taste of what’s to come with his new video-single, The Ghosts, which is taken from his upcoming EP, Peninsula. The new video features Adam and his band and was filmed on location outside Barcelona
Discover Black Belt Eagle Scout
Black Belt Eagle Scout (aka Portland-based Katherine Paul) is an indigenous queer musician whose debut album, Mother of My Children, is about "grief and love for people, but also about being a native person in what is the United States today.” Paul has already...
J R Harbidge Turns The Screw
British singer songwriter J R Harbidge has announced that he will be releasing his debut solo album, First Ray Of Light, via Absolute Label on October 5th.
Percy Philips & The Quarrymen Historic Recording
A new exhibition to be launched at International Beatle Week on 26th August will once again see the old adversaries, Everton and Liverpool FC, go head-to-head in an entirely different game of one-upmanship. The Percy Phillips Studio Collection will chart Percy’s...
Hear the Gong! GONG-OH Records Label Launch @ Paper Dress Vintage, London
As record launch parties go, this was always going to be a special one. GONG-OH Records is an innovative record label and collective of emerging European artists based in the UK. Founded by Victor Marichal, Alessandro de Cominato (Bandini), and Mattia East (The Man...
Becoming Bristol Release Sort Myself Out
Becoming Bristol, formally The Exchange, have released their new single, Sort Myself Out. They collaborated with Los Angeles producer AKA Wolves who has previously worked with John Legend, as well as up and coming acts such as Lostboycrow. Britt Espinosa, from the...
Angélique Kidjo Reclaims Remain In Light For Africa
Many albums from many artists have taken inspiration from the sounds and rhythms of Africa, Paul Simon's Graceland took inspiration from South Africa, but another classic album, Remain In Light by Talking Heads was influenced by West Africa, notably Nigerian musician...
10 O’Clock Chemical Release We Are Digital Video
Co-directed by Will Hutchinson and band member Rhys Oakes, the psychotropic video for We Are Digital is teeming with electro-loving aliens gobbling flying saucers and revelling in the carnal delights of the sesh. Is it a metaphor for a culture that’s dehumanising...