Posts by William Lewis

“It’s a miracle I’m not a drug addict, but it’s a shame I’m still hard at it.” So sings John Vanderslice on ‘I’ll Wait For You’, lead single of his new record The Cedars. It encapsulates his ever candid and gritty approach to writing, and life in general. No stranger to writing music, The Cedars […]

Natalie Mering has spoken at length about Titanic Rising, her fourth release as Weyes Blood. There’s a sense she feels there’s something special in it, that she’s dug deep through the desert and knows she’s found a fountain. “An album is like a Rubik’s Cube,” she says giving weight to such assertions, “sometimes you get […]

Luluc has created a soothing afternoon shower far more than a storm in the 10 years since their quiet emergence. Overshadowed somewhat by the roaring success of fellow Aussie folk duo Angus & Julia Stone, theirs was a sound that borrowed more into stark and stripped back honesty than the more heavy-handed and conspicuous emotional […]

Perth’s, and indeed Australia’s, burgeoning psychedelic scene is virtually synonymous with Kevin Parker and his little project known as Tame Impala. But Pond – of whom Kevin Parker was once a member – are an equally important part of the psych revolution that’s seeing the yearning return of the synths and sounds seemingly extracted from […]

It’s clear William Phillips is a talented songwriter. He may not be the name remembered in association with the song, but his Song of the Year Grammy award for co-writing Sam Smith’s ‘Stay With Me’ will testify to that. Despite that, his work as Tourist has leaned more toward production and sound than the straight-up […]

By all accounts named for his childhood hometown of Phoenix, Arizona; David Bazan’s first album for fifteen years as Pedro the Lion’s reference to the resurrected firebird of the Greek myths can’t be lost on many, least of all Bazan himself. Inspired by an impromptu visit to the town he grew up in, Bazan finally […]

Chaz Bear/Bundick/take your pick has been bobbing along for many a year now, his Toro Y Moi project an ever-present in the decade or so since the rise of chillwave. Ascending the incline from humble home-recorded origins – down-tempo bedroom electronics aren’t an easy set of tools with which to break through the walls of […]

[rating=7.00] Given they’re best known to most people as “that band that did the whistling song”, it’s easy to underestimate the loyal following Peter Bjorn and John have. The Swedish indie-pop trio may have faded from many’s consciousnesses – ‘Young Folks’ was 12 years ago after all – but they’d been busily hoarding fans across […]

[rating=9.00] It’s difficult to know what to say about Double Negative – such is its extraordinary power. Low, a band now 12 albums in, have truly fulfilled their name and ambition in crafting raw and understated songs that hold their immense weight in the spaces between the sounds, yet continue to prove able to evolve. […]

[rating=8.00] The first moments of No Recover are, in many ways, a signpost. A signal of things to come over the course of Eric Bachmann’s fourth solo album. The softly building persistent tap, fingerpicked motif and throaty vocals of ‘Jaded Lover, Shady Drifter’ are incredibly pretty in their distant separation, but crucially are techniques that […]