I first chanced on Flipron in a tent in the Huntingdon countryside at the Secret Garden Party Festival three years ago - a mad weekend of the most outlandish sights you‘ll ever see. But never mind how outlandish all the revelling there was - like a Mardi-Gras inside a Looney Tunes cartoon, the craziest thing was Flipron. By far. It was late at night when we drifted into that tent, and the band had the place buzzing like the most authentic haunted-house you’d ever seen; there in the middle of it all, crouched over first a lap-steel, then Hawaian guitar,…

It’s great again to feel the incoming breeze of rebel music and energy of freedom after a few months of rather bourgeois considerations. And it’s great to say that one melody by new Ooberman project Symphonika can wipe out what seems to have been years, but what was actually weeks of “trying” to make positives out of negatives, trying to keep rebel flames flying in the face of strong winds, when of coarse positives always exist on their own and are separate of negatives anyway, and rebellion is always way past trying. The beauty of a Hermann Hesse story is…

Martha Reeves and the VandellasJens LekmanMahoganyMr HuwThe Gentle GoodMathew Sawyer and The Ghosts The Gentle GoodHot Silk PocketsSerafinaTap TapA Smile and a RibbonParenthetical GirlsFire EnginesJetplane LandingJonathan RichmanMia Riddle and Her BandThe SchoolSilence at SeaLittle MyThe VelvelettesDarren HaymanDarren Hayman and the Secondary Modern

So here I am sitting with my four variants of posters and pea-sized bit of plasticine reflecting that Friday night was quite a spectacular one in a number of ways. Went down to meet Flipron at five o’clock-ish, and it became apparent straight away that not too many people were going to turn up. There was a football do in the club opposite, and one just up the road where Kevin Radcliffe had been assigned to chat (rather them than me) and of all things Nobby Stiles’ son was going to tell jokes, and the outlook wasn’t good. To top…

"Girls and guns," Godard famously said, and this white-hot blast from guitar pop heaven is the musical equivalent: a cut-glass concoction of melody and elemental noise. What a trademark guitar sound to have. Niyan's heroic axe shards emerge like lighting from the floor and set you on fire from the feet up. The emotion even flows from his feedback like tears streaming from the Mona Lisa. The tracks on this EP contrast like water and wine, opener 'Between Air and Air' swamping your head with a stuttering blast of trans-world cool to make the hairs stand on end. Lead singer…

CSSIvor CutlerTilly and the WallCamera ObscuraHalf Man Half BiscuitRadio LuxembourgAu Revoir SimoneThe LovesA Smile and a RibbonDarren HaymanLucky Lucky PigeonsRough BunniesCats on FireThe MareJohn HartfordGreat LakesFlipronHerman DuneYea Big and Kid Static

There’s something joyous in the air at the moment, grand, poetically empowering, and slowly spreading via the coolest corners of the web.

There’s the Swedish pop revolution led by Lucky Lucky Pigeons and A Smile and a Ribbon; the emergence of another underbelly of Scottish bands from the lineage of Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura (see The Hermit Crabs and California Snow Story); random London strirrings in the form of Let’s Wrestle, Decoration and Pete and the Pirates; the new Welsh pop underground led by Little My and Radio Luxembourg; and a sprinkling of new bands from the US,…

How they’ve escaped much attention in four years of subtly illumining the New York underground is beyond me, but the sounds of Brooklyn’s Au Revoir Simone are really something to behold.

Slender and graceful looking, the three girls that make up the band could easily populate the pages of Vogue, but here is a photogenic magic tied in with truly sentimental poetry. Beautiful electronic flourishes and subtle tempos lay behind Erika Foster’s gently melancholic vocals, and the myth that great female beauty causes a) madness or b) vacuousness is consummately slain.

Simone’s second LP, The Bird of Music (Moshi Moshi),…

When the hell did Idlewild become uncool? Mentioning them to some new Pop upstarts recently and the doubtful frowns kind of took me aback. I stood up to them though, matriculating the fact that Woomble and the boys have always been merely on the borders of super-success, never really crossing them because they weren’t careerist mercenaries.

Idlewild’s evolution from poet-punk upstarts to spectral pop purveyors in the mist of heady industry acclaim is a story of blinding integrity. So many paths beckoned with pound signs, and after refining their sound to a swooning T on Warnings/Promises Woomble scampers off to…

Apologies for a tragic lack of alacrity, but, wow, how good is the latest album from Half Man Half Biscuit?

Turning days of light drizzle into torrents of heavy rain, it’s a fantastic sounding monster of pensive observation (“I can find my way home from Sierra Leone but I’m lost without an inside pocket” / “Keeper, you’ve just made a decent save, so why do you feel the need to rant and rave?” / “We all knew someone at school who had a very powerful magnet”) and random hilarity (“it fills me with joy to see moshers out jogging” /…