The Handsome Family || Bullingdon Arms, Oxford || May 25th 2012 You never quite know what you’re going to get at a Handsome Family gig. The venue was an old familiar haunt, quite cataclysmically changed from yesteryear – and not in an altogether good way. (Though thankfully, the Back Room of the Bully now has air con, which on a sweltering Friday evening in May … Continue reading The Handsome Family: Live Review
With a name like Grave Babies, an EP title like Gothdammit, and songs called Nightmare, Bloodstains, and Mourning Heir it is not hard to guess to which musical mast the band have nailed their flag. That they are able to do so whilst maintaining a healthy dose of self-awareness of the flat-out ridiculousness of much that inhabits this particular genre does them great credit. Watch … Continue reading Introducing >>> Grave Babies
Here is a collection of tracks that have found their way into our in-box or on to our iTunes one way or another recently, and which deserve far more time and effort spent on them than we are currently able to give. Plenty to soundtrack your Friday with. Brooklyn’s indie pop three-piece Violens have just released their second LP, True, on Slumberland Records. The album’s … Continue reading Mega Round Up Time
The tunes playing on Radio 6 this morning in tongue-in-cheek honour of National Goth Day made us all nostalgic for our very own black and purple tinged youth, when Wayne Hussey and Andrew Eldritch ruled the airwaves (sort of) and Fields of the Nephilim kept Homepride in business. Here then for your listening and reminiscing pleasure, as the witching hour approaches, a 13 song mixtape … Continue reading World Goth Day: A Nostalgic Mix!
Here is our cherry picked selection of our favourite downloads from March for you, together with a few new tracks to create a perfect end-of-month mix. Enjoy. Download Thee Exciters – Dinosaur Traffic mp3 (from Perpetual Happening) Psychedelia meets proto-punk Download The Lonesome Savages – All Outta Love mp3 (from All Outta Love 7″) 50s inflected rock’n’roll revamped and updated with elements of the current garage punk sound – … Continue reading Mad Mackerel’s Best Of The Month: March 2012
Crystal Bright & The Silver Hands release Muses & Bones nationally in the US today. Having already offered us the crazed Eastern European burlesque show vibe of Especially Your Mother, we now have the frantic gypsy gallop of Drowned Out and the haunting, soaring melodrama of The Misplaced Zygote. Buy from Bandcamp here. Download Download Crystal Bright & The Silver Hands – The Misplaced Zygote mp3 (from Muses & … Continue reading MM Shorts 127: More From Crystal Bright & The Silver Hands
We’ve posted a couple of times from the Sick Figures excellent album Two Ghosts released back in the autumn of 2011, and they have now made another track available for free. This is the morbidly portentous Manor Song, a slow, swirling velvet fog of a tune. a Continue reading MM Shorts 121: More From Sick Figures
The Concubines take their cue from the kind of dark-hearted indie of Nick Cave or The Horrors and forthcoming debut single, appropriately titled Darkness has the classic gothic overtones of its 80s heyday calling to mind the orchestral grandeur of Echo & The Bunnymen and the pomp and ceremony of The Mission. The single will be released on a limited edition vinyl run of 100 via … Continue reading Introducing >>> Concubines
It seems a happy coincidence that having just eulogised about our discovery of Finnish lo-fi Americana artist Einar Lind, posted earlier today with copious references to dark Finnish chantreuse Mirel Wagner that she in turn should make another track available from her own remarkable self-titled debut album. Here then is The Road, another cheery tale of death, sparsely plucked and whispered and coming across like a … Continue reading Another From Mirel Wagner
Tu Fawning are one of those bands that defy conventional descriptions. Following their acclaimed debut Hearts On Hold, comparisons varied wildly from Portishead to Tom Waits to the Liars and even Jay Z. What is obvious is their love and flair for both the antique and the modern, for big band jazz and crooners of the 20s, for hip hop and rap, for Hawaiian and … Continue reading The Return Of Tu Fawning
The Mad Mackerel 