A funny thing happened on the way back through Gloucester Cathedral this week. After a mesmerising 45 minutes watching Laura Marling perform an unaccompanied acoustic set, Pocket and I set off in hot pursuit in the hope of persuading Lovely Laura to write MM a Christmas exclusive. I would have course swum retrograde without Pocket chiming in my ears… faster, faster. It was an enormous … Continue reading Mrs Mackerel’s TFI Friday (21st October)
Antique Boy sent this track, Pain, through on an e-mail titled “Sad Music”. It simply said, “it’s pretty slow and monotonous with a slight pick up at the end, it’s good for playing on repeat while in laying in bed.” He’s right. Download Antique Boy – Pain mp3 (Demo) Continue reading MM Shorts 18: Sad Music
Communicating Vessels is releasing part two of their lavishly packaged 7″ vinyl recordings of secret songwriters from the southeast of the USA. Born equally of bright lights and seedy charm, The Grenadines might be Birmingham, Alabama’s sexiest band. Fronted by husband and wife team Michael and Lauren Shackelford and thrust into widescreen by guitarist David Swatzell and bassist Jesse Phillips, The Grenadines have been making a name for themselves in … Continue reading Communicating Vessels 7″ Series
It’s nearly winter and it’s nearly raining. Here we go again. The raindrops running down cars and buses, you know, the ones that swell up your trouser leg or soak your tights and cement you to your shirt are here again, forever, it seems. As if in preparation for this Up have come together to pen a collection of songs so bright their blazers and … Continue reading Introducing…Up
The Cave Birds and are just 1 gig / 1 recording into their existence and sit somewhere between the guitar pop of Guillemots, and the mass grandeur of Wild Beasts. This is their debut single, out on the 7th November via Plumpton Presents label. However, only 100 CD copies of Some Lightning Thrill will be pressed, so make sure you attend the single launch at … Continue reading MM Shorts 17: The Cave Birds
The Sunparlour Players are one of our favourite bands of the past five years. Both 2007’s Hymns For The Happy and 2009’s Wave North were superb albums chock full of wonderful folk tales, stomping bluegrass, anthemic country rock and impassioned lyrics. Euphoria would give way to melancholy and back again in two sets of perfectly judged and executed records that reminded us of a Canadian … Continue reading Return Of The Sunparlour Players
Here are three corking tunes that could all loosely fall under the garage rock banner. Bleached stray into the territory of those classic 60s girl groups with Searching Through The Past while the excellently named Batwings Catwings offer up the explosive Radio. Lastly, Heavy Times live up to their name with a cut from the more visceral end of the garage spectrum with the propulsive percussion, … Continue reading Let’s Go Garage
Son Cats are a psychedelic garage-rock group hailing from Portland, OR. The Cats have also lived in the backseat of a Honda Accord and done time in Missoula, Montana and Brooklyn, New York. Alex Reed Wilson howls and rips on the guitar and Jasmine Dreame Wagner thrashes the drums. They released their debut single last month in the shape of O’Dell backed with 1971. Both … Continue reading Introducing…Son Cats
My Pet Monster are a Cardiff-based Noise-Pop band and they recently put out a free EP titled Soundtracks that is (a) pretty tasty and (b) downloadable for free from their Bandcamp page here. Download My Pet Monster – Radio mp3 (from Soundtracks EP) Continue reading MM Shorts 16: My Pet Monster
Last week Extra Arms released their new album In Parallel. On first listen you might think it is another record of well-done indie rock, but invest a bit of time with it and quite quickly you discover there is actually quite a bit more going on under the surface. Lyrically strong, and with an undercurrent of the blues faintly present in the background, the music … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Extra Arms
