Drowned in Nottingham #7
Hot on the back of October's bumper local scene report and gig guide from Nottingham and the East Midlands, comes the seventh and final installment from DiS' man in the city for 2011...»
Articles
domgourlay has written the following articles:
DiS meets Richard Fearless of Death In Vegas
Having emerged during the earliest throes of Britpop as something of a musical anomaly, Death In Vegas have continued to confound expectations ever since.»
"It means more that people on Drowned In Sound like us than any industry awards panel": DiS meets Wild Beasts
Having been on the road almost constantly for the past six months, DiS caught up with Wild Beasts songwriter, vocalist, bass player and occasional keyboard tinkler Tom Fleming and drummer Chris Talbot prior to their recent sold out show at Nottingham's Rescue Rooms. »
Lost 11 of 2011 - #10: Craft Spells Idle Labor
Over the past few years, DiS has used the annual year-end 'listing season' to highlight a few of our writers favourite records that for one reason or another, slipped through the cracks and failed to garner the attention they deserved. In these increasingly fractious times, where amid a deluge of opinion consensus is hard-veering-on-impossible to find, records are increasingly lost but over the course of this week, ahead of next week's 50 albums of the year listageddon, DiS will be highlighting 11 records from 11 of our staff, in the hope that they finally find a place in a record collection or two... Here Dom Gourlay reveals his choice, borne in Seattle out of a love for all things conceived on the acceptable side of the 1980s axis. »
"As they say on The League Of Gentlemen, it's a shit business": DiS meets The Chapman Family
The backwaters of Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough would be about as unconventional as it gets when discussing prospective musical scenes. Yet, in the case of locally based five-piece The Chapman Family, they've pretty much single handedly ensured the North East's contribution to refreshingly creative music extends beyond the more renowned gritty terrains of Newcastle»
Crystal Stilts - Radiant Door
With two excellent long players in the bag, this year's In Love With Oblivion demonstrating a depth far beyond those early Jesus & Mary Chain comparisons, Crystal Stilts have ended 2011 with arguably their most ambitious collection of songs to date. »
Swimming - Ecstatics International
This East Village Radio suited five-piece have created one of 2011's most ambitiously futuristic long players. »
Puressence, The Cedars at Bodega Social, Nottingham, Sat 12 Nov
Although largely a cult phenomenon here, Puressence continue to flourish overseas, and while recently released sixth LP Solid State Recital came out virtually unnoticed in the UK, the band's status as one of this country's most proficient exports this past decade remains.»
93 Million Miles From The Sun - Northern Sky
By the time 'Sonic Assault' brings Northern Sky to a close, its title self-explanatory as surging guitars collide with watery synths, 93MillionMilesFromTheSun's mission is accomplished in devastating fashion.»
The Soft Moon - Total Decay
San Francisco ensemble The Soft Moon are a welcome, adverse reaction to the accepted norm. In proferring such a diverse and all-encompassing yet challenging range of styles and sounds, they could quite easily have emerged at any given point between 1978 and the present day. »
An Album of the Year 2000 - 11yrson: Six.By Seven The Closer You Get
Eleven years after its initial release, Six.By Seven's The Closer You Get's status as a timeless masterpiece remains intact...»
DiS meets Eagulls
DiS caught up with the Eagulls collective - vocalist George Mitchell, guitarists Mark "Goldy" Goldsworthy and Liam Matthews, bass player Tom Kelly and drummer Henry Ruddell - prior to their recent show at Nottingham's Spanky Van Dykes. No sleep 'til soundcheck... »
U2 - Achtung Baby (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
To express a dislike of U2 seems to have become almost as regular a pastime as shopping for groceries or queuing at the bus stop.»
Arctic Monkeys, The Vaccines at Trent FM Arena, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Fri 28 Oct
By the time a gloriously sedate yet exquisitely delivered '505' bring the encore and proceedings to a close, the Arctic Monkeys status as the undisputed kings of commercially viable alternative rock is well and truly assured. »
Various Artists - Late Night Tales: MGMT
If plaudits were awarded to musicians for possessing the coolest record collections, then MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser would surely be vying for pole positio.»
The Horrors, Toy at Rock City, Nottingham, Wed 26 Oct
Four years is a long time in music. As far as The Horrors are concerned it could be another lifetime altogether. When the adolescent garage punk of Strange House landed unceremoniously on DiS' doormat back in the spring of 2007, it's probably fair to say no one could have predicted many commentators calling its creators the most progressive, forward-thinking band on UK shores. Indeed, any such suggestion at that time would have resulted in a visit from the men in white coats.»
Fifteen years of fun: DiS meets Sean Price, founder of Fortuna Pop! Records
Here, DiS caught up with label founder and general workaholic Sean Price, as well as some of the key artists from the Fortuna Pop! roster pivotal to the label's development over the past fifteen years. »
Wu Lyf at The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Fri 21 Oct
On a day when Manchester's past announced record ticket sales of nearly one quarter of a million in less than an hour, its present was busily laying foundations for the future...»
Drowned in Nottingham #6
Hot on the back of September's local scene report and gig guide from Nottingham and the East Midlands, comes the bumper sixth installment from DiS' man in the city...»
"I don't trust anyone": DiS meets Plan B
One of the UK music industry's most surprising success stories in recent years undoubtedly has to be the meteoric rise to fame of rapper-cum-soul singer Plan B. »
Jack Daniel's Birthday Celebration Gig: A DiS diary
It's not every day that DiS gets invited to a birthday party halfway across the world in honour of someone we've never met. That's what happened last week though when those nice people at Jack Daniel's offered us the chance to fly out to Nashville, Tennessee for a weekend of eating, drinking, sight-seeing and generally surreal activities we'd never experience in a lifetime of evenings in the city of Nottingham (or anywhere else in the UK you'd care to mention). Oh, and of course, music. Lots of it.»
Various Artists - Revolution In Sound II
Having established themselves as one of the UK's leading independents for discovering new artists, London's Norther Star have come up trumps again with this seventeen-track assortment of delights from around the globe.»
Mazes, Milk Maid, Eagulls, Weird Menace at Spanky Van Dykes, Nottingham, Sun 09 Oct
While Sunday evenings aren't normally considered to be anything more than prolonged hangover sessions in front of the television set, there are several reasons (well, three to be exact) why Nottingham is literally bursting at the seams this evening...»
Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls
By definition or by some unexplainable quirk of fate, Veronica Falls seem to have found themselves lumped in with all things ramshackle, perfunctory and twee.»
Syntaks - Nachtblende
Copenhagen-based composer cum arranger Jakob Skott isn't exactly a newcomer to making and releasing music. Having recorded under the guise of Syntaks for a decade now as well as his involvement in Limp with former Causa Sui bandmate Jonas Munk, Skott has spent the ensuing years perfecting his art to the point where he's now considered one of the leading lights of the underground ambient techno scene...»
Still Corners - Creatures Of An Hour
As a representative document of the band's formative years to the present, Creatures Of An Hour is an astounding debut that can only bode well for the future...»
dEUS - Keep You Close
Mention the name dEUS and it's difficult to erase the chorus of 'Little Arithmetics'; undoubtedly their piece de resistance despite the 15 year age gap; from memory.»
Jesus and Mary Chain - Deluxe Reissues
Over the next three weeks, starting with Psychocandy and Darklands on September 26th and finishing with Stoned And Dethroned and Munki on October 10th, each of their six albums is to be re-issued as a triple CD/DVD deluxe box set containing remastered versions, singles and b-sides, demo recordings, live concerts, television appearances and numerous rare and unreleased songs complete with extensive booklets containing interviews with band members, lyric sheets and rare photographs and memorabilia.. Here, DiS reviews and reflects on each re-issue while ultimately proclaiming The Jesus & Mary Chain as possibly the most important British band of the past thirty years. »
Love Inks, Swimming, Yunioshi, Blind Caves at The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Fri 23 Sep
Nottingham really is the place to be at this moment in time. Having waited more than a decade for someone from the local music scene to break through, 2011 has seen London's A&R scouts decamped in the city. »
Zola Jesus - Conatus
Perhaps the biggest (and some would say only) drawback with Conatus is when Zola Jesus reverts to type in an almost routine fashion. »