So, what can be said about Low that hasn’t already been written chapter and verse? For nine albums over nearly twenty years now Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker and a selection of bass players have been ploughing their truly unique furrow through the music business, in the process creating some of the most staggeringly beautiful music this listener has ever heard. Read More…

Holy. Shit. That was pretty much my reaction when I pressed play on ‘La Ligne Âpre’ by Tormenta. Never having heard of these guys before I genuinely had no idea what they sounded like beyond the fact they were on the increasingly consistently brilliant Africantape label, home to previous E&D faves Papaye, Aucan & Big’n, so nothing really prepared me for the intense aural assault that was to follow. Read More…

Massive, just massive. That’s the feeling one gets from listening to ‘Helioscope’, the second album from Leeds based auditory sculptors Vessels. Massive in sound; the production is awesome, giving the band a huge canvas on which the band paint their sonic masterpieces, the drums are especially well captured giving an immensely solid sounding base for the rest of the band to leap off from and driving the sound forwards powerfully, and massive in scope and ambition; the nine tracks here explore wide and varied areas of the Post Rock territory. Read More…

Tall Ships’ second album ‘On Tariffs And Discovery’ is an intriguing affair and remarkably difficult to pin down a description on, which is why it has taken me so bloody long to get this review written. On the surface it seems to be nice, polished indie rock but the more one listens to it the more one realises there’s far more going on in its depths than is immediately apparent. Read More…

You know those nights when you've got nothing planned and you're perfectly content to sit around in your PJs watching crap TV, eating pizza and contemplating your navel and then, out of the blue, one of your mates texts and asks if you want to go to a gig with a bunch of bands you've never heard of playing at a tiny venue you've never been to before and you go ‘Yeah, why not?’, having no expectations beyond being out of the house and interacting with other human beings for a while, but you all end up having one of…

Warning: The following article contains puns that some readers may find tenuous or downright spurious. Sorry – Ed.

For me ‘You’re An Ocean Deep, My Brother’ by Firesuite was something of a slow burner. On first listen I thought ‘Yeah, that’s nice enough’ but over the subsequent few weeks I found myself going back to it, almost subconsciously, again and again until one day it burst in to flame in my mind and I realised ‘Fuck me, this album is absolutely magnificent’! Read More…

Here at Echoes And Dust there are a number of reasons why we have a huge soft spot for Elbow but principle amongst them is that ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ was the very first album we reviewed on the site. In the intervening three years they’ve done pretty much nothing while we’ve gone on to collect numerous awards and international celebrity…oh, hang on, that’s not right is it? Joking apart though, as much as we loved ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ we had no idea, and I suspect nor did they, that it was going to launch them on the sort of trajectory…

Tu Fawning are a bit like what would happen if Bob Dylan infiltrated Abba.

Except they’re from Oregon, not Sweden, and I’m not entirely sure if any of them are involved with extra-curricular activities with other bandmembers.

Regardless of the quartet’s marital status, their debut album has definitely made an impression. They've quickly distanced their music from the hoards of indie plinky-plonky acoustic albums. Read More…

The opening couple of tracks on Aucan’s debut album are deceptive, I wonder if deliberately so, as they give very little hint as to the sheer raw wondrous brutality of what is to come. ‘Blurred’ is a lovely Portishead-esque lilting number full of beauty and peace and while ‘Heartless’ that comes next is more upbeat the two combined give the impression that ‘Black Rainbow’ is going to be an easy listen of cheerful electro-pop. Wrong! Read More…

Album seven is the kind of territory that eludes the life of most bands. But if they were name-checking youth on their first two records, Mogwai (now into their 16th year) can no longer elicit the word-of-mouth excitement of a capricious debut; the cautious pay off of a beautifully-composed second; or even the satisfaction felt by a well crafted fourth. Read More…