ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE ‘EP TIPS’ POSTS

YES, IT’S another one of those posts. Well, to paraphrase The Cranberries (sorry. I’m really sorry), everybody else is doing it, so why can’t I?

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HOT CHIP: DEEPLY DIPPY

Originally published in The Irish Times, February 6th 2010

STANDING ON the doorstep of his London flat, phone pressed tightly to his ear as early morning traffic screeches past, Hot Chip’s Owen Clarke is trying to ignore the light dusting of snow that’s falling on his shoulders. He’s far too preoccupied with the more important things in life, like his band’s new album. One Life Stand has been two years in the making, after all; it comes on the back of their longest period of downtime since they “blew up”, as bloggers might put it, with their dinky dancefloor-filling full-length The Warning in 2006. But it’s not just that, Clarke says.

I BLOODY LOVE THIS SONG…

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO… LIAM LYNCH?

Whatever happened to Liam Lynch? You know, the ‘United States of Whatever’ guy, released that one single and accompanying album in 2003 and then apparently disappeared from the face of Planet Music…

ALBUMS OF THE NOUGHTIES: #20-15

IT’S NOT too late for an Albums of the ’00s post, is it?

JÓNSI: GET UP AND GO

Originally published in AU magazine, March 2010

LET’S BE frank for just a moment. When you think of Sigur Rós, arguably one of the most cerebral bands of the 21^st century – a band whom the word ‘ethereal’ was seemingly devised solely to describe – you don’t necessarily expect them to be captivating conversationalists. Harsh? Well, try sticking ‘Sigur Rós Radio Interview Disaster’ into Google, witness the stultifyingly awkward ‘discussion’ that followed on NPR in 2007, bear in mind that this is a band who regularly sing in a made-up language, and then tell us that you’d like to be stuck in an elevator with them for an hour.

JENS LEKMAN: Q&A

Originally published in The Irish Times, July 30th 2010

You’re based in Australia now, but you return to your home city of Gothenburg every summer…

Yes, the Swedish summer is just like summer should be – short and full of expectation. It’s not like the Australian summer. That’s just like a nagging old couple. It just goes on for too long – you get sick of it. It’s like, ‘Oh, sunshine? Again?’