Liam Bailey
Please Love Me/On My Mind
Single (Truth & Soul Records)
A year on from splitting with Polydor, Bailey’s re-emergence as a solo artist continues in fine fashion with his sixth – and arguably his best – release. Released by New York’s Truth & Soul label, these two tracks adhere to the label’s in-house style, inspired as they are by vintage soul traditions. More importantly, the deft, sympathetic arrangements offer the best fit to date for Liam’s strong vocal personality. On Please Love Me, the singer sighs and swoons in falsetto over a simple template – choppy Stax guitar on the left, twangy country guitar on the right, snappily bouncing bassline in the centre – before strings and brass make their entrance. Meanwhile, the flipside re-visits an EP track from last year, recasting it as a strutting, swaggering, almost menacing Southern blues shuffle. If this is how the album’s going to sound, then we’re in for a treat. Mike Atkinson
Liam Bailey website
Jake Bugg
Jake Bugg
LP (Mercury Records)
Like a much-loved 331/3 from your parents’ record collection, this album - the release that will finally put Nottingham’s music scene over the top and into the charts, mark you - already sounds well-worn and familiar. Partly because its supercharged twang and shuffle nails the classic sixties folk-pop sound, and partly because most of the tracks are the original demo recordings, giving it a punch and immediacy that may not have been present after numerous re-recordings and overdubs (although the addition of vinyl ‘hiss’ to Fire seems a little needless). While the album peaks around the emotional highpoint of Broken, a gorgeous tune given weight by strings and choir, the pace noticeably drops in the second half. Lyrically, youthful tales dominate, and new single Two Fingers and Trouble Town won’t be used by the Clifton Tourist Board any time soon. But if his career keeps going the way it is, he’ll not have to worry about going back for a while. Paul Klotschkow
Dog is Dead
All Our Favourite Stories
LP (Atlantic)
Back in August 2010, this reviewer met a shy, upcoming Nottingham band for their first major interview. A couple of years of hard work later, Dog is Dead have finally reached the Radio 1 daytime playlist and look set to score a mainstream hit with this, their debut album. Right from the opening track, Get Low, it is clear that this is an album packed full of killer melodies; every track on this record has something that makes you instantly sing along, from the mischievous Two Devils to the excellent River Jordan. While Dog is Dead show their first-rate songwriting capabilites on the more reflective tracks here, I prefer it when they let their hair down and crank out a carefree, upbeat indie pop number. Hands Down and Glockenspiel Song are amongst the best singles this year, and I sincerely hope this superb opening salvo propels these lovely fellas high into the charts. Nick Parkhouse
Lisa de’Ville
Fables From The Spinning Wheel
EP (self-released)
This four-track selection is full of surprises, exemplified by opener Folded Wing which starts out mellow and dreamy before building into a epic cavalcade of melody punctuated by Lisa’s siren-song voice. Until the End of Time leads you into a very different world reminiscent of Bat for Lashes, with the feeling of something sinister lurking beneath a bluesy riff and emotive lyrics. Twilight feels like a lullaby backed by guitar and strings, and leads seamlessly into the final track Neon Lights, a love story, full of evocative and fantastical images and feeling like a journey. With Fables from the Spinning Wheel, de’Ville provides us with simply beautiful music, perfect for unwinding after a stressful day or maybe a quiet night in with someone you love. It’s apparent that this is a singer/songwriter that can compete with the best, and probably teach them a thing or two. Graeme Smith
Lisa de.Ville website
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In The North Wood
Southern Ground
EP (self-released)
Listening to this you could be forgiven for thinking you are in Appalachia rather than Nottinghamshire. Complete with banjo, there are more strings than a marionette show and sing-a-long harmonies that could easily prompt a hoe-down; but the unmistakable ‘Britishness’ of the vocals grounds the band firmly in these parts. Taking in three tracks, the band range from the upbeat and twanging The A Song to the quiet and introspective For What It Is, before ending with the anthemic and longing Southern Ground. At times this record provides a bright and breezy tonic to the intensity of Mumford and Sons. It’s difficult to not be seduced into toe-tapping and you’ll find yourself humming the melodies long after the record’s done. There’s a sense that there’s more to come from In The North Wood and they could easily grow into something big in the new folk era. Graeme Smith
In The North Wood Bandcamp
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Kappa Gamma
Just Another / Wildfire
Single (Denizen Recordings)
Along with Kagoule (whose debut release is due soon on the same label), Kappa Gamma are spearheading a fresh wave of teenage talent in this city, and it’s to Denizen Recording’s credit that both acts have been picked up so promptly. Each of these two tracks - Just Another and Wildfire - offer an accurate reflection of the band’s live sound: freewheeling yet tightly structured, cheerfully tumbling and chiming – while still packing an emotional punch – and compressing a dazzling number of musical ideas into three and a half restless, constantly shape-shifting minutes. Tricksy math-rock instrumentation is sweetened with Dog Is Dead-style choral harmonies, solid refrains (“you control it/and it’s dark and it’s dark and it’s dark”) sit alongside oblique excursions into the unexpected, and yet the band’s assured lightness of touch makes all of it seem unforced, instinctive, and the most natural thing in the world. Mike Atkinson
Kappa Gamma on Facebook
Lexus
Home Truths
Mixtape (GS Media)
If well produced, bouncy hip-hop is your kind of thing, you’d do well to pick up Lexus’ (or should that be Lexii, Mr Partridge?) new long play. Over the very slickest production from Alex Blood, G-Wiz, Benji Smedz, Kirk Spencer and others, Lexus pings between Giggs-style (the drawling grime star, not the Red Devil’s champion love-rat) gangsta delivery - Out Here, They Call Him Lex, Grind Daily - and breezier beats and raps that could only come from Notts - the very OutDaVille-sounding Making Noise and Johnson Want. Thematically, Lexus goes from dystopian views of a ghettoed Nottingham, to more aspirational stuff. Like Skinnyman did with Scum on Council Estate of Mind, he also uses bleak British movie samples for back-up. Lexus leaves the listener with One Way - a spirited end to a diverse claim for Nottingham’s hip-hop crown - and a fitting Frank Gallagher reminder. Shariff Ibrahim
Listen here
Manière des Bohémiens
Mélodies Manouche
Album (Farmyard Records)
Summer is now a distant memory – but don’t be too down about it, as the Manières are here with a little sunshine, and their latest release is undeniable proof that a good Russian folk hoe-down will cure whatever ails you. La Vie En Rose is a swooning and romantic cheeky sod of a song while Hungarian No 5 is a bristling but fiery lesson in good old-fashioned fun. I Found A New Baby is gypsy-pop at its absolute finest and I’d challenge anyone to listen to Noto Swing without losing themselves a little. This album takes you to another world – a European fantasy of a forgotten time. Eclectic, expansive and really quite brave, Manière des Bohémiens have lunged high over the bar they so stylishly set themselves. This is more than an album – it’s an adventure. So fix yourself up with this if you need a little eternal sunshine. Andrew Trendell
Manière des Bohémiens website
Chris McDonald
There’s a Fire
LP (TBC)
Barely a month goes by without another superb acoustic record from a Nottingham artist, and Chris McDonald’s debut album is no exception. The 29-year-old hails from Underwood – DH Lawrence country – and, with Primal Scream producer George Shilling on production duties, recorded There’s A Fire in the Cotswolds earlier this year. Variously compared to artists from Ray Lamontagne to Laura Marling, There’s a Fire is an incredibly accomplished folk-pop album. At times it’s reminiscent of Noah and the Whale’s amazing First Days of Spring, but what I love about this album is that it’s much more than just a man and his guitar. There’s some lovely, subtle instrumentation here - violins, piano, banjo and cello float in and out throughout – and this gives a rich quality to McDonald’s great songs and vocals, particularly on opening track Sing Your Praises and the beautiful Ghosts. Superb stuff. Nick Parkhouse
facebook.com/chrismcdonalduk
Michael A Grammar
Vitamin Easy
EP (Melodic Records)
The four tracks on this EP were written and produced over the course of a summer and it certainly shows; Vitamin Easy is awash with a hazy, early evening, setting sun vibe. Like every young band do these days, they cite Radiohead and Joy Division as influences, but to these ears this EP takes on the laid back mannerisms of Neil Young’s On The Beach and mixes it with the neo-psychedelia of early British shoegaze, most notably the low blood sugar levels of Slowdive. It’s a brooding mix, with Upside Down setting the scene - guitars that sound so relaxed they feel horizontal while drifting around words that evaporate as soon as they are sung. Light Of Darkness threatens to kick the pace up a gear, but it’s a false move, and King And Barnes bring everything back down into more familiar blissed-out territory. Michael A Grammar have crafted a translucent psychedelic pop record. Paul Klotschkow
Michael A Grammar on Facebook
Ryan Thomas
Don’t Strike Me Down
EP (self-released)
“If I don’t make 25, well she can say her only child lived, and not just survived,” croons Ryan Thomas on his debut EP. It seems pretty unbelievable that these chilled-out blues tunes, achingly reminiscent of the late-fifties, are the work of a nineteen-year-old Nottingham lad. There are jumpy, rattling acoustic guitar rhythms on Little Bird and 25, while highlight Hangover Blues brings a slightly moodier sound accompanied by a harmonica. It all gets gorgeously slow and sticky on title track, another highlight in which Ryan’s steady vocal resonates during the quieter moments and with a simple yet addictive guitar riff. In fact, if it’s modern blues you’re looking for, you can’t go far wrong with this record. Chuck it on while you’re having a bottle of beer and a cigarette, then listen to it again when your head’s pounding the next morning. Katy Lewis Hood
Ryan Thomas website
Wasteland
From The Ashes
EP (self-released)
There are some itches that only frenetic riffing by an honest-to-goodness hard rock band can scratch. Luckily for this reviewer, Wasteland may just be that band. Formed in Nottingham in May 2010, Wasteland are Josh Kay, Matt Wainman, Dan Barber and Don Ridley and From The Ashes is their debut EP. Massive, thundering riffs? Check. Epic soloing? Check. Epically constructed eight-minute masterpiece to close the EP? Check. It’s all there, so what’s not to like? Right from Tell Me I’m Dead through to the monumental Never/Forever it’s clear that Wasteland are both massively ambitious and incredibly talented. Although the band cite influences by bands like Papa Roach, Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica and Nickelback, what I like about them is that they are clearly not content to sound like anyone else and are striving to make their own mark. On the whole, I think they succeed too, and this EP sounds amazing. Tim Sorrell
Wasteland on Facebook
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