Having more or less perfected their sleek electro-noir with 2008’s savagely brilliant Velocifero, and distilled their career into the rapturously received Best Of 00â€"10, it’s natural that Ladytron would want to shake up their formula with this fifth album. Where previous albums have given equal weight to...

Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1986 follow-up to their Welcome to the Pleasuredome debut was always going to seem like a let-down, so comprehensively did that debut double-album, and its attendant three chart-topping singles (and number two-peaking title-track), dominate 1984-85. If anything, it represented a volte-face after the OTT...

From Altern-8 to SBTRKT, it is unclear why so many purveyors of electronica are attracted to masks and enigmatic aliases. Perhaps it’s a hangover from the days when being able to play ‘real’ instruments was a mark of pride, whereas playing synths was somehow shameful. New Yorker Chris Glover...

"It’s been 15 or 16 years since the last truly classic album, but I think we’ve done it," Serge Pizzorno claims of Velociraptor!, which is exactly the kind of bullish boasting which, along with their boorish interviews and boozy gang attitude, have made it easy to pigeonhole Kasabian as...

Where exactly has Tom Vek been for the past six years? Even his much vaunted comeback spearheaded by the well received album, "Leisure Seizure", had failed to attract a sizeable crowd to the Festival Republic Stage. Such early promise but this slot felt like a chance to start over and...

The elements turned out in favour for Friendly Fires as the teeming rain halted just in time for their Main Stage performance. The lack of beaming sunshine still judged their attire of Hawaiian shirts as near inappropriate. Perhaps the grey conditions were to blame but opening with 'Lovesick', Ed McFarlane's...

Witness the rise of the precocious indie band. The reward for a bursting mid-afternoon slot on the NME/Radio 1 stage last year has amounted to a sunshine drenched late afternoon slot on the Main Stage for Two Door Cinema Club. Not that they seem at all nervous either, underneath a...

"Gotta Go"from the single Gotta Go / Mahwun2011iTunesTons of bands make music in basements all over the world; that particular subterranean space has bred a diverse genre that is equal parts simplistic DIY and lush grandeur. Twenty-year-old musician Brad Oberhofer intended to undertake...

"Terra Incognita"from the album Parallax2011iTunesIn Latin, terra incognita means "unknown land," but this song, the first single from Parallax (Nov. 8), the new album from Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound project, is familiar territory. It's based around a repeating acoustic guitar figure...

"Fallout"from the album Era Extraña2011iTunesNeon Indian is back with Era Extraña, the follow-up to 2009 debut Psychic Chasms. Chillwave poster boy Alan Palomo recorded the new album in Helsinki, Finland, alone during the short solstice days, and it took his music in...