Matthew Mansell
I’ve been writing about music, film and comics for over 20 years. And I won’t stop now.
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in MusicGang of Youths Find Hope in Despair on “the kingdom is within you”
A close death can turn your whole world upside down but imagine whilst grieving you learnt that that the person you loved had a whole other life you were not aware of. This is what happened to Gang of Youths lead singer David Le’aupepe after the death of his father Tattersall. The Tattersall he knew […] More
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in Music
Bakar’s “Free” Is the Uptempo Track We All Need Right Now
The greatest songs trick us into believing we have caught the singer off-guard; that they have revealed more about themselves then they intended. The bracing candidness of the opening 20 seconds of “Free” show that Bakar clearly knows how to cast this spell. Taken from Camden-born Bakar’s first studio album Nobody’s Home, the sound of […] More
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in Music
Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Spiritualized
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space was an important first for me. It was the first album I bought solely on recommendation from reviews, specifically the “4 out of 5” from Select Magazine and the “9 out of 10” from NME. I had slavishly been buying music journalism for over 12 months, but […] More
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in Music
Primal Scream’s Vanishing Point: How to Not Disappear
By 1995 Primal Scream were a joke. The poor reaction to the retro 70s rock of 1994’s Give Up But Don’t Give Out gave credence to the running gag that the Scream were just chancers.The theory went that the success of Screamadelica was due to the production by cutting edge DJs like Andrew Weatherall and mixing […] More
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in Music
F*ck Art: The Dirty Nil Make Stay at Home the New Rock and Roll
The teenage years are a rite of passage that rock has endlessly mined for fertile material. But, that transition from feckless twenties to—supposedly—responsible thirties and forties, is mostly overlooked in hard rock, although it is equally fraught with peril. Music about settling down is usually the mainstay for your Blunts, Bublés or maudlin Liam Gallagher […] More
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in Music
Aero Flynn’s New Album Madeline Will Soothe Your Anxious Mind
If you are publicity-shy then releasing an album without fanfare on Christmas Day seems a good way of slipping under the radar. Well, Josh Scott may not like me to blow his trumpet, but his second release under the pseudonym Aero Flynn, Madeline, is a Secret Santa present worth hanging onto long after the Christmas […] More
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Top 10 Alternative Christmas Songs
If you crave new music, December can be a trial as new releases pretty much cease. It’s not that I don’t enjoy hearing the Pogues (either version, I’m not a dick) or Wham umpteen times every year, but where are the acts trying to add to the pantheon? Plenty have tried and here I have […] More
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Top 10 Tracks That Prove 2020 Wasn’t All Bad
Join Matthew Mansell with his choice for Top 10 best music tracks of 2020. 2020 was crap, but music saved it from being a write-off. Left with only the dribble of pennies from streaming and no tours or festivals to play, musicians had to be creative. Bandcamp threw them a lifeline with their promise to […] More
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in Music
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez is Worth a Binge
Originally Song Machine was intended to an ongoing series of standalone singles released monthly, with Damon Albarn and drummer Remi Kabaka Jr running an open-door studio policy so contributors could come and go as they please. The intention was that both artists could avoid spending six solid months recording an album. But then Covid-19 happened. […] More
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in Music
Beabadoobee’s Fake It Flowers is the Start of Something Beautiful
Releasing her debut album Fake It Flowers only three years after she first picked up the guitar at age 17; Beatrice Laus’s—aka beabadoobee—rise to fame would make Andy Warhol’s head spin. Learning her craft from YouTube tutorials, she uploaded her first song “Coffee” in 2017, a beautifully understated Elliott Smith style ballad, which got her […] More
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in Music
Doves live for the moment on ‘The Universal Want‘
Everything The Universal Want—Doves’ first album in 10 years—is about is neatly surmised halfway through when Jimi Goodwin sings “I hear voices lost in time”. There are many lost voices on this album: the distorted snatches of dialogue that weave in and out of the mix as if they are half-remembered; the characters who obsess […] More
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in Music
Bright Eyes Bring Colourful Funk For ‘Down in the Weeds…’
[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form] After the unthinkable happens, what’s next? Usually a band break-up causes a personal crisis for everyone involved, yet when Bright Eyes disbanded in 2011, they all ostensibly continued as normal: Conor Oberst added to his already extensive discography with three […] More
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