Features
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Just The Two of Us: The Accidental Duos of ‘Heritage Rock’
From Pete & Rog, to Mac & Will – we celebrate the enduring world of the ‘heritage act’ and explore the ‘accidental’ duos that have emerged as consequence The Rolling Stones are still writing the unfinished book on how long an archetypal rock & roll band can go on and filling stadiums and arenas. All…
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Don’t Cut the Crap
Why the NOW! Yearbook series is preserving the good AND bad taste of our times – and all the better for it To paraphrase something Simon Bates may well have said if 1980 was the ‘Golden Hour’ on his Radio 1 “mid-morning matters” style show – “It was the year we lost John Lennon, but…
Music Reviews
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Anthony Moore has an extraordinary CV that brilliantly straddles the deeply experimental vs some of the most mainstream Pop musical imaginable (of it’s time). How about this – he was part of the collective around the serious-as-your-life avant-rockers Henry Cow and formed the offshoot Slapp Happy – a huge influence on groups like The Fall.…
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Tapete Records : TR516 Just when you think you’d found all your favourite music along comes something that was right under your nose all along and a new world opens up. I remember reading about Louis Phillipe and the curious world of él Records (for which he was a sort of in-house songwriter) in Record…
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Cherry Red Records QECLEC102888 Tonight’s entertainment is a monumental 10 disc box set of the enigmatic, hard to pin down Kevin Ayers. If you’re unfamiliar, imagine if Nick Drake had suddenly developed a taste for expensive wine and women and decided to strap on a electric guitar, dye his hair blonde and ‘wig out’. He’s…
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Dial-a-disc
What’s on heavy rotation at Pii HQ in Autumn 2024 Highlight of this year’s Manchester Psych Fest the ridiculously good Plantoid – seemingly beamed in direct from a damp, 1970s rehearsal room with a distinctly 2020s crunch – RIYL Cardiacs, Gong etc Terrapath by plantoid The onomatopoeiacally named THRAA enthraalled (sic) me this year with…
Gig Reviews
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Madness & Squeeze
It’s not all ‘Arsequake’, Shoegaze bands and the cutting edge of art rock on Phoning It In you know – we love a bit of Classic Pop too. I’ve always had a soft spot for Madness – their airborne sax player and nutty antics are etched in the memory along with that incredible run of…
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My Bloody Valentine
My Bloody Valentine are on a short tour, their first in 7 years and if I’m not mistaken this is their first time back in Manchester since 2013. Famously MBV are not known for their productivity. To put this in perspective, since they were last in town, the musically incontinent antipodean psych-rockers, King Gizzard and…
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Chameleons
Ah The Chameleons. The perennial North Manchester psychedelic misfits. Too late for the first wave of Manchester post punk with Joy Division and Magazine. By the time ‘Madchester’ was in full swing they’d already imploded. In the mid 80s Manchester hinterland they played The Big Music, got Steve Lillywhite in to produce ’em, got signed…
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Mood Swings with : Child of Prague, Teethe and Adore
Regular readers will know we’re big fans of the Mood Swings night at Yes Basement. You get 3 or 4 bands for less than a pint of lager at that overpriced, overcrowded Bingo Hall on Peter Street. Expect contrasting styles of music but all carefully curated by the promoters (Now Wave), everyone gets 30 mins…
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Hotline TNT
We’re back on a (yeah yeah) industrial estate in Salford for the 2nd time in the past week on a particularly rain-lashed mid week night. Hotline TNT are here, all the way from New York City and something tells me I’m into something good. They’re a few albums in but their new one ‘Raspberry Moon’…
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These New Puritans
It’s fair to say I was an early adopter of TNP. Initially they had some of the hallmarks of what I call Lamacq Rock ™. Evening Radio 1 friendly, signed to Domino, and with neo-post-punk sound that got them bracketed with Klaxons, LCD Soundsystem et al. The drummer was a model for brands like Dior…
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Seefeel In Dub
We reported from Seefeel’s spellbinding in peformance in Manchester last year (read all about it here) and since then there has been more activity, not least a stunning reissue of their early EPs collected along with the legendary Aphex Twin remixes as ‘Pure Impure’ which means their incredible back catalogue is pretty much all ‘back…
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Cabaret Voltaire
Just outside the city limits of Sheffield, Forge is a relatively new music venue. It is reached by crossing the Tinsley Canal, ducking under a railway arch, passing still functioning industries, the twinkling lights of the city in the distance until you reach the converted Victorian steel forge – it’s an almost too perfect setting…
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No Joy – with Crimewave
A double bill to thrill tonight in the bestest of basements. Montreal’s No Joy are back in town after a long 8 year gap, but first up is local artist Crimewave. There’s only one person on stage, sporting a red beret, literally a one-man Crimewave. I’m immediately struck by the trouser-flapping bass and the term…
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Milan.W and Tristanne
I first became aware of Milan W. (aka Milan Warmoeskerken) when the Flemish polymath was awarded 2024 album of the year by Manchester’s enigmatic Boomkat – an online record store that can be relied upon to sift out record releases that no algorithm on earth would put your way. They praised ‘Leave Another Day’ to…
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Recommended Listening
Hear some of the stuff we’re listening to on Bandcamp :
https://bandcamp.com/Drvolume/playlist/pii-autumnwinter-2025