Artist: Dirty Three

With the exception of two weekends (Ian's bachelor party & Ian's wedding), I was sober throughout the last four months of 2012. I've never done that before. Well, not intentionally, anyway. As a craft beer drinker (I wouldn't call myself a connoisseur, but then again that's not really for me to decide…my knowledge might dwarf [...]

• Dirty Three - Obvious is Obvious

And so as the dust settles about what (at least social mediumistically) appeared to be another successful Record Store Day, and the furore surrounding preposterously limited 73 releases subsides, are you ultimately left heavily laden with all that you were after? Did you waste many pounds, or make enough on eBay to polish your conscious? Has all faith been expeditiously restored in that most covetable of physical formats? Well personally, I got to the back of a sidewinding Rough Trade East queue, only to turn back on myself after a half-hour stood roasting in the belatedly estival rays [...]

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Animal X

Feeling nice and euphoric following on from that snippet of spangly, newfangled Daft Punk ? Well, prepare to have that warm and fuzzy feeling of synthetically forged familiarity brutally savaged by the below. It's the first I've heard of a genuinely terrifying young something named  Kirin J Callinan – the one and only  Australiana artist I've yet to investigate. He hails from Sydney, though Embracism – a thinly veiled Tom Waits-ism that's as if one of Warren Ellis' long and winding narratives set to a strangely cathartic, if heavily vitriolic grind – is spawned of an altogether [...]

• Kirin J Callinan - Embracism

As you may already know, but I'll state it nonetheless for those who do not, I have a weekly radio show on KSVR Mount Vernon, KSVU Hamilton and KSJU Friday Harbor. You can tune in via the respective dial pinpoints if you live within those townships, or you can stream from KSVR.org . We will be hosting our pledge drive in April, so I thought I'd kick things off by doing something no other station in Skagit or (to my knowledge) the surrounding areas does: a vinyl only night. My March [...]

Many a rather darn grand statement has been made of late; made to buzz insistently about the release of this, the fifteenth studio full-length from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds . Some have already heralded Push the Sky Away as their most balanced effort to date; others their best. 'The Bad Seeds themselves made a fairly keen plea for your intrigue a short while ago when they allowed Jubilee Street  to slither on out from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence where the record was conceived, though only now do the honorary Brightonian bard and his perennially bedraggled cronies paint [...]

Let us sing a bit of good old Captain Kitt, Who sat one morning early in the head. A bee came flying past and it stung him on the ass, And this is what the gallant captain said: Asshole rules the Navy, asshole rules the sea! If you want a bit of bum, better get it from your chum - You'll get no ass from me. [...]

It was but last month that Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds came out from under the carpets of darkness and into the light with the first composition from forthcoming LP Push The Sky Away in tow. Like a calmative caress to a lingering bag beneath the eye, We No Who U R was an underplayed statement of great intent, and with that a cheerless reawakening of sorts in the most positive sense possible. However there were arguably a few things it was desperately lacking, not least the bedraggled Strad freak-outs of Warren Ellis [...]

This week sees the release of the soundtrack to British psychological thriller Berbarian Sound Studio , a soundtrack that's notable for being a) creepy as hell and b) the last thing ever recorded by much-missed British duo Broadcast before singer Trish Keenan's death from pneumonia in 2010. Keenan's death robbed the music world of a distinctive voice and a singular talent, and the release of Berbarian Sound Studio has got us listening again to the fantastic mixtape a friend of Keenan's released in her memory a couple of weeks after she died. This [...]

We've spent this week doing more figurative wrapping up of the year than we have literally wrapping golds, frankincenses and myrrhs, with both our Shows of 2012 and Records of 2012 features now alive and kicking, even if this year itself only has less than a couple weeks left in its legs. Here's hoping you've been able to vicariously experience evenings from the former category through us if you couldn't make them for whatever reason, though it's the latter that we're here centralising our attentions upon. As documentations of a determined time, records are the one [...]

• Dotsandashes - Anika – End Of The World

Over the course of this past year, we've upped the impetus placed upon live happenings and more significantly on those situated in and around London: nights on end spent out and about have become increasingly exhausting, as we strive to conjure an increasingly exhaustive coverage. Consequently we can only hope these are wearying steps in the right direction as, at least from a subjective perspective, witnessing your revered artists recite their most estimable pieces – in full as did some of the below, or otherwise – is a substantial chunk of what it's all about. Here we've more or less [...]

• Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans (RAC Mix)

You've doubtless already made up your mind on what were, subjectively (though this may perhaps be mistaken for a narcissistic objectively as is below), the records to have ultimately defined the year that was 2012. Personally, I wouldn't deem it to have been the best of years and though not the worst of years either, the dispersion of opinion on the top ones, twos, and various other fews across the board appears to reflect this. My maths is a little haphazard at the best of times – read on and you'll discover more on that – but the [...]

'Tis the season to be merry (read: sherry-sozzled); for loving, even (read: doing something thoroughly regrettable atop the photocopier). Though the Bella Union Christmas Service at Islington's Union Chapel, whilst still an inherently festive bash, served as the glorious antithesis to the strangely rakish anecdotes of shagging on office machinery and slipping down one too many of the open bar singles, only to sick it back up in the back of a black cab at some ungodly hour. Ho ho ho , and a Happy New Year etc. The first of the night's two orthographically nightmarish aural [...]

I dunno 'bout chu , but when news first emerged from camp Cave last week of a brand new Bad Seeds LP expected February 18th of next year, I was wholly anticipating some rip-roaring, barnstorming hoedown stomp of sorts. Its title however, Push The Sky Away , ought to have intimated otherwise as it somehow – subconsciously, perhaps – hints at an altogether more introspective effort. And that's precisely what this, the linguistically challenged smoulder that is We No Who U R, proves: it may see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds maintaining an air of debonair [...]

Photos by: Burak Cingi

And, in time, something did descend upon me. But was it sleep? A hex cast, perhaps? A spell? A petit mal? A waking dream? A sinister pall? An hallucination? A visitation? A fragrant passing of an angel's wing? A nothing? With news of a forthcoming release from a reconvened Bad Seeds sprouting just the previous morn, there's a bracing air of transience to tonight. Mercifully for all within the palatial environs of the Shepherd's Bush Empire, it proved to be a quite transcendent one too. Silhouetted against pillars of the variegated spotlights Zun [...]

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Sunday night's action captured by Stuart Bradfield.

Le Guess Who? Festival kicks off next week in Utrecht, Holland with a lineup sporting some of the most exciting acts in experiemental and indie music, including Destroyer, Sharon Van Etten, Matthew Dear, Deerhoof, Beak>, Clinic, Ty Segall, Ultraísta, Juliana Barwick, Why?, and more. The festival will also feature Dirty Three and Suuns , who have released a supremely limited edition t-shirt for the festival. That's Dirty Three's above, and Suuns' t-shirt is below. Only 25 of them were made, and we're giving one of each away to a lucky reader. [...]

Tomorrow sees the return of Dirty Three to Dublin, when the Australian instrumentalists play the Button Factory. We have two pairs of tickets to give away to the show, thanks to promoters U:Mack. To enter just send your details to giveaway@state.ie by midday tomorrow (Friday).

Considered by many as one of the best live bands in operation, the Dirty Three bring their new album Toward The Low Sun to Dublin later this month. The trio, with support from Zun Zun Egui, play the Button Factory on Friday 23rd.