Category: Music

  • Little Simz performing live in Oslo

    Little Simz performing live in Oslo

    Back when I lived in the UK, I went to a lot of concerts. Between knowing the assistant to the director of SJM Concerts and taking photographs for NME-rival magazine Artrocker, I would see myself guest listed for several concerts each week. Most of these were in Manchester, but quite often in Leeds, sometimes in…

  • Top music from November 2022

    Top music from November 2022

    Do I regret starting to write a monthly music round-up? A little. Am I going to carry on regardless? Yes. I think so. Instead of a December 2022 update though there might be an end-of-year wrap up instead. I don’t use Spotify – so no Spotify Wrapped here – but it’ll be a mix of…

  • Top music from October 2022

    Top music from October 2022

    It feels like we are flying through the months as we start to approach the end of 2022. One thing I am looking forward to is the ‘Year in review’ selections from both DIY Magazine and Piccadilly Records. For years, they’ve been a trustworthy source to discover the year’s best new music. I usually compile…

  • Top music from September 2022

    Top music from September 2022

    Welcome to the monthly music round-up for September — the month in which the weather in Oslo turns to a crisp fresh coldness and the scalves and hats start to appear. But what’s been blaring from my speakers and down into my earholes? Let’s take a closer look at the Last.fm monthly report. Games We…

  • Top music from August 2022

    Top music from August 2022

    I’ve been a Last.fm user since about 2004 and each month they generate a listening report for you to see an overview of what you’ve been listening to. As an excuse to have more content for my blog, I’m going to share a few highlights each month from the listening report – so I get…

  • Top 100 albums of 2021

    Top 100 albums of 2021

    We are mid-way through 2022 and I came into the office, opened Apple Music and started playing a playlist; 🎙️ Piccadilly Records: Top 100 Albums of 2021 And that’s when I realised that I usually post these yearly compilations to my blog – but had forgotten to do this one. So here we are —…

  • Charlie Goes Skiing

    Charlie Goes Skiing

    One of my favourite bands, Cassels, have released this super music video for their single ‘Charlie Goes Skiing‘. It’s a track from their upcoming album ‘A Gut Feeling‘ which is due for release some time in 2022. Soon. Anyway, watch the video. Enjoy.

  • A Gut Feeling 🎶

    A Gut Feeling 🎶

    One of my favourite bands, Cassels, have pushed their upcoming release to their Bandcamp page, available as a digital download, on CD and vinyl. With a release date of 1st January 2022, it’s a pre-order listing – but you should jump over to Bandcamp and give the available tracks a listen and support the band…

  • New music playlist

    New music playlist

    For the longest time, I’ve leafed through the digital pages of DIY Magazine — a great site for music news, reviews, etc. Whenever they rated an album or EP a score of 4 stars or more, I’ve added a track from that release to an Apple Music playlist; 🎧 DIY ★★★★☆ or more Now, that…

  • SPIJØNGET (Chapter One)

    SPIJØNGET (Chapter One)

    I recently discovered this EP by Lwandile Nkanyuza (aka ByLwansta) on the album-artwork-based music-streaming service Sleevenote. ByLwansta is a rapper, record producer, art director and graphic designer from South Africa. SPIJØNGET is a three-part series of hip-hop/rap recordings and this is the first of those three releases. If you’ve got a spare 18 minutes of…

  • Whole Damn Body

    Whole Damn Body

    Today (one of) my favourite bands Los Campesinos! released music exclusively on Bandcamp. Whole Damn Body is a collection of remastered 7″ records and standalone tracks created at the time of the album Hello Sadness. This is the first time these 7 tracks, some of them cult fan favourites, have been available for a decade – and the…

  • DREAM DEATH

    DREAM DEATH

    One of the bands I used to love was Liverpool’s Hot Club de Paris. I pretty much own all their releases and have seen them play more times than I have fingers. And I have all ten fingers (even though two of them are commonly known as thumbs). Paul Rafferty of Hot Club has teamed…

  • Top 100 albums of 2020

    Top 100 albums of 2020

    Independent record store Piccadilly Records published their end-of-year review, in which the staff plucked out a comprehensive top 100 albums of 2020. In a repeat of last year, I’ve flicked through all 100 albums and selected one track from each release to make the Apple Music playlist: 🎙️ Piccadilly Records: Top 100 Albums of 2020…

  • A Year of Music (2019)

    A Year of Music (2019)

    Come the end of each year, you often find services like Spotify showcasing a round-up of your listening habits over the past 12 months into a nicely presented package. But, since I switch between a few different services, I try to send most of what I listen to to Last.fm and so now I can…

  • Top 100 albums of 2019

    Top 100 albums of 2019

    Independent record store Piccadilly Records published their end-of-year review, in which the staff plucked out a comprehensive top 100 albums of 2019. I’ve flicked through all 100 albums and selected one track from each release to make the Apple Music playlist: 🎙️ Piccadilly Records: Top 100 Albums of 2019 If you like what you hear…