Silent Words Speak Loudest

If Ken Loach read Underdogs , he might be seriously tempted to come out of retirement to make one more film. The novel's Northern settin...

The world of contemporary publishing can seem a depressing place, where publishers slavishly chase trends and churn out lowest-common-denomi...

It's somewhat mystifying and disappointing that Bluecoat have allowed Tish Murtha's Youth Unemployment to remain out of print - but...

It goes without saying (or certainly should) that 'Ghost Town' is fantastic, one of the finest singles ever to top the UK charts. Bu...

Perhaps it's just me, but the cover of Jon Pountney's Valleys instantly calls to mind the " sunlit uplands " that we were ...

Stevie Chick's  Quietus piece on Cat Power's 2006 album The Greatest  is first and foremost a, well, great appraisal of a truly ...

Molly Tie’s Rebel Grrrls has three principal merits. First, it focuses not only on women but more narrowly on female fans, to explore “ wha...

Talking about the fantastic pictures he took in Vancouver over the course of a decade, between 1972 and 1982, Greg Girard described the peri...

" I even introduced America to the roundabout " is the sort of bold claim you might expect would secure someone a guest appearance...

To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the Guardian have come up with something rather better than the Yank equ...

1. 'Little Green Apples' - Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell A sensational duet, as recommended by a friend after I'd watched TH...

Travelling to Newport didn't seem like the most sensible thing to be doing on the hottest day of the year - but I'm so glad I did. T...

In the 1980s, Butthole Surfers effected a weird revolution - and went on to undergo a weird revolution themselves. When they leapt into the ...

One of the many extraordinary details/anecdotes I took away from  Imogen Willetts' fantastic  Up All Night is the tale of how Detroit t...

Lydia Lunch would, frankly, be terrifying as a bandmate or acquaintance - but she's reliably good value as an interviewee. Here she is, ...

Us lefty Remainers bemoaning Brexit is only to be expected; it's more significant that so many Leave voters are also appalled by how thi...

As emphasised by both Barbara Santi, director of Gentle, Angry Women , and the documentary's participants both young and old, it's r...

If you're in search of an escape from the withering heat, can I suggest you seek sanctuary in The Gods Laugh ? The supernatural goth-fol...

Popular wisdom has it that punk was a revolutionary force that constituted a radical break with all that had come before and decimated every...

Who could have anticipated that Mike D's first post-Beastie Boys solo show in the UK would take place in a social club/bingo hall in Nor...

Naming a track 'Skin Ripper' suggests that on their new album Big Brave are flexing their metal muscles. But there's also a song...

It's fitting that the Workers Gallery - itself born out of protest (against library closures) - should have helped to give birth to Myf...

How very typically spineless of Keir Starmer and the current Labour government. Confronted with the problem of unregulated awfulness on soci...

How to come to terms with the death of your long-time producer and close friend? For Japanese post-rockers Mono, it seems to have been a cas...

You've heard of yacht rock - but what about ship disco? For more than 20 years, the most legendary nightclub in Newcastle was known as s...

Koln 75 tells the remarkable true story of Vera Brandes, a German teenager who suffered from the exact opposite of imposter syndrome - conv...

When it comes to employment, AI is a twin-pronged attack. Most obviously, it's resulting in job losses - but its less widely reported bu...

When asked to name the inspirations behind their work, artists typically cite albums, books and films, and perhaps also personal and politic...

The value of much photography only becomes evident as time passes - something that is undoubtedly true of C'etait Paris en 1970 . As the...

1. 'You You You' - Arab Strap Falkirk's finest will have to go some to surpass 2024's i'm totally fine with it don't...

Arrogant, fiercely intelligent, verbose practically to the point of self-parody - yes. But has Will Self ever really come across as likeable...

I can't say that I ever saw a member of Gomez as someone to deliver a rousing battlecry, or that I'd find myself nodding along at th...

Henri Cartier-Bresson famously argued that the photographer's objective should be to frame the " decisive moment " - that perf...

Once again, I find myself (probably unfairly) comparing a band's latest album to earlier records that I was briefly obsessed with. New B...

All good things must come to an end - but to describe Nightshift as merely " a good thing " would be a gross understatement. For ...

A whistlestop visit to the Baltic yesterday didn't permit me the opportunity to take in the current exhibitions by Milly Thompson or S...

Blue Morpho may be a solo record, but it's hardly a solitary endeavour on the part of Ed O'Brien, featuring as it does key contribu...

Last October, delivering a glowing review of  the 2025 Eye Festival in Aberystwyth , I feared for the event's future. Seven months on, a...

Saturday saw promoters DIY Cardiff bow out with a bill headlined by Bristol emo crew Toodles & The Hectic Pity and tour support Spank Ha...

" It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly coloured than the day ", ventured Vincent van Gogh. So begins ...

I've written reams about the increasing (and sometimes prohibitive) cost of touring and the myriad reasons behind it, but it should also...

I didn't think anything could possibly paint a bleaker, more traumatising picture of nuclear apocalypse than Threads . But then I read W...

It was so grimly inevitable that Labour would respond to last Thursday's pounding at the polls not by returning chastened to the centre ...

Family holiday had already ruled out seeing Flaming Lips when they come to Cardiff in July - but if it hadn't, this interview with Steve...

If you want a comforting, easily comprehensible, linear narrative, Rose Of Nevada won't be for you. But, like director Mark Jenkin'...

Given the current state of everything, a new Broken Social Scene album that makes you feel like it's 2006 again is most welcome. Typical...

GANS / VOKA GENTLE, 6TH MAY 2026, CARDIFF CLWB IFOR BACH The title of Voka Gentle's latest album Domestic Bliss might imply contentment...

Kate Wasserberg's adaptation of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood debuted at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, but thankfully for those of us in So...

If you build it, they will come. Fiona Stewart may not have founded Green Man, but the festival’s managing director and owner can certainly ...