#10

What a drudging month January is. Grey weather, holidays over and done with, dark wet evenings. Thankfully the gloom has been lightened somewhat round these parts by a few great releases that got sent my way in the New Year: the ever magical Animal Collective have returned with an EP and also the new Kurt Vile record, the reviews of which you can find here and here.

On top of this, straight off the press today here's a link to my interview with Spectrals (aka Louis Jones) for the BBC West Yorkshire. It was great to hear his thoughts, he seems a really intelligent nice lad with some impressive music to boot. I'm imagining 2010 will be his year.


So, coming up there should be something a-brewing for the BBC with Adam Nodwell, head honcho of Burnt Toast, British Wildlife Records (www.britishwildliferecords.com) and general finger/pie man in Leeds. His podcasts (nodcasts if you will) really are something else, I tremble at the thought of facing him in any music quiz.

There's plenty of information there for everyone to digest so I'll sign off. Keep busy and hopefully spring will get here quicker! TTFN.

# 9

Season's greetings to all... fah lah lah lah lah, la la la la! Hope your goose is getting fat. I have forced myself to get an entry out before Christmas and New Year just because I'm hideously slow to update this. Plus I actually have a few interesting things lined up for 2010 and I wanted to relay them:





1.You can see my Kitsune Compilation review by clicking on this link and my Miike Snow Album here. Coming up with Contact Music I have out: Animal Collective's Fall Be Kind EP (hurray!), Lawrence Arabia and Kurt Vile's Childish Prodigy amongst a few others, will post links to everything next time.





2.The rather exciting news I can now confirm is that I will be featuring Spectrals for BBC Leeds in the New Year. Leeds-based Shoegaze/Pop, getting some well-deserved attention of late, check out his stuff at www.myspace.com/spectralspectral

Time for me to go, wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year. x

#8

Well I'm nearly back to full fitness after an unfortunate series of events. Tip 1: if you're falling down some steps, don't try to save your drink. Especially in the Brudenell, a two pound pint is not worth a fractured arm.

Tip 2: why not put safety first and test if you've made a full recovery like this?


(Photograph by Bart Pettman)

This is was Brainwashed festival, which will be my next article with the BBC. Contrary to my facial expression, (I think) I was having a good time. The man flying towards me is James Brown from Pulled Apart By Horses, which probably goes some way to explaining the look of terror.

So, to a large amount of business. Recent(ish) features which I have omitted to speak about (lazy or incompetent? probably both).

Simian Mobile Disco
Blacklisters/These Monsters Live for BBC Leeds
Castrovalva Interview/Feature for BBC as well...

More Recent include Dance to the Radio EP Vol 3. and Dizzee Rascal for Contactmusic.com

Popping up soon will be the aformentioned Brainwashed feature, the Cold Cave album - which is pretty amazing- and Miike Snow. Oh, and the new Kitsune Compilation along with a couple of other things that I will talk about later. Right now it's time for less chat and more actual work.

Mind how you go, and even if you're having a shit day - remember it could be worse. You could be stuck on an ice floe with a hungry bear for three days. Pretty resilient for a 15 year-old if you ask me!

# 7

Greetings! My latest from Contact, Temper Trap here and Japandroids here. Japandroids are fab. How can you not love them, just jook at those nice young men burn that drum kit!


Also on my radar are the stupendously mind blowing HEALTH. Since their album was sent to me my brain has been slowly liquifying and dribbling out my ears. Sorry for the visual but it's true! Find my review here.

Last day toiling in the fires of hell tomorrow! Hurray! Never mind about pesky impending unemployment, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I can always take up chain smoking and Jeremy Kyle. Compared to working in an office sponsored by The Change of Life where someone uses the word 'Fortuitously' at the start of every sentence, this looks quite attractive.

TTFN, Natalie x x x x

Favourites...

Who says having too much time on your hands is bad? All hail the geeks. x

# 6

I enjoy taking on so much, but it does feel like complete chaos sometimes.

So, I've got the following on the boil at the moment: some more BBC articles, including an interview with Castrovalva next week. Contactmusic ran my piece on Leeds Festival here and my Times New Viking and Julian Plenti album reviews here and here.

You can see my scribbles on the new Health album, the Japandroids and a couple of others on contactmusic soon. I'm changing jobs and applying for a couple of placements etc. so this may well be the last time I update for a bit.

Love Love Love.

# 5

Hello once more.

I'm finally back at work after what seems like one too many festivals. Four in seven weeks is quite enough for anyone, I feel. Showers and beds are massively underrated!

I've just got back from Leeds Festival, my review of which should be in Contact Music in the next week or so. I'll post it here when it's up. My review that I did for them of Le Route Du Rock in France can be found here. LRDR was a true pleasure to cover and for those who haven't been to Brittany, I highly recommend. It's beautiful and so laid back.

Before all this and somehow wedged between all the camping, I did a placement at The Metro in London. It was only a week but I was lucky enough to get this article published (see above). It's my first in print and I don't think I could be happier about it!

So to round up; I've got a few album reviews coming out for Contact within the next couple of weeks including Simian Mobile Disco, Times New Viking and Julian Plenti (Paul Banks from Interpol). I haven't done anything for BBC Leeds in a while, mosty because I've been so busy with everything else, but I'm going to try and sort out few more articles with them in the next few weeks. Watch this space.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments about my work, you think more of it than I do! Love From Natalie xx