Ali Welford

Consett

Contributor at NARC.

Writer at Muzik Discovery

Promote gigs as @ILMBrick. Sell records at @REFLEX_CD_VINYL. Rant & rave about music for @narcmagazine and others.

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Articles

ALBUM REVIEW: Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant

1 week ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Sony MusicReleased: 09.05.25Be it due to sexual misconduct allegations levelled at Win Butler or the general malaise that’s characterised their output post-2010, album number seven was always going to be a tricky one for Arcade Fire to navigate. Pink Elephant certainly suppresses one trend: their previously insurmountably conviction that bigger means better.
ALBUM REVIEW: Låpsley - I’m a Hurricane I’m a Woman in Love

2 weeks ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Her Own Recordings02.05.25Holly Låpsley Fletcher’s first album as a fully independent artist sees a warm embrace of the poppier leanings its three predecessors only tentatively hinted at. A propensity for sonic shape-shifting is likewise on full display – and while overly saccharine opener Hurricane is a notable stumble, the overall hit/miss ratio is a healthy one. Even so, it’s in the lyrical department that this record truly excels.
ALBUM REVIEW: Snapped Ankles - Hard Times Furious Dancing

1 month ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

The Leaf Label Released: 28.03.25The further the world careers down the shitter, the more Snapped Ankles’ motorik dance-punk comes into its own. Certainly, the ever-increasing demand for escapism is a tangible factor fuelling the masked forest dwellers’ fourth LP.
INTERVIEW: Barry Hyde

1 month ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Image by Amelia Read“When you’re from the North East, nine out of 10 people you pass on the street will have some kind of family heritage in the big industries,” says Barry Hyde, whose new solo venture is an oral history of perhaps the most prominent of them all. “Coal mining is one of those industries that nobody really wants back.
INTERVIEW: Benefits

2 months ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Image by: Tom WhiteBenefits’ second album Constant Noise will surprise many – just don’t mistake its replacement of blastbeats and white noise with bass-heavy dance grooves and ambient textures for a band being muted. “The anger doesn’t stop,” asserts the Teessiders’ mouthpiece, vocalist Kingsley Hall. “The shitty policies don’t stop. Wars don’t stop. Cruelty towards the public doesn’t stop. People have to be held to account, whatever colour tie they’re wearing.
ALBUM REVIEW: Circuit des Yeux - Halo on the Inside

2 months ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Matador RecordsReleased: 14.03.25Halo On The Inside isn’t the first special record in Chicago experimentalist Haley Fohr’s oeuvre. Nonetheless, this eighth full-length resets the bar on both sonic and emotional fronts; an astonishing pivot to alien, post-industrial rhapsody, as revelatory for established followers as those encountering her work for the first time.
INTERVIEW: Baker Island

2 months ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

The last time I sat down with Sean Dodds, the mastermind behind Newcastle fuzz pop marvels Baker Island, his band, like the world at large, was in a state of flux. It was the summer 2020 inter-lockdown reprieve. Eat Out to Help Out – helmed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, at that point Britain’s most popular politician – was at its ill- advised height (no revisionism here: we took full advantage) and our conversation centred on Baker Island’s stalled comeback, some three years since their last show.
ALBUM REVIEW: Mandrake Handshake - Earth-Sized Worlds

2 months ago | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Tip-Top RecordingsReleased 21.2.25A flexible collective based between Oxford and London whose number spans from seven and ten on any given day, Mandrake Handshake make luxury psych for listeners with the time and headspace to get lost in a fragrant ‘flowerkraut’ haze. Don’t be fooled, however, into assuming their debut consists solely of bells and whistles.
INTERVIEW: ABNORM

Feb 12, 2025 | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Image: Adam KennedyAmid the hubbub of newcomers populating the North East music sphere, few acts have established themselves as boldly or colourfully as Abnorm. Formed shortly before the world shut down in 2020, these fresh-faced rockers have made their name in the years since with a string of increasingly impressive singles – an ever-swelling live following and audible rise in assuredness further burnishing their gathering sense of momentum.
INTERVIEW: Snakes With Tits

Feb 10, 2025 | narcmagazine.com | Ali Welford

Image: Andi TaboltThe name Snakes With Tits will elicit different responses from different readers. Sheltered minds may leap to the comical literal image, or ponder how such a biological and evolutionary impossibility would function in practice. For those less fortunate, however, these words will evoke anything but an innocent, carefree moniker.