NOEL GARDNER

Jan 18, 2025 | buzzmag.co.uk | NOEL GARDNER

Cold Blows The Rain (Basin Rock)If Bridget Hayden’s previous, more experimental, work has toyed with guitar and drone to produce its mysterious squalls, Cold Blows The Rain is purely concerned with the flat drizzle of English folk songs. Explicitly inspired by the damp microclimes of Yorkshire’s Calder Valley and mum-sung standards of the Hayden household, it’s a slow and mournful album, a fixed palette of violin, harmonium and banjo clothing Hayden’s swooping and piercing vocals.

Jan 16, 2025 | buzzmag.co.uk | NOEL GARDNER

Manhattan-based Richard Price is well known for his urban crime novels like Clockers and Lush Life, but was also a contributing writer for The Wire and its hard-hitting social realism. While Lazarus Man – set in Harlem circa 2008 – is a different creation to Price’s previous crime-versus-police procedural tales, gang and drug violence bubbles away in the underbelly of these mean streets.

Jan 12, 2025 | buzzmag.co.uk | NOEL GARDNER

The Night (Heavenly)UK three-piece Saint Etienne’s 12th studio album is comprised of 14 short tracks. Settle In, the opening number, begins with sounds of cars and bars before settling into a relaxing groove. Each subsequent song is a meditation in its own right, and each entices you to linger, but herein lies the problem: these songs feel like tasters and leave you wanting more. Even Hear My Heart – the longest track, at just over six minutes – feels incomplete.

Jan 7, 2025 | thequietus.com | Tristan Bath |NOEL GARDNER |Patrick Clarke

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Dec 21, 2024 | buzzmag.co.uk | NOEL GARDNER

Ben Woolhead nips to Penarth’s Turner House Gallery to report on the first in a new series of speaking events covering Wales’ photography scene and its storied history. Signatures is a new initiative set up by Brian Carroll, founder of Offline Journal, in which Welsh and Wales-based photographers are invited to talk about their self-published zines and photobooks.