Simon Kirk

3 days ago | sun-13.com | Simon Kirk

In the early hours of Sunday morning across Utrecht’s cold, sodden streets, for those unperturbed by the elements, noise overload and the slight trek from La Guess Who?’s main hub to EKKO, the reward is Water Damage. A boutique bar that leads through to a creative space that holds around 150 people, EKKO is the perfect milieu to indulge one of the festival’s pinnacle acts.

6 days ago | sun-13.com | Simon Kirk

Since the days of the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, it’s been somewhere between fallow and diminishing returns where left-of-centre festivals on Merseyside are concerned. That’s no diss to those who have tried to curate similar events. Not just here but all across the world, creative spaces are being washed away by the tidal wave of gentrification, whereby those behind any kind of artistic endeavour are on a hiding to nothing.

1 week ago | sun-13.com | Simon Kirk

From the country echoes of Incredible Love (2005) to wandering grunge Gambler’s Ecstasy (2012) and the marauding beast that is Puritan (2021), Chris Brokaw has spent a solo career dispensing songs tailor-made for television scores. Fitting, considering Brokaw is well versed on that front, too, having scored nine films (his most recent, Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund’s Crookedfinger). It’s one of the many beguiling facets throughout the Boston-based songwriter’s tenure.

1 week ago | sun-13.com | Simon Kirk

Following Wand’s excellent 2024 release, Vertigo, singer Cory Hanson has announced details of his fourth solo album. Featuring the same line-up as Vertigo (Robbie Cody co-producing; Evan Backer – bass, string arrangements and horns; Evan Burrows – drums), I Love People is set for release on July 25 via Drag City, and follows Hanson’s 2023 release, Western Cum. Earlier today, Hanson shared the video for I Love People’s lead single, Bird on a Swing, which you can watch / listen to above.

1 week ago | sun-13.com | Simon Kirk

If there’s one thing that’s already written in the stars this year, it’s that Battle Elf will claim the moniker of 2025. A name that was probably coined after a session on beer and grass rather than any business meetings around the table, their name alone reveals a key part to the story.