She Makes War's East End street art bike tour
Here’s an interesting new video from She Makes War, aka Laura Kidd, in which we’re taken on a two-wheeled tour of East End street art. Kidd has created a microsite for the video, complete with a graffiti location map, photos and extra footage. Her debut album is out on Monday.
08 Jul 2011
Future Islands - Before The Bridge
Future Islands – Before the Bridge from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.
Here’s the striking video for Snipe favourites Future Islands‘ new single, taken from the forthcoming album “On The Water”. See them live on Saturday at Plan B in Brixton. Highly recommended.
06 Jul 2011
All Tomorrow's Parties: I'll Be Your Mirror
Ahead of IBYM, Amy Liptrot infiltrates ATP HQ
This summer, as well as hosting a boxing tournament, a wine festival and model engineering exhibition, Alexandra Palace – at the top of North London – is the venue for two days of I’ll Be Your Mirror, a ‘sister event’ to the All Tomorrows Parties festivals. The incongruity of the location’s uses suits an organisation that began by putting on festivals in Pontins and Butlins holiday camps: avant garde noise bands playing where the weekend before redcoats performed hits from musicals, among arcade games and neon fast food outlets.
At his home in Highgate, which doubles up as ATP HQ for a “close-knit” staff of eight, founder Barry Hogan – who, 12 years after the first Bowlie weekender is, with wife Deborah, involved in all parts of the ATP’s growing empire (now including a record label) – explains the idea behind the I’ll Be Your Mirror: “We wanted to design something that you could do in a city, without the accommodation but still with the curator aspect, so people could maybe come just for the day, so they get to embrace it”.
06 Jul 2011
Lilies On Mars
The spirit of collaboration is dead it seems, at least according to Matthew Parker, drummer with three-piece, experimental shoegazers Lilies On Mars. ‘A lot of bands in London are like islands’ he tells me, ‘there’s no scene, it’s hard to be friends with bands, we want to be friends with bands!’
I’m sitting with Matthew and bandmates Lisa Masia (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Marina Cristofalo (guitar, vocals) in a non-distinct pub next to Highbury and Islington station, North London. Later on they’ll charm the pants off a small but appreciative audience at the Buffalo Bar next door – ‘we have to win everyone in the room’ – their riotously infectious energy spreading through the venue like the norovirus. Right now, we’re discussing London’s current guitar music scene, or lack of it.
‘Everybody’s very self-centred’, interjects Lisa. ‘When we were putting on nights last year, we were doing it to try and find new bands and create a scene’. ‘A lot of bands are like, hey great show, then you never hear from them again’ adds Matthew, ‘I’m from Toronto and there’s a real scene there, a real community…this year has been better though, we’ve met some great bands’. Like who, I ask? ‘There’s a band from Brighton called Stars Fell Down to Earth. We really like Zoey Van Goey, Hong Kong In The Sixties, Wrong Notes from Glasgow…’
Lisa and Marina first met 15 years ago in Sardinia. Re-locating to London in the early noughties, they recorded their self-released, eponymous debut at home. Following self-arranged tours of the U.S. and Europe and a collaboration with renowned Italian film-maker, composer and singer-songwriter Franco Battiato – ‘a good friend of ours’ – they bumped into ex-Sunny Day Sets Fire drummer Matthew at a Grizzly Bear gig and bonded over a love of Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead and My Bloody Valentine.
A month later, he was in the band. ‘I came to see a show and I remember saying to Marina afterwards, you guys are really good but I don’t like your drummer. I didn’t have an agenda I just genuinely didn’t like him. Not long afterwards Marina phoned me up and said the drummer had left and if I was such a hotshot why didn’t I give it a go’. They clicked straight away and two weeks later started work on second album Wish You Were A Pony. Recorded in a fortnight – mixing duties were handled remotely by friend Dan Brantigan in New York – it’s a bold, adventurous record, accessible yet edgy, easily jumping between alt-balladry (I’m Confused, It’s Ok!), anthemic dream-pop (Aquarium’s Key) and dark, heavy, verging on post-rock (La Mattina Prima Di Andare A Letto).
Released on their own Elsewhere Factory imprint – a label/creative collective set-up and run with the help of friends across Europe – the album was described by Gavin Martin in Uncut as ‘compelling’, the Lilies ‘digital primitives with a folky feel’. Is their fondness for the DIY aesthetic deliberate I wonder? They seem to inhabit their own little, self-contained world. ‘We’re not actively looking for a label, though if someone wanted to come along and help us that would be amazing’ laughs Lisa, ‘we don’t have a manager’. ‘It’s not a question of ideology’ says Matthew, ‘it’s more to do with our circumstances. We have our own label, we release our own records and we stand by the independent spirit of that, but at the same time we don’t fly the DIY flag. When I first came over to London all the bands had managers. We’d much rather spend time writing really good music and playing great shows than finding a manager.’
Lilies On Mars play Ship of Fools, July 3rd
30 Jun 2011
Sykur - Shed Those Tears
Sykur are a teenaged Icelandic electro-pop trio from Reykjavik. Having just finished school, they’re releasing their first single, “Shed Those Tears”, in September. It’s so catchy it’s like a tattoo on your brain. Get a free (more downbeat) remix by FM Belfast here.
28 Jun 2011
ATP Hits London
We’re all looking forward to the first I’ll Be Your Mirror festival, curated by ATP and Portishead, at Ally Pally on July 23rd/24th right? PJ Harvey, Grinderman, Beach House, Caribou, Swans, GodSpeed You! Black Emperor – bloody marvellous! Well, for those who can’t wait, the nice people at ATP are holding a special fundraiser tonight at the Music Palace, Crouch End (N8 9BT), from 6pm -12am. They’ll be a pub quiz, ale tasting, a raffle and DJ sets from Fuck Buttons and ATP DJs. All proceeds go to the Friends Of Alexandra Palace Theatre. For more information, visit the ATP website.
In addition, you can now get your hands on a free two-hour mixtape, curated by Portishead, featuring virtually all the acts on the I’ll Be Your Mirror bill. Download it here.
23 Jun 2011
Gazelle Twin - Men Like Gods
It’s not often we get excited about a music video trailer, but everything about Gazelle Twin bleeds mystery and intrigue. Her debut album “The Entire City” comes out on July 11th.
20 Jun 2011
Chad Valley - Now That I'm Real (Trophy Wife Remix)
Fellow Oxonians Trophy Wife have twisted Chad Valley’s dreamy dancefloor hit “Now That I’m Real” into a minimal, upbeat funk number – sreaming below. Chad Valley plays the annual Blessing Force London show at Electrowerkz on Thursday, and his Equatorial Ultravox EP is out the following Monday.
Now That I’m Real (Trophy Wife Remix) by chadvalley
Now That I’m Real (How Does It Feel?) from chad valley on Vimeo.
14 Jun 2011
The See Hear Club @ Dalston Roof Park
9th June A new collaboration between music industry polyglot Anika Mottershaw, Luisa of Lulu & The Lampshades and Peggy Sue’s Rosa, this series of outdoors audio-visual events runs throughout the summer at new London venue Dalston Roof Park. The concept is succinct – “one band, one movie” – but will include extra touches like BBQs, blankets and popcorn to warm the cockles. The series kicks off on June 9 with Sam Amidon (film TBC), with other scheduled performers including She Keeps Bees, Sea Of Bees (x2), Tasseomancy, The Mariner’s Children, Melodica Melody & Me, Lulu & The Lampshades, Peggy Sue and Tristram. Tickets start from £6.
09 Jun 2011
tUnE-YaRdS
Wed 8 June @ Scala
Upstaging the wonderful Dirty Projectors is difficult to do. When Merill Garbus, the one woman force-of-nature behind tUnE-YaRdS, opened for the band back in 2009 she didn’t just outshine them – she repeatedly blew them off stage with her intense, loop-driven solo performances. Since then, Garubs’s live show has expanded to include a backing band touting two saxophonists (amongst others), and her reputation has increased similarly. The loops are still there, but now hers is a fuller, more theatrical performance, driven by her incredible voice. tUne-YaRdS’s show at Scala, currently their only London date in support of their universally-lauded second album W h o k i l l, promises to be the hottest ticket in town, so don’t miss out.
08 Jun 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- Silencing the Brick Lane curry touts could be fatal for the city's self-esteem
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