Ian Mathers

Features

Books

The Delicate Ecology of the Used Bookstore

[2.Jul.08] :. You know, it's not easy rummaging through your trash. Ian Mathers takes a look at the secondhand bookseller's world from the inside.

Recent features

 

Life Savers

Spinoza's Ethic

[10.Jun.08] :. Mathers explores how the Ethic was a life saver not in the sense of sustaining him through dark periods, but by changing his sense of what life is.

Life Savers

 

Pick Just One

The Fall

[25.Apr.08] :. The frightening, wonderful world of Mark E. Smith and the Fall offers decades of music and dozens of albums to sift through for the one that best represents what they are all about.

Pick Just One

 

Reviews

Music

Local H: 12 Angry Months

[7.Jul.08] :. Perennially undervalued, hard rocking duo return with a break-up album that might be a bit too on target to be comfortable.

Recent Music reviews

 

Music

Joan As Police Woman: To Survive

[17.Jun.08] :. Solid but not quite transcendent follow up from this friend of Antony and Rufus is solidly consistent, for better or for worse.

Recent Music reviews

 

Music

The Wedding Present: El Rey

[5.Jun.08] :. It's been a rough decade or so for Wedding Present fans, but they've finally come up with a fitting successor to Seamonsters.

Recent Music reviews

 

Music

65daysofstatic: The Distant and Mechanised Glow of East European Dance Parties EP

[4.Jun.08] :. One of the few acts still hoisting the flag for that old fashioned post-rock.

Recent Short Takes reviews

 

Music

Deepchord: Vantage Isle Sessions

[2.Jun.08] :. In terms of ambient dub, if Basic Channel is the Father (the source, remote and inaccessible and very powerful) and Pole is the Son (dazzling but ultimately stranded halfway between man and the...

Recent Short Takes reviews

 

Music   Robert Forster: The Evangelist

Music   For Against: Shade Side Sunny Side

Music   Matmos: Supreme Balloon

Music   Retribution Gospel Choir: Retribution Gospel Choir

PopMatters Pick

Music

Los Campesinos!: Hold on Now, Youngster…

[18.Apr.08] :. Here's a riddle for you: How is a promising Welsh septet like an American political candidate?

Recent Music reviews

 

Music   Thomas Brinkmann: When Horses Die

Music   Canasta: We Were Mixed Up

PopMatters Pick

Music

Samamidon: All Is Well

[11.Mar.08] :. One of the best records of traditional Appalachian folk songs ever recorded, and that's probably damning it with faint praise.

Recent Music reviews

 

Music   The Goslings: Occasion

 
RECENT MUSIC

In bold are PopMatters Picks, the best in new music.