Jennie Sawdon, live at The Sanctuary, July 8th 2012

The inimitable Jennie Sawdon made a welcome return to The Sanctuary in Didsbury, Manchester last night, and I was privileged to be in the crowd - which I'm fairly sure has grown in size each time Jennie's provided the music at the bar's fortnightly Sunday Jazz night.

It's an unpredictable night, with musicians travelling the length of the country - sometimes literally - to be involved. Jennie is north-west based herself, but her ensemble had assembled from further afield. Anthony, who was recording the performance for a possible upcoming live album (yes please, Jennie...!), had made the journey up from London.

Each fortnight, this level of commitment delivers something a little bit special, regardless of your musical tastes, but Jennie's emotion-charged, flawless vocals add an unparalleled edge to her appearances, creating a genuinely intimate air that is not solely down to the bijou scale of the venue.


We're waiting with considerable anticipation on any firm details of the live album, but for those who already own their copies of Jennie's debut, self-produced album Fighting the Fairytale, the prospect of a professionally produced collection of her live work is tantalising indeed.

In the meantime, there's the album, the YouTube videos (such as the one above, and the beautiful video Jennie recently released for her love song Nothing) and the tracks that make it on to the front page of her website.

We're thrilled to have tracked Jennie's career almost since the day she launched Fighting the Fairytale, which in itself transformed her from a jobbing wedding singer into a fully fledged recording artist - and realised a lifelong dream in the process.


As always, Jennie was ably supported by an army of friends and family, including hubby Chris Geere of Waterloo Road fame (you may spot him in the video above) who is possibly even more generous with hugs than Jennie is herself.

I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again, but in this new age of instant access via Twitter, it's the approachable stars who shine the brightest - not those with seven-figure follower counts - and Jennie, her parents and aunt, Chris and the whole entourage are among the most welcoming people I've met.

Undoubtedly, it is this sense of inclusion - bolstered by Jennie's heartfelt and revealing introductions to each of her songs - that keeps drawing her audience back again and again.

With all of that in mind, it seems particularly fitting that this time around, it was one of Jennie's covers that marked the emotional high point of the evening for me, alongside her own tale of sisterly love and perennial crowd-pleaser, Echoes.

This time out, it was her elegant and understated rendition of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time that really stole the show (although perhaps that's because it's one of my favourite songs...).

But between the covers and the original compositions, the jazz and the ballads, there was, once again, plenty for everyone to appreciate, regardless of taste - and Jennie's performance, accomplished as ever, has me counting the days until the Sawdon clan descend en masse on The Sanctuary once again.

The Sound of Arrows - Conquest

We've grown pretty fond of The Sound of Arrows at Popsiculture, to the extent that a new video makes me squeal with excitement in a frankly quite girly way.

Last week was one of those occasions, as the video for Conquest - the new single from TSOA's debut album Voyage - dropped into the Popsiculture inbox.

The single's officially released on June 25th, but you can already buy the track as a digital download as part of Voyage, and you can watch the video below.


It's a typically TSOA production, with lavish visuals and a unique fantasy world created specifically to tell the story of Conquest (and filmed entirely on location in Barcelona).

As usual, there's plenty of questions left unanswered at the end of the track, but you're still taken on a pretty awesome journey, and it only takes a few minutes of your time.

I'm a huge fan of The Sound of Arrows' work so far, and hoping to see plenty more from them in the months to come - with such production levels going into each video, though, it's easy to see why they can sometimes be spaced a good few months apart.

The Futureheads - Beeswing

If you read our review of The Futureheads live at RNCM on April 13th, you may have been holding out for an a capella single release from the boys - and they've finally come up with the goods.

Beeswing is a cover of the Richard Thompson classic, a subtle and moving tale of lost love that recounts a relationship that lasts "as long as there's no price on love".

Like many of Thompson's story-telling tunes, it's doomed from the start; no glorified view of eternal love here.



The Futureheads' interpretation is a punchy version with a character all of its own, and had its official release as a single in its own right on June 18th.

You may have heard the track already - we featured it in our review of The Futureheads' a capella album Rant back in early April - but it's great to see the levels of interest in the boys' voice-only work are high enough to support a single release.

All I can really add is that the rest of the album is well worth a listen too, and the button below will take you to the album page on iTunes if you want to preview the rest.

The Fresh & Onlys - Yes or No

Yes or No, the latest single from The Fresh & Onlys, is out on Monday, and there's just time for us to feature it as a Free Music Fridays treat.

Use the player below to preview the track, or visit SoundCloud to download a copy of your own for free.



Yes or No is a deliberately anthemic love song, a questioning tale of what went wrong in a soured relationship.

The Fresh & Onlys' bassist, Shayde Sartain, sums it up: "It was meant to be an anthem, but I guess you could say it was more desperate - the overwhelming desire to please someone, and then feeling as though you have failed and being confused by that."

Despite that, it's not a sad song, but delivers plenty of energy over the course of a fast-paced and melodic two and a half minutes.

We'll be keeping track of The Fresh & Onlys in the months to come, with their fourth LP, Long Slow Dance, currently slated for a September 3rd release date.

Scissor Sisters - Magic Hour

Scissor Sisters are back this week with their new album Magic Hour, and it's a fan-pleasing 'more of the same' effort that's likely to fill a few dancefloors around the country.

Is it groundbreaking? Not really. But that's kinda OK. Instead, you've got a dozen tracks that will fit just fine alongside your existing Scissor Sisters collection - no need for separate iPod playlists here. There's also a fistful of bonus tracks just when you think it's all over, and those genuinely do add a bit more variety to the offering.

As I said up top, fans are likely to be more than satisfied, while critics (are there any??) will find little here to change their minds. Either way, it's a fine collection of up-tempo music that's well timed for the first proper days of summer sun, so get out there in your denim hotpants and shake that ass (boys, I'm talking to you...).

This Many Boyfriends - (I Should Be A) Communist

May 21st sees the release of This Many Boyfriends' new single, (I Should Be A) Communist, and if it sounds a little familiar, you're probably not alone in thinking so.

The band say that "one drunk bloke in a 'Meat Is Murder' T-shirt once told [TMB vocalist] Richard it sounded 'a bit like The Smiths'", and I'd have to agree - there are definite similarities between (I Should Be A) Communist and This Charming Man.

Is this a bad thing? Well no, not really - it's getting harder and harder to write a good song that doesn't remind somebody of something, and there'll be plenty of people who are just happy to know that proper indie music is still being made in 2012.

So, what do you think? Take a look at the official video below, and make up your own mind - and you can click the button at the bottom of this post to pre-order the single from iTunes, if you're a fan.


What do we think? Well, (I Should Be A) Communist offers a much more melodic approach to indie pop-punk-rock than you often hear, and it's always good to hear proper northern vocals, regardless of which side of the Pennines they're from - in this case, the band hail from Leeds, and will be hosting a launch party for the new track at Oporto on May 20th.

A corresponding launch event at The Waiting Room in London on the 19th gives southerners a chance to attend without facing the fear of heading to the wilderness of Yorkshire, while the official release date for the single is May 21st, making for a hectic but no doubt exciting few days for This Many Boyfriends.

Red Velvet - First Listen

There were more than a few disappointed Waissel Warriors last week, when it emerged that Katie's first proper public outing with her new band Red Velvet was over-18s only. But if there's one thing I've learned about Katie Waissel, it's that she genuinely really cares about her fans, so there was always bound to be a consolation for those who weren't old enough to attend the debut performance of Red Velvet at the Monto Water Rats Theatre on Tuesday, April 24th.

And they didn't have long to wait - in fact, most of Red Velvet's tracks currently on SoundCloud have been there since April 11th, just waiting to be discovered. This week, Waissel added NRG to the Red Velvet set on April 28th, and finally let her fans in on the secret via Twitter.

You can imagine the response - many of these supporters have been waiting for the first proper Waissel music to be released since The X Factor (and remember, the self-titled album 'Katie Waissel' had been recorded before she ever appeared on the show) so the twit-clamour has been raucous and the five-track Red Velvet set on SoundCloud has seen plenty of plays in the short time it's been available.

So, what's all the noise about? Are the Waissel Warriors just fangirling all over Twitter, or is there some real quality to these tracks? Let's take a look...

Devin - Masochist

Devin's new single Masochist is out today, and you can preview it below.

It's proper guitar music, fast-paced and noisy from the get-go, and ideal for shutting out the world around you on the commute to school or work.

As for the vocals, well, Devin has the kind of voice you might expect to hear snarling from the front of a 1960s-70s rock group, the lyrics tripping from his tongue as though it were second nature to him - and to be fair, it probably is.


Masochist is available from April 23rd, a week ahead of Devin's upcoming album, Romancing, which should hit stores on April 30th.

But why wait for the album? If you love Masochist, you can buy the video now at iTunes - just click the button below.

The Futureheads live, RNCM, Manchester, April 13th 2012

If you're wandering round Manchester in the next few days and somebody shouts "MacIntyre!", it probably doesn't mean they've just spotted Donal filming his latest undercover series - they may just have been at the Royal Northern College of Music last night.

The Futureheads ended their ten-date a capella tour in style at the RNCM Theatre, supported by the brilliant Cornshed Sisters and further guests including the Northern Quarter Boys' Choir.

Events kicked off at 8pm with an accomplished 45 minutes from the Cornshed Sisters, adequately filling their role as warm-up act with a set that started slow and emotional, before building to a faster, more upbeat tempo. True to the spirit of the tour, they threw in some a capella music, along with tracks from their newly released album, Tell Tales.

As a four-piece, the girls work incredibly well - each with their own distinct style and voice, but with harmonies that soared to the ceiling of the RNCM Theatre, a venue the Cornsheds claimed to be 'too good for them', before delivering a performance that's likely to make many audience members disagree.

We were advised to get there in time to catch the support act, and I'm truly glad we did - the girls performed original music to an excellent standard, and fully served their purpose in setting the stage for the main event.

You can grab a three-track preview of Tell Tales using the widget above, or click below to visit the album page on iTunes for more previews and purchase links.

With the Cornshed Sisters out of the way, there was just time to grab a pint before the main event of the night - a two-hour set from The Futureheads that was at times hilarious, at times emotional, and occasionally involved the audience in true live-gig style.

Although the tour was ostensibly a capella, there was plenty of acoustic music too, with a whole rack of strings brought on to the stage at the start that ranged from ukuleles to cellos - and a few guitars, as you might imagine.

I was pretty pleased to see the set open with Richard Thompson's Beeswing, one of several cover versions to make it on to Rant, and one of my own favourite songs by Thompson. The Futureheads performed it as a group - as with much of their live music, there's no feeling of any one member really 'owning' the stage - and with plenty of flair.

The enduring sense from the first verse (and through until the end of their encore) was that a capella is not just a gimmick for the four-piece, and the academic surroundings of the RNCM helped to hammer home the impression that the genre is alive and well, and every bit as entertaining and relevant now as it has ever been.

An eclectic set list incorporated drinking songs, sea shanties, the Black Eyed Peas and a few Futureheads classics, including the moving News and Tributes, a particularly fitting choice for Manchester thanks to its historical references to the 1958 Munich air disaster.

With just two days off among their ten tour dates, the strain was beginning to show a little - not on the group, but on their instruments. A snapped guitar string and a broken strap reduced the number of instruments available, and forced a couple of the performances to be slightly more 'a capella' than intended. And an ill-timed fade-out of the lights led to minor disaster as Jaff smashed the resin for his cello bow. Oops.

Other than that, things went fairly smoothly, even when the audience were called in to help with claps, clicks, foot-stamps and cries of "MacIntyre!" (during the classic drinking song, When The Old Dun Cow Caught Fire), and a generally good time was had by all.


As befits the last night of a tour, the Cornshed Sisters returned to the stage for the last few songs, accompanied by the Northern Quarter Boys' Choir, and the singers stepped back from their microphones to fill the auditorium with what felt like genuinely unplugged vocals.

With at least 20 people on stage, and a good mix of male and female voices, those performances in particular brought the evening to a crescendo, and were among the most absorbing of the night for me. Soon enough, though, it was over, and The Futureheads rounded off the main gig with a final few minutes on their own, after thanking the departing Cornsheds and Boys' Choir.

An all-too-brief encore satisfied the rousing calls for more - the group joked that they hadn't stayed off the stage for long enough to build suspense, but there had been time for thunderous applause, foot-stamping, shouts for more and a slow handclap. There may have been a riot if they hadn't come back out as soon as they did.

Hounds of Love - in a capella, naturally - was the final song of the night, a perfect balance of humour and emotion that summed up not just the previous two hours, but the full three hours since the Cornshed Sisters had first stepped on to the stage.

As far as I could tell, the audience left in good spirits, with an open invitation from The Futureheads to make the short walk to the Deaf Institute to join them at a Prince night. Any gig where you're left with an invite to party with the band has got to be good...

The Cornshed Sisters have several further live appearances coming up, including London's Rough Trade West Instore today (do they not rest??) and the CornShed Festival in North Yorkshire on July 6th.

The Futureheads - Rant is out now, and you can read our full review here or click below to visit the album's page on iTunes.

The Futureheads - Rant

Today sees The Futureheads' a capella album Rant go on sale, along with the double A-side of Meet Me Halfway/The No.1 Song in Heaven, and the start of the group's UK tour to promote the album. The tour kicks off in Brighton tonight, ending in Manchester on April 13th after ten performances and just two nights off. It's a hectic schedule, and it's probably no surprise to see 'Glee Club' listed as the venue for both Birmingham and Nottingham, given the furore surrounding the TV show Glee.

If you're expecting senselessly uplifting, pseudo-a-capella power ballads, though, Rant is not for you. It's proper a capella, and that means no backing track, just a symphony of voices providing everything from the vocals to the instrumentals. It's a celebration of the human voice, and of a broad range of tracks including The Futureheads favourites, a reinvented Black Eyed Peas tune and a folk-rock classic from Richard Thompson.

You might expect a fairly confused result, with such broad influences, but The Futureheads' distinctive vocals are understandably even more evident on Rant than on some of their previous works, and the outcome is actually a very consistent and impressive album.