Poltimore Festival is a music and arts festival taking place on May 27th, located just outside Exeter in the striking setting of Poltimore House. Once an absolutely stunning country house, it is now unfortunately in desperate need of renovation, and so profits from the festival go to its aid. The festival makes full use of […]
Live Review: Tobias Ben Jacob & Brooke Sharkey at St Stephen’s Church, Exeter
A few weeks ago I found myself in the unusual setting of St Stephen’s Church, halfway down Exeter’s High Street, for the opening gig of the Song Spaces project. Song Spaces is a series of gigs being organised around Exeter in unconventional locations, and this particular location did not disappoint. St Stephen’s is a light, airy church with fantastic acoustic potential, and the staging was […]
Catering to your tastes
As a third year with diminishing free time, when I’m waiting for my food to cook in the evenings I find myself looking back wistfully on life in catered halls. I spent my first year in Pennsylvania Court, which I loved for various reasons, quite a significant one being the food. Let’s start with the […]
Live Review: Loyle Carner @ Exeter Phoenix
A year ago, I’d never heard of the name Loyle Carner, let alone his real name, which is (confusingly) Benjamin Coyle-Larner, despite the fact that it was beginning to pop up all over various ‘one to watch’ lists. Over the course of 2017, I’ve watched him release his debut album, feature on 6 Music Live […]
Festival Review: Reading 2017
Friday On the blindingly sunny morning of the 25th of August, my friend Olivia and I embarked our train from Exeter to Reading. Having both missed out on the 16-year-old post-GCSE rite of passage that is going to Reading festival, we were excited for a great weekend of music. We’d unfortunately forgotten to […]
Album Review: Blondie – Pollinator
My first exposure to Blondie was aged 7, via the soundtrack to the iconic 2003 film The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which opens with Hilary Duff trying on various outfits and lip syncing to Atomic Kitten’s cover of ‘The Tide Is High’. While Atomic Kitten probably have their merits, I was a lot more impressed when […]
Time’s Been Reckless: An Interview with Marika Hackman
Marika Hackman is a twenty-five-year-old multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Hampshire. Associated with acts such as Johnny Flynn and The Big Moon, and having supported Laura Marling on tour, her debut album was released in 2015 and since then her success has been constantly building. Recently, on one of her rare days off from touring, I […]
This is the Age: Interview with Tom Grennan
Last week I was lucky enough to have a quick chat with Tom Grennan, a Bedford-born singer songwriter who was thrust into the spotlight after featuring on the Chase and Status song ‘All Goes Wrong’. Despite being a little tired from a photoshoot earlier that day and a gig he’d played the night before, he […]
Album Review: Adore//Repel – Empty Orchestra
Empty Orchestra is the debut album from Adore//Repel, a four-piece band from West Yorkshire. They describe their sound as post-hard-core, shoegaze, instrumental music and this is one of the most unusual and exciting things about them: that in their music they heavily emphasise the instrumentals rather than the vocals. The real heart of their music […]
Live Review: Battle of the Bands Semi Final #1
Excitement is not an emotion I usually feel while entering the Lemon Grove – after a series of terrible Saturday nights spent there in Freshers I decided I would never spend an evening there again. However, I somehow found myself walking in this Tuesday in a good mood and looking forward to the night ahead […]