They combined English and Irish protest folk potently with the anger and fury of punk to create bristling vignettes of normal life under a rabid Tory government hellbent on destroying the unions and the welfare state. If there was ever a time for this music, and it’s visceral rage at the political classes, to return then it is surely now. Dan Salter talks to Jeremy Cunningham.

A few weeks ago myself and Metal Editor Sander were invited to join the judging panel for this year’s Dead Albatross Award, an alternative to the Mercury Prize that had its first run last year. To be honest we hadn’t come across them before but the depth and diversity of the shortlist piqued our interest so on the weekend I popped over to their mission control in North London and caught up with founder Paul to find out a bit more about the whys and wherefores. By Dan Salter

2014 was the year Arctangent grew up to be a proper festival. Last year was great but it’s easy to be a great festival in the blazing sunshine. The real test of a festival is whether it can stay great when the rain comes down and come down it did, especially the Friday night providing a suitably apocalyptic backdrop for the dark riffage of Russian Circles, yet Arctangent coped with it without missing a 13/4 beat. By Dan Salter

So, 700 odd words of (overly)exuberant rambling and I don’t feel I’ve even scratched the surface of why A New Nature will be not only my album of the year but has already taken a proud position in the pantheon of my favourite albums of all time, it’s that good. Don’t just take my word for it, sit comfortably, play it loud, open your mind and prepare to have it blasted clean. By Dan Salter

As soon as we’d had a bit of a play with the Musicjelly mixing player we knew this was something very cool but also something that a lot of time, effort and energy had been put in to. We were so impressed with the idea that we were desperate to know more so we spoke to the team behind the project; Zahara and Ben. By Dan Salter

20 years ago this week Orbital played the Herbal Tea Party in Manchester and changed the life of our editor, Dan Salter, irrevocably. Here he shares what he can remember of the occasion.

A joyous selection of art, photography, comedy and music set in bars and churches around Leicester, Handmade Festival is a must for anyone interested in good music, friendly people and a great atmosphere.

Tim Waterfield (AKA Karhide) had a chat with us recently to discuss new EP ‘Colossus’, and other future endeavors. By Dan Salter.

This May sees the first Beyond The Redshift festival across 3 venues in North London. The stellar line up ticks a lot of our boxes here at E&D Towers so we sent our Editor to talk to co-curator Johannes Persson from Cult Of Luna. By Dan Salter

This Easter weekend just gone saw a merry half dozen of the E&D writers pack their bags & head to Leeds for the very first Strangeforms festival. We decided early on that it would be impossible to do a band by band review, so here are a few thoughts.

When Martyn reviewed the Warfaring Strangers compilation last week that had been designed as a musical accompaniment to The Darkscorch Canticles, a traditional table top role playing game, as an old gamer myself I wanted to know more about this project so I spoke to Rob Sevier from the label that put it out, Numero. By Dan Salter

The Strangeforms line up is pretty much a who’s who of bands we’ve been banging on about here at Echoes And Dust for the last few years, so when it was announced we knew we just had to have a chat with Bad Owl Promotions’s Stewart & Kerry to find out more. By Dan Salter

A record of substance and heft that at the same time fizzes with humour and frivolity; a rare thing indeed. Get this album in your life, you can thank me later. By Dan Salter

Solo singer songwriters aren’t everybody’s cup of tea but Beccy shines with a quality that raises her above the standard open mic fare and places her alongside some of our finest crafters of simple and startlingly honest songs. By Dan Salter

Fuller reviews and more photos are still to come, but in the meantime check out our Thursday highlights! Scroll over the image with your mouse and see what you can find 🙂

We were privileged to witness the Sargent House showcase at The Old Blue Last and just about lived to tell the tale… By Dan Salter

We kick off our ArcTanGent coverage proper with the launch of our ATG page. There you can find articles on a lot of the bands, our special mixtape stream, our #EDATG twitter stream and Instagram gallery via which you can follow our descent in to depravity in a field throughout the week. Enjoy.

Gringo is one of our favourite independent record labels, and so we thought the time was well overdue to hear some more about them from the horse’s mouth itself. Dan Salter posed the questions for label head honcho Matt Newnham…

From The Kites Of San Quentin sound something like Lamb or Portishead reimagined for the post-Dubstep generation. The beats are loose, the vocals at turns haunting and angelic and the squirbles are suitably squirblly but what really hangs it all together is the bass; oh sweet lord, what bass. By Dan Salter

Last week we ran an opinion piece by our features editor making the case that Glastonbury, as the hippy ideal that it once was, is dead and all that remains is a corporate behemoth. I’d like to now argue that this simply isn’t true. By Dan Salter

It is a special thing for a band that have been around as long as Sigur Ros have to change their path so dramatically and produce a piece of work that not just recaptures the magic of their early years but in places surpasses it but that is exactly what Sigur Ros have done on Kveikur and I for one doff my cap. By Dan Salter