Review: Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

[By Jamie Halliday]

Artist: Akron / Family

Album: Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

Label: Crammed Discs

It’s nice when this happens. Having risen fast to the absolute top of my profession, it can be easy to become jaded and tired; my worn, greying eyes seeing nothing but bottom lines and tax deductions – but sometimes this happens, sometimes something truly inspiring and exciting falls onto our desks and rocks our worlds*. In this instance it happened with a Crammed Discs release (coming through our friends in Proper Note) by the name of SET ‘EM WILD, SET ‘EM FREE. The offending artist? AKRON/FAMILY.

Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free

Charlie Winston – Wed 01/07/09, Pigalle

[By Jamie Halliday]

Real World Round Up:

Charlie Winston – Hobo album launch.

The Pigalle, Piccadilly. July 1^st 2009.

Charlie Winston (by Jon Roffey)

Having convinced the French that he’s the single best thing Euros can buy (racking up a platinum album and a no.1 single), Suffolk songster Charlie Winston made his much anticipated return to London for the UK launch of his debut album proper Hobo. Mon Dieu!

Hitting the stage one by one, his band, The Oxymorons, arrive with an every-man-for-himself urgency – fighting one another to open the set. It was very novel. When the trio finally found themselves united, they worked seamlessly, creating a grand enough backing to lure the night’s star onto the stage. Dancing his way into the opening lines of excellent new single In Your Hands and thrashing at his keyboard like a dandy (and digital) Jerry Lee Lewis – Charlie Winston had officially arrived in London Town.