I’m feeling generous, so I’m going to say that Sea Pinks are the best band in the world. The best band in my world, anyway.

They’ve been great for a while, but their new single – ‘Yr Horoscope’ – is their higher gear shift, their third act twist, their moment in the season when Messi comes back from injury.
Seriously, there are booster rockets falling around us as we speak, blasting the band off into another level of the atmosphere.
New album, Dreaming Tracks is out now. For those of us not lucky enough to actually be in Sea Pinks playing this stuff, buying a copy is probably the next best thing. Prepare to love this through the winter and then fall even deeper come spring. Glorious, glorious stuff.
A shout out too to one of our oldest pals, Arthur Magee. Part flaneur, part social-historian, part-psycho-geographer, part Cliftonville fan, Arthur has spent much of the last ten years walking tourists (from abroad and home) around – and through – the lesser spotted Belfast. Arthur’s route weaves across the city’s radical past, de-familiarising much of the place, and offering an alternative to the ‘Troubles Tourism’ circuit. Chances are, though, that few of those who take the tour are aware that their guide has quite an interesting history himself. Arthur’s career as a song-writer has taken quite a few detours and diversions – including a album recorded with the legendary Martin Hannett – so it’s great to see that, following a lengthy break, he’s been readying some new material.
Ex-Magician’s debut release happened during the deadline-busting last week of November.
The ‘Kiss That Wealth Goodbye’ EP deserved a slot in the Year End polls, but because the Ex-Magician tale has the feel of a rebirth about it, why don’t we all engage in a little – um – magical thinking and pretend it’s coming out now?
That way we can spin the line that the band have pulled a bit of a trick: releasing a candidate for single of the year at the start of January.
Dig a little deeper into this story and no one should really be surprised.
Danny Todd and James Smith, the two creative dynamos powering the enterprise, are former members of Cashier No 9. It may not have ended well with that band (although their storming debut album To The Death of Fun isn’t half an impressive head-stone) but thankfully the experience has not discouraged the pair from carrying on with the great work. Bella Union are releasing ‘Kiss That Wealth Goodbye’. This probably means there is much more to come from Ex-Magician.
So, how’s that 2016? Abracadabra.