Geoff Westen’s album, “Music For My Friends”, thumps onto the scene like a dropped box of heavy disco balls – all shiny potential energy and the slight threat of chaos. It aims for that classic pop song euphoria, the kind designed to rattle car speakers and fuel late-night dance floors, an "aural assault" as Westen puts it. And it does pulse with energy, a...

Ben Heyworth returns with "Image of Roads (Montana Mix)", a track that feels like watching a blueprint suddenly sprout wings and take flight. Collaborating with the members of Minorplanet, Heyworth a man whose history suggests he’s been sketching the Manchester indie skyline for years revisits an older acoustic skeleton and wraps it in something far more sinewy. It is "urban folk" that has decided...