Friday, October 2, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 90 Of Montreal - aethermead-
Of Montreal's latest album aethermead is from the off driven by an arthouse persona driven conviction which has been worked on and refined for years. Athens, Georgia band always goes down well on It Starts With a Birthstone. Particular one with no obvious resemblance or DNA of their obvious antecedents B52s, R.E.M., Pylon amd so on and so forth,
This has a more particular set of reference points. The Wainwrights, Southern Literature and Films. A glass of wine from a good year. The finer things in life. This is gossamer light and deft. A rewarding as a rich meal in the company of cultivated company.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 91 Dead Finks - New Plastic Abyss
Influencers? Are you hip to this.. Dead Finks fourth New Plastic Abyss strident agitation of the most vigorous kind. A coat of many colours. The Scars meet Rats On Rafts. Wumderbar !!! Hysteria is back in vogue. See them in Leipzig, Berlin, Prague and Munich in April and May. New Favourite Band Number Blah, blah, blah.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 92 Brown Horse - Total Dive
Perhaps Brown Horse's are Norwich's finest. They're certainly a horse of a different colour. Third album Total Dive might at first seem like an open invitation for doomscrollers of the world to unite and feel sorry for themselves.But persevere. For there's much here for lovers of Neil Young, The Band , Springsteen and the open road to celebrate. I'm not quite sure what Alan Partridge might think of it really. But frankly, what does that guy know,
This is a band that must be growing used to being compared to artists and records that came out over fifty years ago. This is tonally not necessarily the cheeriest record you're likely to hear this week but it may well be one of the best. I went to university in Nowich but it certainly doesn't remind me of The Fine City. It probably reminds me of somewhere like Omaha, even though I've never been there and am probably unlikely to ever get there. Good recirds do things like that to you. This is a very good record !
Songs About People # 1,441 Robert Pattinson
From the charming new Penelope Isles album. Of which more soon.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 43 Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out Of Season
The Folk Horror at the heart of the Portishead project.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,528 Angela Autumn
Yes, yes, yes. it's my autumn almanac. All the leaves are brown. And the sky is grey. But the great records keep flowing up the pike . Not least Angela Autumn's new one. An unholy mix of Adrianne Lenker, Karen Dalton and Janis J. New album Believer is as rich and ripe to fall as you could possibly want.
A songwriter and banjo player based in Nashville Tennnessee although she hails from an appalachian region of Pennsylvania. Believe is the sound of someone raised in bluegrass roots music. A brave, bucolic and heady record,
Thursday, October 1, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 93 Black Beach - Mail Thief
If in doubt, go down to the underground. Black Beach reignite the conflagration first lit in the early Eighties by the likes of Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, et al in the early eighties on Mail Thief. It's all incredibly authentic.
Coveted # 11 Wooden Shjips - Back To Land
Half a day with Kate Bush and Aerial. The other with Wooden Shijps making it Back To Land. This is an album which came out in 2013. Which frankly feels like a long, long time ago. It was the year I started writing this blog. But I certainly remember being fascinated by this records and as it's just been re-released, I might just need to own it.
Wooden Shjips are contemporary psychedelicisits and they hail from San Francisco. They're comfortable in their lineage. Velvets, Dorrs, 13th Floor Elevators, Silver Apples, Suicide , Spacemen 3, Loop, Black Angels. Back To Land makes them sound positively Scandinavian . They come across as Viking warloads heading back after a long trek westward. Time to head back to 2013cand from there to 1967.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 94 Reds, Pinks & Blues - Acknowledge Kindness
Red. Pinks & Blues are one of those bands that you know what their album sounds like before you've heard it. That is precisely their charm and appeal. Or perhaps if you weren't inclined why you wouldn't touch their records with a long bargepole.
I'm in the former rather than the latter category. I listened to their latest record Acknowledge Kindness last night. it's a sound basic principle and the songs adhere to its principles. The songs unroll like a summer afternoon doing nothing in particular in grassy sunlit meadows. Being seeventeen forever, at least at heart There's something effortless about the atmosphere inetrwoven here. It's like staying seventeen forever.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 95 Hollow Hand - Wish Road South
Brighton's Hollow Hand sound like a strange and inspired fusion of Dexys Midnight Runners and Dire Straits. Dire Midnight Runners? Dexys Straits. Alan McGee would have signed this band to his record label back in the day ! New album Wish Road South has that odd Seventies twang that's half way between Peckham High Street and the America of its dreams. Ther eare hints of The Kinks and The Beatles. It's really rather gentle, rather English and rather lovely !
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 96 Cindy - Another Country
Cindy from San Francisco. They're playing songs from The Velvet Underground Songbook, Their latest album Another Country. As I rise and pack and prepare for a train journey South to be with my elderly parents.
Now I'm down South in my family's bosom with all the madness that entails. I have Another Country on again and actually it feels rather like Christmas. Perfect soundtrack. Mum is downstairs preparing tea. All is right in the World. Frankly, if this is Another Country, I'd like to go there immediately.
We must live in the moment and appreciate our good fortune. I appreciate mine. Cindy make me appreciate it more. They don't veer from a well established formula that has kept me happy for my adult life and will do so as long as I'm on this earth. Until it ends with a tombstone as the blog I write's title implies.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 44 Kate Bush -Aerial
I've been listening to Kate Aerial all day. I increasingly like to do that with albums. Get their measure. Find myself overcome. Carried aborne. Kate is good for that and so is Aerial. All life is here. A mother's love for her children. The sacred quality of the daily chores. The sublime. The playing sometimes feels slightly worthy. The spirit is profound and the execution divine.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,527 Protomartyr
Autumn is here. And the decline to Christmas starts. But never fear. For here comes a monumental records that speaks to the times. There have been innumerous responses to the current incumbent and imperial regime of the White House . The one thing the current global climate is surely good for is in terms of generating cultural responses. Protomartyr's seventh album Hotel Usona is probably just about as good as it gets.
Darkly satirical. But also bleakly furious. Horror, disgust, dread, disdain, poetry and an almost tangible glee are all stirred into the mix in quick succession. The resulting album is blisteringly entertaining and relentless. It's all incredibly ambitious and builds an extraordinary and furious intensity. Musically the band cast their net further than they have done previously. This is racheted up to a glorious and sustained degree. A masterful record as we head into the abyss.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 97 Team Dresch - Furthermore
Team Dresch a Punk Queercore band from Olympia, Washington are back after a thirty year hiatus with Furthermore a robust streamlined album that sounds a bit like Fleetwood Mac morphing into Sleater Kinney.
There's plenty of choreographed mob chanting where it gets to the point that arms need to be punched skywards and the moshpit for the fifty somethings kicks into gear.
This is a punchy powerfully played record with the component instruments dropping like small explosions in an out of the mix, There is Comanche intent and reisilience to the bands stance. They've somewhat softened their line of attack over the attack but stayed consistent to their values.
* Disclaimer. The first track is nondescript. Please persevere. The record improves incrementally.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 98 Basement - Wired
Rough Trade are onto this and that's good enough for me. I went across the road just now and mentioned them to Nick the owner of the record shop and he put Wired, their latest album on and he agreed. It doesn't take much to get this stuff right. Intent, conviction. Drive.A vague alienation. But not too forced. You don't need to frighten the horses.
Wired isn't weird but it has plenty of independent fire md melody. And heart. .Basement are the best thing thing to come out of Ipswich since Kevin Beattie, They've reformed sporafdcally since 2029. This takes Pixies, Smoking Popes, Radiohead, Ulrika Spacek amd lots of other bands you've never heard of to wonderful effect
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 99 Nirosta Steel - My Skyscraper
This is a cooler than thou Song of the Day. One for the art set. For those who stroke their chins and like to listen to Arthur Russell and Laurie Anderson rarities before doing some coke and going for cocktails in downtown Manhattan. Wish I was there !
Long time Arthur Russell collaborator Nirosta Steel has finally released his debut album My Skyscraper decades down the line and Pitchfork are so delighted about it they've published the kind of review you'd expect focusing on the concept of play as a tagline.
My Skyscraper is certainly a whole new shade of fun. Funky, elusive, full of in jokes and fretless bass. Light as souffle and not an ounce on the waist. Waiter !!!
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 100 Ed O'Brien - Blue Morpho
Simetumes it's great when a fine goup splinters. You get more for your money. The individuals within the band start putting out albums of their own and the plot thickens. The harvest is enhanced. Our general lot is improved. Take Fairport Convention . Take Can. Take Kraftwerk. Take erm The Beatles.
Take Radiohead. It's Saturday mirning and I find myself at my desk listening to Ed O'Brien's new record Blue Morpho.. O'Brien has made a series of videos where he talks about how the record was brought firth by crisis. It sounds like Radiohead. It sounds like those who Radiohead picked up the banner for and forged onward. Nick Drake, Krautrock, Egypt. The Heavenly Choir.It's a deft, magical record. The eye of the storm...
Song(s) of the Day # 4,526 Jake Xerxes Fusell
Jake Xerxes Fusell's The Old Beloved Path. A wonderful record to turn in on on a Tuesday evening. An even better one to wake up to on Wednesday morning. It's lonesome and evocative . Melodies and moments that are in our bones.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Coveted # 10 Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come
One of theose ticks on the Folk Rock box. Anne Briggs was bor in Beeston, Nottinghamshire and Tcleft home at 18. She lived in a flat in Earls Court with Ber Jansch and made he name on the Folk Scene in the Sixties. She had a name for drunken excess Time Has Come came out in 1971. It has a ragged, landmark flair.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 101 Crying Laughing - Smoking
I can't particularly write about Jazz but I do appreciate it. Crying, Laughing have and album called Starting and frankly, it's Smoking. Different ways of getting to the same place
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 46 LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
This has an incredibly high 'Hip' quotient. That's to be respected but I have my ceilimg when it comes to LCD Soundsytem. Probably largely generationally and geographically we don't coincide. Still. It's alright I s'ppose.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,525 Julia Jacklin
Julia Jacklin's fourth album The Gem has a poised quality and I'd suggest benefits most of all from active engagement. and repeated listens to release its harvest . This makes for an increasingly compelling and rewarding experience. It has a rhythm. A coherent flow. Like a river you're drawn downstream with and eventually overcome by and find yourself succumbing to its undertow.
I've got this on repeat. As we head from September and brace ourselves for Autumn. Sometimes a record tudns up just when you need it. Jacklin is definitely an artist who shares certain impulses and instincts with Aldous Harding. Found poetry. It's an album that's as rich as a well judged, poetic novel . Something I wanted to understand better so I'll return to it in the hope that I begin to do so better.
Monday, September 28, 2026
Coveted # 9 SpookyTooth - Spooky Two
Sometimes its in the name. Shouldn't a band called Spooky Tooth from the late Sixties and rolling into the Seventies be worth listening to. This has an imperious flow and drag to it that makes you yearn for the times. There's something slightly messianic about the whole record which is frankly.
Spooky Tooth were from Carlisle which is also greatly commendable and also put out albums on Island and were produced by Jimmy Miller which are also badges of note. This is incredibly soulful and engaging.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 47 Lambchop - Is a Woman
Kurt Wagner offers a dry, warm perspective on the world and its ways. Like the best music Is a Woman brings the hands of time to an actual stop.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 102 Alex Winter
Alex Winter and Geese seem to be connecting with a lot of people right now. Further evidence if needed on Late To Set. He walks down the less trodden road.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,524 Song of the Day - Slayyter
Slayyter's Wor$t Girl In America it would seem reasonable to conclude is not a record that is aimed at the likes of me. I am not its natural constituency.It's not in mine. I can't remember the last time I was on a dancefloor. I am heading North from my base at 60. Nevertheless. I've listened to it a fair bit over the last few days. I quite like it, It's got sass.
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Coveted # 8 Gomez - Bring It On
This will do me for today ! Bring It On is reminiscent of a certain perspective and way of going about life. It was the end of the Nineties and Brit Pop had curdled. Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels had come out. Hot on the heels of The Big Lebowski.
Bring it On came out in April 1998 on the still cool Hut Label. It won the Mercury Music Prize beating Mezzanine and Urban Hymns, (a sign of very strong days) and Gomez toured the UK with Embrace who were like Oasis meets The Verve for those who needed more of the same.
Christgau reviewed it and said, 'They mean it man...' They probably didn't.
I was very, very partial and played it on loop. I'm playing it on loop again today. I had it on CD but don't on vinyl. I might need to amend that. The draw of the album is I'd say sheer enjoyability. It's not a record which takes itself seriously on any level. It says something about friendship and love of music. That's enough.
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It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 103 Windy & Carl
i Iike a record with a liminal space dimmension and an intriguing sobriquet. So Windy & Carl Meet Optigan Conservatory delivers on several fronts. A leading light apparently in the Michigan Space Rock scene of the nineties they've prevailed and moved on to calmer, if slightly eerier waters. This is one I find I keep coming back to....
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 48 Rufus Wainwright - Want One
Rufus Wainwright makes me feel like I'm waking up in New York. It's the sweep. The romance. The ambition. And extravagance. Want One gives you the sense that you're heading down Broadway for a lunchrime date, It's the stuff of dreams
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Song(s) of the Day # 4,523 Slow Pulp
Sitting on a big oak tree. Yellow and green. At the age of nineteen. We've all been there. And perhaps aren't anymore. But that doesn't seem to matter or impact on the basic emotion. The feeling of being alive. It's certainly a long time in the other place. Lethe. The river of forgetfulness.
In the meantime there are worse places I might direct you than to Slow Pulp's Melodie. It's the stuff of uncertain Independent American dreaming.That will do for today. And tomorrow I imagine.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Coveted # 7 Bill Evans Trio - At The Montreux Jazz Festival
There are a series of titles with the Jazz and Soul late and greats entitled 'At The Montreux Jazz Festival' ; Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie. Nina Simone, David Bowie . Take your pick. Tonight I'm listening to Bill Evans. The drummer is a bit too fiddly and wired too close to the recording mic for my comfort and this becomes an irritant but otherwise everything is just precisely in place. Bill Evans knows...
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 104 Wormy - Shark River
'Long drive to Reno. Blasting too hard to tell. This is the worst year of my life but so far it's gone pretty well.'
Des Moines, Iowa. An album called Shark River. A guy who calls himself Wormy. As good a way to work my way from lessons two to three on a January morning halfway through the month.
This is all American endeavor. Phosphorence comes to mind but there's less heat rising off the headphones, more confusion in the wire. Wormy doesn't seem to have so much under his bely . This is a great place to start.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 49 Daft Punk - Discovery
Not what I listened to 25 years back and not really what I listen to now. I can appreciate the artistry and admire the innovation but frankly the listening experience leaves me cold.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,522 Roomer
'Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'
Roomer's Staircase Made of Rope. A trio based in Berlin weaving the kind of sound that Melody Maker writers would have frothed over in the early Nineties. Slowcore meets Shoegaze and ignites the night, Ronja Schosser, Ludwig Wandinger and Luka Aron launch a startling and haunting second album that thickens and gathers with every moment like Sleeping Beauty's enchanted kingdom. Memory and melody.
There's something comfortingly familiar about the record but something that's startlingly brave too. It reminded me of Hugo Largo which is always a good thing. They're touring Europe in October. Make a date with the night.
* Thanks again as ever to Darren Jones, best friend of this blog. You've come up trumps here Starbuck and no mistake!!!
Friday, September 25, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,318 James Blake - Overgrown
I've never listened to a James Blake album before. I went into this largely blind . I was very taken . It reminded me of Antony & The Johnsons in some respects, It was unworldly and disorienting, Ultimately comforting.
Coveted # 6 Anita O'Day - Anita
Listening to a record like Anita, Anita O Days debut album can teach you a lot . A lot about the world and the way it was. A lot about the world and the way it is. It was an album that was released in March 1956 and listening to it makes you wasnt to go back there right now as if everything that has happened since has somehow been an awful abberation.
This is well into O'Days career but is a new road for her as she's just signed for the newly established Verve Record label and finds her heading out on her own properly. Anita was recorded over three sessions in 1955 and places itself exquisitely between Jazz and Pop. It's full of standards but sounds like you're hearing them for the first time frankly. The settings are pure gold
Nights # 8 Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet
I wonder sometimes whether you have to experience the Mid West to truly appreciate Bob Seger,
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 105 The Bird Calls
Beautiful things happen every day. If you have your eyes and ears open. Today The Bird Calls album Take Leave. Resonant melodic Indie Folk with good tunes and wonderful lyrics. Out of New York City. That will more than do me on a Friday afternoon.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 50 Dandy Warhols -Thirty Tales From Urban Bohemia
An album that sets off as if you're heading in to My Sweet Lord then proceeds with a song called Mohammed and another called Nietzsche. This was the Dandy Warhols album I interacted with and I played my CD version of it a lot over the years. It feels like a CD to me rather than a record and I don't really feel the need to own it on vinyl.
It's a fine album with any number of fine songs and almost breathless ambition. It's a Rock & Roll record but it clearly harks back as is so often the case in our Janus facing culture. -Thirty Tales From Urban Bohemia was released over 26 years ago. The Strokes Is This It came out the following year. And in music terms you caould make a good case that we've been looking back pretty much ever since....
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