Possibly because you can't really have too much Fela. This is indescribably energetic and pretty much puts you on the streets of Lagos. It's militant, sinuous, conscious, frantic and simultaneously joyous and furious. I've also seen David Byrne who would know comment on how incredibly tight and disciplined.
The Cowboys The Bottom Of A Rotten Flower has all the jagged, misdirected romance of 1978. DEVO meet Buzzcocks and Sparks by the swings One song after another of the rollercoaster of life !
Radiator Hospital have built up a healthy audience for their ragged and disjointed Garage Rock sound over previous releases. Distorted Time sees them sticking to their guns with a sound that finds the missing chord between 13th Floor Elevators and modern operators like Black Lips, Spirit of the Beehive and The Lavender Flu.Distorted Time gathers momentum and rattles along the rails of destiny for 13 songs and 36 minutes like Dylan the stoned rabbit from The Magic Roundabout with merry effect.
I probably haven't got enough time to consume as much music as I'd like to and do it justice on here. But I'll do my damnedest. There are certain genres I can barely do justice to given how vast and unknowable they are and I'm only really beginning to dip my toes into to any degree. That goes for Jazz. For Folk and certainly for Brazilian Tropicalia.
Well you have to start somewhere so why not with Chico Buarqe's 1971 album Construcao. The most dramatic and intense record imaginable. The strings just dive out at you. Fans of Forever Changes and Oddessey and Oracle and The Left Banke take note. But given that this is in Portuguese it has another layer of melodrama and intrigue.And so much history
Written partially in Italy during a period of political exile.it's sleeve and presentation has been interpreted as a tribute to the plight of the working man during a period of intense suppression by a political dictatorship. If you don't speak Portuguese you can still appreciate the passion and colour. It's a beautiful record on any number of levels.
Inland Years latest album Nowadays lives up to its title in planting its flag firmly and squarly in the plot of vague and imprecise but gently likeable Indie American ahalfway between the giant plots of War About Drugs and The Byrds.. Occasionally you want to shake Ryan Daniels who is Inland Years head honcho in frustration but he stays close to his guiding principles and I can't say I'm compaining frankly
'What's the point in wating time with people that you'll never know.'
I've been waiting to find a place of calm in my day and I suspect it may have come. It's half past two on a Sunday afternoon in late September and I've finally arrived at my desk, put my heaphones on and I'm listening to an album from 2000 by Broadcast - The Noise Made By People.
it could really be pretty much any album by Broadcast I imagine. They're one of the important bands for our age I'd say. A band that understand many of the central preoccupation of our times. The Age of Anxiety. They've been labelled within the whole disticussion of Hauntology. A way of seeking answers to the problems of our time by wrapping ourselves up in the concerns of the past.as a means of heading into the future.They're quietly inspired frankly
This is still coveted becase it was an album I almost bought when it came out. I was 14 and just starting to get interested in music seriously. On the funfair ride and process of accumulation I've been on for almost fifty years since.
It's a fairly generic New Wave record really with an album cover very, very much of its time. An image of a man making the after news weather forecast. It barely registered chart wise. The competition was unfeasibly strong back in those days. The song everyone knows and The Vapors shot at immortality Turning Japanese, famously a song which seemed to extol the wonders of onanism was quite rightly a Top Ten Hit and hung around the Top 40 for weeks.
The rest of the album is solid if unremarkable. Less to my taste than The Only Ones, Magazine, The Passions, Gang Of Four or any others who carved out a space for themselves at the same time and wielded a sharper scalpel. It's sub Jam and Sub Costello without being a patch on either . But if I ever see a reasonably priced copy. I'll probably buy it.
The Homesick are a Dutch Avant Pop group who have moved from Sub Pop to Vienna's Siluh Records in recent years They play on the influence of bands like Yellow Magic Orchestra and have a broadly Eighties sound.
But as someone who grew up in that decade and has mixed opinions about any number of its defining characteristics. None of them seem particularly garish or overstated on latest album What's Up With All These Shangri Las which is a thoroughly bright and creative record.
It's artistic without being lofty. Incredibly melodic and restless. This is a record that puts the 'art' in heart and I thoughly endorse it.
Taster for tomorrow's Song(s) of the Day. The first track from the excellent new record from The Homesick.
I'm in a 'space' at the moment which allows me to consume culture, music, film and culture in general. This allows me to listen to a lot of music and fall under its spell. My natural urge is to covet it. the act of owning it, but that's not always necessary. Instead I'll document my appreciation here.
An album released in 1978 and intended for the ages Budd is an avnt-garde west coast figure. This is his second album and was part of a cycle of works begun in 1972and produced by Brian Eno. It has a cast of distinguished musicians and feels like an ascension to a sacred place frankly
A band from a town called Alice. Alice Springs, Australia. A mythical place. And here's a mythical record from there .Of Nothing from the Charlie Ivan Band. No lack of dread, mystery, pathos and and the sense of tumbleweed making its way down Main Street while the locals make their way to and from their local.A good record can plumb the same emotional depths as a great novel and Of Nothing is a good exmaple of these processes detonating and falling back into space. A stunning and quietly stunned record.
* Thanks as so often to Darren Jones for directing me here. That's classy Darren.
Pylon. A coooler than coolArt Rock band from Athens Georgia and the early Eighties . A cooler than cool, (I imagine), novel from icon of the American South William Faulkner. The third album by Filipino born singer songwriter Beatrice Laus, better known as beabodoobee.
It's a record that imeddiatiately impresses with its cultural heft tugging me back to the Nineties most obviously. She's an arist who has cited the Sundays, Mazzy Star, Veruca Salt and Elliott Smiths as influences and that's the place this occupies and it's very comfortable in that space.
It's a great record but its nostalgic drag is inescapable like so many of the records I'm listening to in 2026. 'Disconnected from reality,,,,,, like a pylon on an open road.' There are worse places to be.
Twilark's Never Learned the Tide is not going to cheer you up.It raise the flag of surrender halfway up the flagpole and then runs out of energy. It's a whole heap of modping and self pity. But hey we've all had some of these moments. It's a cry in the dark a healthy blow into a handkerchief and amd you really shouldn't bother with it but I've just done so for you.
'I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. It feels good to be out of the rain.'
It's a Friday morning in Canterbury and I'm listening to Beck's new album Ride, Lonesome. We're all on lonesome roads. Whether we acknowledge it or not. But Beck has always been a better soundtrack for those roadsthan most. Ride, Lonesome is him doing what he does betst of all. Ballads to comfort and highlight the beauty of existence as we make our way down the highway.
This is classic songwriting and ennui. There's none of Morrissey's self pity and inchoate rage. Far from it. This strikes me as more enlightened and worldly. Plenty of consolation and comfort. Ride, Lonesome is twelve songs of comfort and consolation as we make our way down or up another slope towards Christmas !
The XX were one of those bands that I heard and felt music was leaving me as I could not connect with them as I did to the music that meant most to me. With The XX it was not really that they were austere. Joy Division and Young Marble Giants were austere. But this felt rather clinical and claculated and positioned for a market and I felt uncomfortable because I didn't wish to be their target consumer. A genuine Post Modern 'Post Punk' sense of discomfort.
'I've been talking to stray dogs. And empty stools.'
Material Witness is a proper gem of the old school from William Matheny out of West Virginia. It's an album that speaks loud and clear about the story of life. The way we navigate the bends in the road as best we can,`
It's deteminedly glass half full and well adjusted. Full of good lines and good tunes. Worldly wisdom. Homely charm. Good Night Jim Bob. Good night Erin.
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.
Underachievement. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Over The Moon actually probably would more accurately be described as Under The Moon. Seven songs filed with endless Dinosaur Jr. soloing and staring at your socks, 'it is like it is...' shrugging and margin hugging craftsmanship ,
I've been listening to The Tubs latest album Hard Life for a few days now. They're a ragged dysfunctional band that are on an interesting road. I saw them last year giving a drunken, spirit performance at Xerox night club on the Newcastle Quayside lats year in spitting distance of the swing bridge.
Ragged dysfunctionalism seems to be the suit that The Tubs specialise in. But why not? Latest album Hard Life reminds me of my youth and revels in the bands own and rings amiable all the way from starter's pistol to breasting the finishing tape. As generallly with the band it's a spirited uneven performance.
They swing like The Smiths with Richard Thompson on vocals. You get the sense that they care which is surely what matters most. They may remind you of the past but they're heading into the future in their ragged dysfunctional manner.
Hey Kids! It's Super Honey Teaspoon ! by Soda Gumball from Seattle Washington. It's every bit as good as it sounds. Twee, joyous Indie Pop ennui. Canned C-86 inspired happiness! Looks like we've found our way back to The Garden !
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 !
New Haven, CT band with Heart & Soul and psychedelic space.
Rising in the face of The New Fascism ! Into the New Week . Never mind about the front page. Look to music. British Indie Rock & Roll seems back in fashion in late 2026. And not before time. Hot on the heels of the Westside Cowboy record comes fellow Mancunians The Guest List's debut album Something Real. And it's a record buzzing with fresh, intense and familiar joys. And no little poetry.
It's been a long time since Made In Stone, The Drugs Don't Work and There She Goes but their spirit and vigour are here in abundance as is the energy and essence of so many great British guitar bands, and records of previous decades. The soul and the love of books and life and youth despite the inevitable rain which is a major player here. Never mind the darkness as we hurtle towards Christmas.
This is indeed something real and The Guest List can be very proud of what they've done and are doing, This is an articulate and beautiful and moving record which ticks with clockwork precision and will endure.
Post Rock Music that functions essentially as classic or official sountracks do.A very beautiful record.
'One way is Rome. The other way is Meeca. On either side. On either side of our motor bike...'
I have a good friend who rails against Rufus Wainwright at every opportunity. Says he cannot hold a note and is a talentless flibertigibbet who should not be allowed within a mile of a stage.
What does he know dear readers. I think Rufus is fab. Possibly an angel in flight. Poses is triff !!!
Stoke On Trent's finest if that's what you were seeking, the oddly named Formal Sppeedwear take Post Punk around the block on debut album Punch Card and do the jerky presposterous affected dance that is the odd privelidge of youth. This on the surface may seem a slightly formulaic record. But it's well worth perservering with
Ian Prowse is an old school singer songwriter of the Old School. The kind of guitar toting good humoured storytelling, Faces, Costello, Squeeze. that seems to have gone out of fashion. No Names is a timely reminder.
'There goes a rolling rise. There goes a dull afternoon.....' So opens Love Aggregates, the latest album from Evanston, Illinois cultural and musical phenomenon Asher White . Asher's prolific to say the least and has been releasing music since she was 14.
Love Aggregates, is consistently versatile, lilting and easy on the ear. Occasionally chintzy but with a refined Pop sensibility Imagination in flight. 'We're chasing every pigeon that we see.'
IAN Sweet continues to make the most fascinating, enigmatic reords on any block. A dollop of Jobriath. A twist of Sufjan. But brave, original and frequently deeply poignant. A match struck in the dark....
