It Starts With a Birthstone...

Detroit's Protomartyr have figured big time in my life throughout 2017. Not that I was unaware of them before that. They had already...

The second Scottish guitar offering joining fellow Glaswegians Spinning Coin. From a month back: 'The last couple of weeks appear...

Courtney Barnett's long-term partner Jen Cloher, released an eponymous album earlier this year. This, its opening song tells Cloher...

A grower which I'm sure the more I listen to it, the more I'll wish it were higher. I wrote about it first towards the end of August...

Argentinian born Tall Juan comes on like Johnny Ramones long lost son in two fine songs just like the Bruvvers used to write them from ...

What I wrote about this one back in August: 'How Do You Spell Heaven the new record by Guided By Voices, is essentially business ...

Fine, lean soul / doo wop / gospel like they used to make back in the day. What makes it even greater is that it's from now. Aaron ...

Always great to see a further Cornershop song on the jukebox beyond Brimful of Asha.

LA's French Vanilla throw comedy Post Punk moves. Here's what I wrote back in July: 'Utterly ludicrous. And all the bette...

'Summer came early that year..' Exploded View, who featured in my Albums of the Year countdown last year, are back. It's ...

Allah-Las do a wonderful take on the early,  and previously unrecorded Television track Hard on Love,  (from their Richard Hell phase),...

Morrissey continues along his provocateur path with another track ahead of his Low in High School. As with many of his songs a great ti...

New and rather moving song from Billy Bragg for Saffiyah Khan, who stood up to EDL thugs at a demo in Birmingham a while back.

An absolutely fascinating interview between Adam Buxton, (alternative British radio and TV host), and Johnny Marr. Marr is brilliantly ...

This has been coming for some time. Glasgow's Spinning Coin have been making small splashes on the British indie scene with their r...

First Flying Nun signing do frighteningly accurate Joy Division impression, also the first release on the label back in 1981.

This scared a couple of people tonight!

From a review back in July: 'Ibibio Sound Machine's album from earlier on this year, Uyai, (their second), was a glorious thr...

'What they gonna say about me. When they tell, the Story of the Blues...' I spent the weekend in Manchester with an old frien...

A small but perfectly formed delight which I came across in September. I can tell you very little about Travis Bretzer except that he...

German Goth's fine early eighties debut single. Here's a John Peel session version.

From San Francisco to deepest Wales on this journey through the records that made me sit up and take notice this year. Here's Sweet Babo...

Gene October's frighteningly intense face was quite a big feature of the early London Punk scene before some bands began to split o...

I was directed here by Yo La Tengo who have a nose for such things. Matmos are achetypal left-field oddball experimentalists in the tra...

Yet another review written in August for San Francisco's Fresh & Onlys, a favourite band of mine. More coming from their Tim Cohen, ...

And to close this neat little series, back to Parallel Lines.

London band Bloody Knees do that thing that Nirvana did all those years ago. The 'N' word is utterly indispensable and inevitab...

Not the first Charlatans track on this particular series. They sound great coming out of the jukebox and are a much underrated band in ...

Ian Curtis had a song to himself on this series a couple of days ago. Now here's one for his whole band. From prolific American sin...

A review written in August for an album which came out in April: 'April brought us the latest album from The New Year entitled Sn...

A highlight from Plastic Letters at round about the time when they started churning out gem after gem, indicating that they had the le...

Barry Adamson. A fine specific talent. Here's something he released this year.

Kacy & Clayton's debut Strange Country featured in the Top 10 of last year's countdown. They're lower down this time round w...

A last hurrah from The Hunter the band's swansong. Written and optioned for the Bond film of the same name but Sheena Easton pipped...

Brooklyn band Rips first album, also called Rips, rings rather than rips. It rings most of all like Marquee Moon, Television's stil...