The title “Tone Phase 1 for 2 Guitars & 4 Oscillators” is a giveaway, clearly indicating what’s going to be heard once the LP has landed on the record player. And, indeed, the first track on the second side of Eleh’s newly reissued Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis 1 seamlessly fuses single tones generated by electric guitars and analogue oscillators. However, what’s less apparent from taking in the title is the magnetic power exerted by the track during its translucent progress over ten minutes. Hypnotic.

It is never a great sign when a local authority is forced to comment on a music festival. The opening night of the In The Park series of shows at Newcastle's Exhibition Park forced such a reaction from the city council, after claims of overcrowding to see headliner Lewis Capaldi perform, on a day of sweltering heat. Nothing amiss was found according to the council, and by this night, the final one in the series of shows, there were thankfully no issues to cause concern. 

Reviewing The Clash’s 27 October 1976 appearance at Birmingham’s Barbarella’s, UK music weekly Sounds detected a particular, unique, characteristic of the band. Jonh (sic) Ingham identified “a Clash trick of everything dropping out except for Mick Jones' guitar, dropping back in two bars later behind a thundering crack from Terry Chimes' baseball bat sized drumsticks.”

This week saw something of a landmark gig for Birmingham’s ever-exuberant folkies, Bonfire Radicals. New album, Spaghetti Junction was revealed to a home crowd; long-time violinist Sarah Farmer played her last show with the band; her replacement, Emily Dawe was introduced to a welcoming crowd; and at least one tune was performed for the last time and finally exorcised from their live set.

The most up-front factor defining the 10 tracks of Sweet Thief’s 26 minutes is Zoë Randell’s voice. Figuratively, she does not – vocally, that is – break a sweat or get agitated. On “Wanna Get Free,” she sings “put down your weapon.” Yet there is no sense of experiencing imminent danger.

“Rimbaud, I guess. W.C. Fields. The family, you know, the trapeze family in the circus. Smokey Robinson. Allen Ginsberg. Charlie Rich, he's a good poet.”

It’s 3 December 1965. Bob Dylan is in San Francisco to play the city’s Masonic Auditorium before setting off on other dates around California. He’s sitting down in front of journalists and TV cameras for a press conference. The response above was prompted by being asked “What poets do you dig?”

To experience a performance by Seattle’s ambient metal kings, Sunn O))) is not like attending a conventional rock’n’roll gig, by any means. For a start, there are no drums, no bass and these days, no vocals. All the music comes from just two guitars, wielded by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, and an awful lot of amplifiers, speakers and sustain pedals.

“Hull Suite” is an important work in the canon of British-Bengali pianist Zoe Rahman, because it evokes themes – voyage, migration and family – which resonate strongly with her. The composition was commissioned at short notice by the Hull Jazz Festival (as a work for solo piano) for World Piano Day in 2024.

“Guys, don’t grow old gracefully… it wouldn’t suit you,” The Who’s Pete Townshend told the Rolling Stones at their induction to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. They listened. 

Fast-forward some four decades to 2026, and the surviving Stones have eschewed any state of grace for a raucous, almost confrontational new album in Foreign Tongues that bubbles over with energy and purpose. It picks up where their studio comeback Hackney Diamonds left off and turns it all up a few notches.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Ed O’Brien Blue Morpho (Transgressive)