VINYL OF THE MONTH
Mykki Blanco Café Paradiso (Transgressive)
Mykki Blanco’s combination of punk snark, drag queen attitude, stonking electronic beats, eclecticism, potty-mouthed filth, playfulness, and trans-gender activism makes them always one to watch out for. Their fourth album, which comes with a Café Paradiso paper napkin, is created with usual production partner FaltyDL, who mashes up dirty electro skittering, 4/4 bangers and, on “NYC Dogs”, dirty-rock nastiness. From the opening fretless bass, bedroom slow-disco of “Little Feet”, with its demand to “pull my hair, it doesn’t matter, pull it out, and I go splatter”, to the spooked, flutey, semi-acapella ponderings of closer “God is Alive”, it’s an album that never dulls, fizzing with ideas, tunes and character. My copy arrived in basic Transgressive logoed sleeve like an old dance 12”.
VINYL REVIEWS
Happy Mondays Pills’n’Thrills and Bellyaches 5LP Boxset (London)
The high water mark of “baggy” and “Madchester”. Also, one of the greatest albums of all time. Some prefer Bummed, which preceded it, and is also ace, but for theartsdesk on Vinyl, the sheer zesty pop catchiness of 1990's Pills’n’Thrills clinches it. It contains the singles “Step On”, “Kinky Afro” and “Loose Fit”, 24-carat hip-swingers all, but also Balearic bubblers such as “Donovan” and “Holiday”, and, of course, “God’s Cop”, a number about Manchester police chief James Anderton and a contender for the Mondays’ finest ever song. The five-record boxset contains a cracking concert, Baby Bighead Bootleg Remastered, Live at Elland Road 1991, with energized versions and plenty of Shaun Ryder gobbiness. This is spread over four sides. The other records contain the Madchester and Hallelujah EPs and a bunch of remixes, old and new, including familiar (and new) Paul Oakenfold versions, plus a monster breakbeat Daniel Avery take on “Hallelujah”, a drum & bass “Loose Fit” by Shadow Child and a rolling housey 4/4 “God’s Cop” by DJ-producer Anna Prior. I don’t especially relish the newer remixes as the originals are so perfect, but the concert is a treat. There’s also a 60-page hardback book full of photos and background, a tour poster and a Madchester slipmat. Whether on boxset or not, every home should own this album.
Sorcha Richardson Draw the Outline (Faction)
Irish singer Sorcha Richardson knocks it out of the park on her third album. It’s band-backed singer-songwriter fare of high quality, redolent of Josh Ritter’s most airily longing work. She has a clear, broken-sounding voice that doesn’t strain to be too perfect but is filled with sweetness and sadness in equal quantities. The lyrics are often enigmatic, as on “Grenadine”, an opaque paean to mysterious happenings in the wee hours. Even when they appear more straightforward, as on “Ellen Forever”, with its wonderings about mind-stress and friendship, there are still gaps, missing elements to chew over. It’s mostly laidback but “Dog’s Best Man” shows indie rock capabilities. A lovely, touching album that arrives in lyric inner sleeve on bright green vinyl.
The Fall Cerebral Caustic (Cherry Red)
Recorded fast, 1995's Cerebral Caustic is not peak Fall, but it’s a raucous, enjoyable listen. It reminds that, even not at his best, Mark E Smith could pull something out of the bag. Smith once admitted to “having a drink problem during this period”, so, given his usual proclivities, God alone knows what state he was in. But it’s not an especially sloppy album. Energy and grit are present. There’s just not a high rate of memorable tunes. Smith’s ex-wife Brix was usefully hauled in to co-compose songs (and repeatedly screech the title of “Don’t Call Me Darling” as Smith sings along, sounding like Bobby “Boris” Pickett on ‘ludes). But there’s enough to hold the interest. Just check “The Aphid”, which is like a pre-Beatles dance-craze song through the prism of busted rockabilly. Comes in an inner sleeve full of photos and back story quoting those involved.
Leroy Clampitt Get Happy (Sorry Susan)
The debut album from Leroy Clampitt is deliciously easy-going campfire pop. Listening to it, the term “wistful” repeatedly springs to mind. Clampitt is a Los Angeles-based Kiwi who’s carved himself an impressive career as a songwriter-producer for the likes of Madison Beer and Sabrina Carpenter. A notable recent feather in his cap was co-writing a quartet of songs for Lily Allen’s West End Girl comeback album. His own work is very different. In fact, I knew none of the above as I played the record, and assumed he was some Gallic indie kid. It has that dreamy lightness which French artists are sometimes prone to (think The Oracle Sisters). There are love songs, country-ish songs; he even gets away with an ode to his dead dog. Clampitt’s work rides to the border of schmaltzy but doesn’t quite tip over, as per the poignant “Ricky Martin”. Perhaps best is opener “I’m Going to Die” a, a chirpy rumination on mortality. On bright yellow vinyl in lyric inner sleeve in gatefold, don’t let his shiny mainstream pop credentials put you off, Get Happy is sprightly, catchy, a clear snap of sunshine.
Solex Low Kick and Hard Bop (Matador)
Reissue of the 2001 third album by sampledelic innovator Solex, AKA Dutch record shop owner Liesbeth Esselink. Her method was to utilise samples of odd, obscure, unwanted records (no cool funk breaks or anything like that), mingling them in with her own found sound recordings, then singing songs over the results. It’s like a tribal indie-funk fusion of The Belle Stars and B52s, with a post-punk feel, her chattily prosaic everyday lyrics adding a touch of the surreal. Relevant comparisons might be Aksak Maboul via a flavour of New York mutant disco label Ze. New to theartsdesk on Vinyl, she’s an exciting discovery, and this stuff’s also ripe for shaking a leg to. Comes in lyric/info inner sleeve.
Scott Lavene Be Happy/Decisions (Chiswick)
Chiswick Records were one of the key Seventies independent labels, pre-punk and proto-punk in attitude, home to bands including Motörhead, The Damned, The 101ers (containing pre-Clash Joe Strummer) and The Hammersmith Gorillas. Chiswick folded in the early Eighties but now, in the wake of their 50th anniversary, they're relaunching. They open proceedings with a 7” single by Essex wordsmith Scott Lavene, who’s kind of a cross between Ian Dury and The Streets. “Be Happy” is a poetic, heartfelt call-to-arms, suggesting we revel in life because it will be gone all too soon. It’s funny but also moving. A sample line: “Be happy you got a kettle and a toaster and you ain’t got to start a fire to boil water and grind your wheat and knead you bread or make a new pair of moccasins out of potato skins”. “Decisions” is more throwaway, a ramble around the effect decisions can have, also coming from a place of love. The music is supportive twinkly indie chugging but it’s the words you’re here for.
The Seeds The Seeds (Ace) + Roky Erickson The Evil One (Fire)
Two by seminal Sixties psyche sorts. The Seeds, led by Sky Saxon, were one of the first bands to absorb the edginess of Brit acts such as The Rolling Stones. They injected further rawness and a punk-ish simplicity that took the pugnaciousness to another level. Their eponymous April 1966 debut was way ahead of the curve, prefiguring the oncoming wave of countercultural freaks, and, indeed, what rock music would become. Cuts such as the battering, squawk-vocal riff-fest “Evil Hoodoo” must have sounded completely shocking in 1966, before The Stooges even existed. And, of course, The Seeds contains the band’s totemic song “Pushin’ Too Hard”, the very epitome of Sixties garage. A must-have album that comes with extensive sleeve notes and photos. Roky Erickson was in one of the very few bands that can be held
up as equivalent to The Seeds: The 13th Floor Elevators, the first band to term themselves “psychedelic”. Long-story-short, Erickson was in and out of mental institutions throughout the Seventies and The Evil One was conceived and recorded around that. By 1980 when the first version of The Evil One was released, he’d long moved away from the Elevators sound to a more formal style of rock, with a snifter of metal about it. What sets it apart is Erickson’s lyrical fixation with old horror films and trashy B-movies, through which, arguably, he channels his experience of chemical cosh and electric shock treatments. On “I Walked With a Zombie” he sounds like Mick Jagger but, more usually, he comes over like a wilder Arthur Brown. Fire Records’ reissue gives us the fullest version of the album, with 15 songs in gatefold, fatly remastered, and a booklet of background and photos.
Ian Dury and the Music Students 4000 Weeks’ Holiday (Demon) + Ian Dury The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories (Demon) + Ian Dury & The Blockheads 10 More Turnips From the Tip (Demon)
A trio of albums ranging across Ian’s Dury’s later career, from the mid-Eighties to his final album, released two years after his death from cancer. 1984’s 4000 Week’s Holiday was recorded with a young pick-up band because he’d spent all the money and couldn’t pay the band he’s most famously associated with, The Blockheads. It’s best ignored. Dury’s vocals sound like he’s taking the piss, uncommitted, the lyrics twee, and the beige funk and horrid Eighties production make things worse (NB. the only reason it's used to illustrate this review is it's the best, most Ian Dury cover of the three). Moving on, 1992’s The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories is better, a richer, groovier sound and Dury on better form with his yarns, sounds like he’s having a blast, whether on throwaway fare such as “Bill Haley’s Last Words” or more poignant songs like the waltzing “Quick Quick Slow”. It’s formally a solo effort, although most of The Blockheads appeared on it. In 2002 they joined forces to gather material for a posthumous album, 10 More Turnips From the Tip. Surprisingly, this is by far the best of the three, perhaps because the band had unhindered input in its construction. From country tune “Cowboys” to the ska bounce of opener “Dance Little Rude Boy” to the funk-rock fun of “Happy Hippy”, it’s a worthwhile collection.
Sofie Royer Before/After (Stones Throw)
International polymath Sofie Royer fires out another album, her fifth. It’s pop music that wanders around rock and dance, and is clever and catchy. Her sound is nothing like Lady Gaga but her combination of a strong singing voice, arch playfulness and a determined meta approach to her art reminds of the US superstar. Very loosely Before/After could be categorized as indie, but it’s too funky to sit comfortably in that framework, and a song such as “Actress” could, as easily, be filed alongside Eighties synth-pop nostalgia. She maintains a sharp wit throughout (“Always a nominee, never a winner/The longer I keep this up, the less I can afford dinner,” runs the opening of “Sold Out the Jazz Club”). It’s always nice to hear singing in German too, as she does on one track (she’s Austrian-Iranian-American). Good on Stones Throw Records for sticking with her; she deserves to be more widely known. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
Skip James Devil Got My Woman (Craft) + Jimmy Reed Jimmy Reed at Carnegie Hall (Craft)
The high-end reissues label Craft Records gives us a couple more blues outings from BMG’s vast archives. Skip James was a key figure in the blues and folk revival of the 1960s. A completely vanished figure, presumed dead, his reputation was based on a set of recordings from the early 1930s. He was rediscovered, in total obscurity, and had five well-deserved years in the spotlight before cancer took him in 1969. Devil Got My Woman was released the year before his death and the title track, all acoustic guitar and falsetto voice, is a stand-out of ghostly urgency but, on songs such the piano vamping “22-20” he proves as capable of more straightforward blues. One of The Rolling Stones’ favourites at the start of their career was Jimmy Reed but At Carnegie Hall is a curio that’s only really for completists. Instead of being the 1961 concert it claims to be, it has the same set-list, but was recorded in a studio with a layer of muffle over Reed’s voice that makes it sound like he’s singing at you from the end of a long pipeline. This is not ideal. Stick with Skip!
Actress Radical Frame (Ninja Tune) + Djrum I Wander (Houndstooth)
A couple of modernist electronic experimental outings. The latest album from Midlander Darren J Cunningham, AKA Actress, doesn’t focus on the dancefloor. Instead, it wanders around plateaus where squiggly, twitchy computer rhythms combine with gentle Satie-esque piano motifs and ethereal female vocals, interspersed with synthy sound explorations. It concludes with “Sheets”, a lengthy, muted, chugging thing wherein Preston musician Rainy Miller speaks with slow, calm assurance. The overall feel is melancholic but couched in ear-intriguing sounds that hold the at
tention. The I Wander 12” by Felix Manuel, AKA Djrum, is a far busier affair. The sound he conjures during its 15 minutes is a propulsive, clattering rhythm track, redolent of a production line surrounded by machine-ghost clinks, wonky extended clangs and occasional murky vocals, then speeding to derangement in its mid-section. It’s not for club use but bed down in it and the brain dances all over the place. I Wander is on one side and there’s an etching on the other. Both records come in plastic, logoed sleeves.
Allen Ginsberg Howl and Other Poems (Craft)
What would the beatniks make of it all? Insta bodies, Starbucks, status anxiety, Nike logos, Trump, scrolling, and all the other endless, fetid tedium that’s replaced being interesting. Well, with this record (on murky dark green vinyl) we can travel back to before, when one of the beatniks, poet Allen Ginsberg, was busy inventing the very idea of counterculture. His 1955 poem “Howl”, challenged in courtrooms and championed by America's literary vanguard, was a battle cry for a society-changing amalgam of mystic self-discovery and kicking out the Eisenhower jams. This 1959 version of “Howl” was recorded at a performance in Chicago and is not the most wired one I’ve heard (Ginsberg says on the back sleeve notes that he was exhausted at the end of the long evening’s poeting) but it still captures its mesmeric power. “Kaddish” and “The Sunflower Sutra” were also recorded at this event, two of his other most celebrated poems. The rest were studio recorded later the same year, which was also when the album was originally released. My favourite moment is “Footnote to Howl”, with its mantric quality, Ginsberg sounding between tears and ecstasy. Man, it’s all so long ago and so unfashionable (they were all men and some of the things they did weren’t great). But, man, I miss the beatniks. As Ginsberg says, "Holy the bop apocalypse”. Where do I sign on?
Ten Years After Cricklewood Green (Chrysalis)
All these decades later Ten Years After are probably most famous for their appearance in the Woodstock film, where they played a jammed-out version of “I’m Coming Home”. Their only British hit single was the Led Zep-ish “Love Like a Man”. Both these songs are on the 1970 album Cricklewood Green, a prime example of sweaty, hefty blues rock of the period, still laced, as on “50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain”, with the psychedelic remit of the previous decade (this song also owes a debt to “Sympathy for the Devil”). Occasionally redolent of The Doors, Ten Years After are by this point, four studio albums into their career, a well-oiled, hard-rockin’ machine, as is proved by the second record in this gatefold double set, which is a recording of a Fillmore East concert from the same year. The band are equally capable of indulging in blues-pop oddities and acoustic balladry, and the original album consequently works well as a listening experience (as long as you’re into hairy Seventies blokes making hairy Seventies music!). Comes with photo/info inner sleeves filling in back story.
De Staat De Staat (V2)
The Seventh album from Dutch rockers De Staat is rife with stomping crunch. In fact, most of it’s not rock music in a conventional sense. It has as much in common with The Prodigy in the manner in which it combines electronic percussive attack with bullish vocals. But there are also falsetto-vocalled slowies, and De Staat have as much in common with Muse (who they’ve supported on tour). The music has an epic stadium quality, and fist-pumping production one could imagine setting Download Festival alight. Although they are in no way metal, Rammstein sprang into my mind as I listened. Gigantism, combined with a chunky aptitude for tunes, adds up to something meaty. Comes on black-fogged dark red vinyl in art/lyric inner sleeve.
ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION
Aurel Tant Qu’on Aura Pied (Verité): Music doesn’t get much more Gallic than this. The tile loosely translates as, “As long as we keep our feet on the ground”, but the music floats about with a delicious light romanticism. Singer Aurélio Mattern has been releasing music with various bands, and under various names, for around a decade, but this is his debut as Aurel. On it, he combines chanson with piano’n’guitar flecked slow-beats and blissed synth wobbling, his intimate, often whispery and seductive voice sitting atop. It’s surprisingly lovely.
yasin bey [formerly known as Mos Def] The Ecstatic (Rhymesayers): Minneapolis label Rhymesayers do the world a favour by digging up yasin bey’s 2009 comeback album. With backing tracks by J Dilla, Madlib, The Neptune’s Chad Hugo and others, as well as a guest appearances by Talib Kweli and Slick Rick, it’s a righteously in-yer-face set, rammed with sonic bounce and an emphasis on global sounds, notably Middle Eastern ones. The rapper at its heart throws his wit into a convoluted stew of Islamic philosophy and opaque politicking, never emanating less than a genial and convincing sense of righteousness. It’s one of his best and arrives on gatefold double.
Jason del Campo Atlas (Cristal) + Finn Loxbo Lummernikt (Fönstret): Two albums that rejoice in the possibilities of classically approached acoustic guitar. Paris-based Jason del Campo’s second album exists in a realm of dust-moted window sunlight in an empty, clean, floorboarded room. Sparse and clear, with occasional minimal backing, the production places the listeners’ ears almost inside the soundboard, so that when he suddenly explodes to sequences like squalls on an ocean, their impact is strangely visceral. Revolving patterns, loosely akin to what Nick Mulvey does, are exquisitely allowed to speak for themselves, unadorned, Comes on transparent vinyl. Swede Finn Loxbo’s third solo album (he has many other projects) takes a busier approach. His finger-pickin’ is redolent of West African folk styles, tumbling and raw, purposely rough-feeling yet virtuosic too, and sometimes repetitively hypnotic. Both albums will reward those inclined to close eyes and bed in, undisturbed by work or the day-to-day.
Ash 1977: 30th Anniversary Edition (Echo/BMG) + Republica Republica (Sony) + McAlmont & Butler The Sound of McAlmont & Butler (Demon): Three Britpop-adjacent albums celebrating their 30th or 30ish birthday. I say “adjacent” as none of them were core Britpop (ie, pretending it was 1966 via some retrogressive journos in the Good Mixer). Ash were a trio of Northern Irish teenagers who render a Green Day fan’s version of indie-punk. I’ve warmed to Ash a little since the Nineties so thought I might enjoy 1996’s 1977 more, but it’s too imitative and user-friendly. On the positive side, “Innocent Smile” is a solid riff-out, and the second of the two record set (in gatefold) contains bonus cuts and much of it is entertaining hokum, such as the crazed seven minute jam, “Astral Conversations with Toulouse Lautrec”, the Dickies-style Star Wars cover “Cantina Band”, and the deranged heavy-rock-meets-easy-listening pastiche “I Need Somebody”. In fact, the non-album stuff is looser, less indie-friendly and more fun. Comes on white and transparent vinyl. I’d forgotten that Saffron from Republica was the singer on N-Joi’s “Anthem”. Truly a claim to Nineties glory. Republica, put together with the keys-players from the excellent Flowered Up, were a different proposition, combining electronic beats with indie guitar. They knew how to write a tune (as per their hits “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Ready to Go”), captured the zeitgeist in songs such as “Bloke” (a snippy takedown of moronic “lad” culture), and would have gone much further if their label hadn’t collapsed just as their second album was released. But this is their 1996 debut, which is trite, more Eurocheese chug than I recalled, but elevated by Saffron’s gobby frontperson persona. Comes on gatefold double on red and black vinyl, with the second disc a lively 1997 gig at Crystal Palace, featuring a couple of previously unreleased recordings. Finally, 1995’s The Sound of McAlmont & Butler, the unlikely what-he-did next project of guitarist Bernard Butler, then in the spotlight after leaving Suede. Joining forces with the relatively unknown, but extraordinarily voiced singer David McAlmont, the pair had fun making music, an unforced blend of soul, rhythm’n’blues and John Barry-ish cinematic opulence. It was, at the time, a wildly sideways move and the pair split before they became formulaic. The album is simply a collection of the little they did together. It is, by far, the most impressive of these three albums, rife with musical imagination, imp-ish funkiness, variety, atmosphere and closes with the OTT, 11-minute, proggy wig-out of single “You Do”. It’s spread over four sides of blue and green vinyl.
Gurriers Nobody’s Coming to Save you (PIAS): Dublin post-punkers Gurriers open their second album strong with the raging title track, an anthem for our times, if ever there was one, and delivered with apt desperation (“Hope ain’t a whisper, it’s an axe you break down doors with”). They occasionally sound like a particularly annoyed Kasabian (circa their first album, back when they were good), but are usually more noisily angry than that. It’s a gnarly album but with enough rock song heft to hold the attention beyond just the noise-seekers. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
Virginia MacNaughton The Thread (Paraphernalia) + Cinder Well A Blooming Body (Hen House Studios) + Nina Winder-Lind Wild Love (Transgressive): Three female singer-songwriters who approach their craft with passion. Lincolnshire singer Virginia MacNaughton is the most musically traditional of them, but her new album, The Thread, has a sense of psychological necessity. MacNaughton is hardly prolific. She appeared with her debut 30 years ago, a likely up’n’comer, but has only released one album since, and that was at least two decades past. Now in her 50s, an unexpected and intense relationship, which crashed and burned, brought her back to the studio, produced by ‘00s indie don William Jackson. Piano led, arrangement-backed, it’s into Tori Amos territory, which is not my terrain, but, over two records, she lets her bruised heart show, red and human. American singer Amelia Baker, AKA Cinder Well, had a profile boost recently, composing the theme song to Mackenzie Crook’s well-liked TV show Small Prophets. Her fifth album, is similar in mournful tone to Virginia MacNaughton’s but deeper dipped in Celtic folk sounds, as she’s spent much time in Ireland. With piano, fiddle and acoustic guitar to the fore, it’s a thoughtful set that, again, feels like a display of barely edited emotion. Comes in lyric inner sleeve. Finally, Brighton-based Swede Nina Winder-Lind’s solo debut, Wild Love, is a punchier outing of burlesque feminist-indie, redolent of a bedroom Roxy Music, right down to her quavering vocal tones. The subject matter is her various loves and friendships, alongside dives into women’s lives and feelings. Of these three it’s the most musically vibrant and my favourite. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
Bob Marley & The Wailers Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at Hammersmith Odeon (Tuff Gong/Islland) + Soul Revivers Holding It Down (Acid Jazz) + The Selecter At the BBC: The Complete Recordings 1979-1981 Boxset (NNC/Chrysalis/2Tone): Three albums from the reggae (and reggae-adjacent) stratosphere. What’s your favourite Bob Marley album? Mine is Rastaman Vibration. As with much in musical life, this is partly because it’s an excellent album, and partly because I’ve such good associated memories. It’s pleasing, then, that the latest from the Marley archives is a concert recorded in June 1976, on the Rastaman Vibration tour. Over four sides that arrive in gatefold on green and maroon vinyl, alongside a tour poster and sleeve notes by Don Letts, Marley, the I Threes and his tight, tight band skank their way through much of Rastaman Vibration (although shame there’s no “Who the Cap Fit”) alongside biggies such as “No Woman No Cry”, “Trenchtown Rock” and “Get Up, Stand Up”, with plenty of fret-play to keep the Seventies rock crowd happy. It’s tasty stuff with a lively crowd. Fast-forwarding to the present, curator-producers David Hill and Nick Manasseh put together a second album by their Soul Revivers outfit (Manasseh wrote a piece about his love of reggae for theartsdesk here). It’s smooth, with an emphasis on jazzy brass play, but retains a warm reggae pulse, aided by singers such as Johnny Clarke, Earl Sixteen and Susan Cadogan (of “Hurt So Good” fame). A smidgeon of sunshine for the autumn. Finally, moving sideways into revivalist ska, a three-record set of BBC sessions from The Selecter. The music may not be virtuosic, and inevitably contains throwaway moments, but it’s also persuasively raw and urgent. Covering the band’s brief, vital, original three-year existence, it runs the gamut from a skronky John Peel session from autumn 1979, through a variety of fun-punk live sets, through to the (more interesting to theartsdesk on Vinyl) second album. The last record of the set covers a range of sessions (Peel/Mike Read/Whistle Test) around the promotion of their underheard second album Celebrate the Bullet which flopped due to its release coinciding with an assassination attempt on US President Ronald Reagan. Just check out versions of the album’s title track, “Bombscare” and “Washed Up and Left For Dead” (albeit the vocals area little murky on the Whistle Test versions). The Selecter sound like a band going somewhere. But, of course, the public were heedless, moved on, and the band folded.
Run Logan Run Pray/LV/Ears (Ankh Sanctuary): This album has SERIOUS bass on! It’s a very limited-edition compilation of Bristol outfit Run Logan Run’s first three EPs. Led by saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes, they seem to be loosely categorized in internet-land as jazz but they are as much a punchy electronic outfit. It would be easy to imagine some of these tunes, for instance, on the fabric-affiliated Houndstooth label. But, over two discs, there’s also material that dips into sweet sung indie-pop (via singer Gina Leonard), spoken word, ambience, illbience, technoid beats, and tone music experimentalism. Watch this lot. They’re exploring but there’s an accessibility gene in there somewhere which may see them rise beyond the niche. Mine came with a 10” x 10” photo booklet containing the back story, and a letter typed out by Hayes on his grandfather’s ancient Brother 300T typewriter.
Lothar Ohlmeier | Isambard Khroustaliov | Rudi Fischerlehner Landscapes (Not Applicable): OK, before we get to the music, which is good, releasing this album this way is a crime. First off, scuppering any chance of anyone remembering their name, it’s by Lothar Ohlmeier | Isambard Khroustaliov | Rudi Fischerlehner – why not choose a band name? Even more perversely Isambard Khroustaliov’s real name is really Sam Britton! Then it’s called Landscapes, an entirely tedious and forgettable title. Finally, the cover art is a dripping abstract splurge no-one will be drawn to. When you’re presenting intriguing avant-garde music, why not offer at least some small aspect to interest people and assist in spreading the sounds wide and far? I find this sort thing frustrating (and pretentious). Especially as the music is intriguing. The Berlin-based German-Austrian-British trio – bass clarinet, percussion and electronics – create a pared-back, plinky, shuffling sound, brain-wibbling, sometimes psychedelic, a set of oddball instrumentals and android scuttlings that are unique and fascinating, empty space invaded by clackety abstraction whose curious make-up holds the attention. Comes on transparent vinyl in smudge-art inner sleeve.
Interpol This Mirror Weighs a Ton (Partisan): Interpol sort of fitted the ‘00s indie band stereotype alongside the likes of The Strokes, Editors, The Killers et al, but not fully. Sure, they could fire out a fully committed indie-rocker, as per “See Out Loud”, and the like, from their new, eighth album, but they always had a penchant for moody slowies, for a synthy feel akin to a steroid Talk Talk, and such cuts season their work with interest. As is the case with This Mirror Weighs a Ton, singer Paul Banks’ affinity with melancholy raising the bar. Comes on double in gatefold.
Conway Savage Too Dark to See (Impressed): Nick Cave’s fellow Aussie Conway Savage was a member of The Bad Seeds for nigh-on 30 years. Upon his death from a brain tumour in 2018 Cave said, “Irascible, funny, terrifying, sentimental, warm-hearted, gentle, acerbic, honest, genuine – he was all of these things and quite literally ‘had the gift of a golden voice’.” Now a collection of his solo work is released over two records in info inner sleeves. A pianist, his music and songs are somewhere between Mark Lanegan and Richmond Fontaine, with a snifter of Tom Waits feel in there too. It’s the kind of music one can imagine chugging along slowly – and it is SLOW - in the background during a panning shot at the end of a David Lynch film. The vinyl is light mauve and the whole set is wrapped in an obi strip.
Warby Mystic Powers (Esco Romanesco): Brighton singer Russell Warby is, in fact, a high-powered artist agent of many years standing, who’s worked with everyone from the Foo Fighters to Johnny Marr. This means he has extra work to do convincing that his debut album isn’t just a flaccid vanity project knocked out because he has cash and someone gave his ego a massage one powdery night. But, no, it’s nothing like that, it’s a lovely heartfelt set of straightforward guitar pop songs. Opener “For All to See” sets the agenda, a supremely catchy ode to the ridiculousness of human pretensions. Strummy, well produced, there’s nothing sonically groundbreaking but these songs fairly hum with a joyous catchiness. He sounds like a man elevated by freeing something that’s been in him for years. Comes with a 12” by 12” lyric sheet.
Møster! Bolts (Action Jazz) + Elin Forkelid Elin Forkelid Plays for Trane Vol. 2 (Sail Cabin) + Woody Shaw Song of Songs (Craft): Three jazz outings that embrace the abstract. First, Norwegian saxophonist Kjetil Møster’s seventh album with his eponymous band comes in the tradition of Scandinavian noise-jazz bands such as The Thing and Shining. It’s a sub-genre the region excels in. As is the case with Bolts, most of it a total assault, driving at the listener like an earthquake hitting an industrial duct factory. Bass, drums and guitar are flailed at for dear life, with the sax the discordant cherry on the top. Admittedly there's a slower number and “Bearings” comes on more like a trad heavy rock song, but most of it is nuts. Would love to see them live. Equally dissonant to start, but not quite as noisy, is the latest album from Swedish saxophonist Elin Forkelid, which comes in gatefold. It’s the sequel to her similarly themed 2020 album and, again, reimagines John Coltrane pieces in ways that range from the cacophonous to the beautifully chilled. It covers a lot of ground, taking in cuts such as “Naima” and a ballistic 16-minute collation of “Deary Beloved”, “Sun Star” and “Venus”. Anyone who enjoyed the first album won’t be disappointed. John Coltrane was a key influence on Woody Shaw, a trumpet player who pushed the envelope for that instrument in jazz. While he’s worked with a who’s who of the genre, it took him until his late-20s to make records, the second of which was 1972’s Song of Songs. Backed by drums, piano, flute, and a plethora top sax action, Shaw showcases his own take on bebop, which is happy leaning into big band riffs, as on “The Goat and The Archer” but more liable to be found reaching into more challengingly off-piste solo-ing. Craft Records Jazz dispensary Top Shelf series take particular care with impeccably rich mastering and such is the case here. One for old school connoisseurs.
T.Rex 1974-1977 (Demon): More from the well-excavated Marc Bolan vaults but, before anyone sighs and looks away, this lot’s different. It drills down into the same period as those old 1990s Edsel Records’ Unchained collections but is drawn from tapes unearthed only a couple of years go. For starters, the two record set, with inner sleeve notes by Jude Rogers, showcases two versions of “I’m Dazed”, a short, zippy contender for a single (that never was) which, itself, only came to light relatively recently. Other than that, from recordings made in London, Los Angeles, Paris and Munich, we have a metronomic overdub version of “I Love to Boogie”, alternate Top Of The Pops takes of songs such as “London Boys” and “Dreamy Lady”, and much else. Of course, it’s only really for obsessives, but if you are, dig in.
Under The Reefs Orchestra Williwaw (Capitane): Under The Reefs Orchestra are a Belgian unit, the core a trio of drums, bass sax and guitars but, on their third album, featuring guest appearances from violin, viola, tenor sax, keys, and vocalising by An Pierlé on the slow, stoned-out and appropriately named “Seven Gummies”. The seven tracks mingle a punky approach to jazz with skronky post-rock texturing and a jagged kind of funk and Afro (you could dance to some of it… just). Offbeat but approachable, it’s freak music for modernists.
Strange Fruit Drips EP (Tip Top): A seven-tracker from Indonesian outfit Strange Fruit. Side One is the original songs, some of which inhabit AKDK-esque motorik grooves (notably the best song, “Pouvoir Moteur”), and others wispier and keener on hazy shoegazing. Side Two contains three remixes, Jonathan Kusuma transforming the dubby beats of “Iridescent” into a 4/4 jigger and The Horrors’ Tom Furse and the Hardway Brothers making the slothful synth-psyche of “Monopolar”, respectively, into a smudgy Chapterhouse remix-esqe thing and a slightly acidic Nineties-feel roller. I think the band are at the start of their career (it’s unclear), but, if so, it’s a promising taster. On transparent vinyl on photo/info inner sleeve.
Katie Knipp Live at Theatre 5150 (KPP): Katie Knipp is a longstanding fixture of the Californian music scene and has fired out no less than six studio albums since the start of the century. My sense is that she’s primarily a live phenomenon, as is captured here on a set recorded in Sacramento earlier this year. Over two discs, she throws herself into it with theatrical gusto, her songs a gumbo of burlesque vamps, hip-swinging blues slink, foghorn-voiced rock’n’roll, and Cab Calloway-like piano-led Dixie jazz. She’s got it going on! Let’s hope she makes it over to the UK sometime.
Filip Clements Soft Apocalypse Eastcote): London-based Norwegian singer Filip Clements’ debut is plush with catchy Killers-adjacent indie-pop. Unfortunately, the whiff of industry plant/nepo baby is strong as songs are co-written and produced by biz heavyweights such as Yungblud/RobbieWilliams collaborator Martin Terefe, Grammy-winning Aussie producer Catherine Marks, and Tord Knudsen of The Wombats – plus his dad is Mags from A-ha – so perhaps it’s unsurprising the songs are tastily realised. Comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve.
Gentle Giant In a Glass House (Madfish): I recall hearing Gentle Giant decades ago and concluding they were guilty of the worst excesses of prog. I’ve not heard them since, then this arrives, their fifth album, from 1973. It was recorded just after their original singer – and one of three brothers in the band – had left. I’m not sure which album I heard back then but, in 2026, In a Glass House is so quirkily bizarre I rather enjoyed it. It’s like someone took English folk music and ran it through a funky take on Burroughsian cut-up techniques, with sequences like the themes to afternoon magazine TV shows, other bits that owe a debt to Musique Concrete and looping minimalism (these sound almost proto-electronica), and yet other chunks where the band sound like they're having a laugh, being musically bizarre for comedy kicks. Intriguing! Comes richly remastered and in an outer sleeve die cut with transparent plastic window.
AND WHILE WE’RE HERE
- North Carolina band Cor De Lux’s third album is Year of the Horse on Ipecac Records and it combines what many call “post-hardcore” with beguilingly twitchy songwriting, urgent singing from Dawn Moraga, and a willingness to wander into the shoegazey weeds. They’re tight, striking into their own territory, and worth a listen. Comes in marbled red’n’orange vinyl in lyric/art-photo inner sleeve.
- Perennial folkie Martin Simpson’s new album is called Some Kind of Jubilee because 2026 marks 50 years since his first album. It’s on Topic and is a dive through songs he’s connected to during his life, as he explains in notes on a 12” x 12” insert. Over four sides of vinyl in gatefold, he attends to numbers, backed by his acoustic and, often, a small ensemble (cello, bass, guitar, pedal steel), ranging from spirituals to English traditionals to Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”. It’s full-on Cropredy and if that’s for you, so might this be.
- It’s a lovely factoid that Phil Manzenara took a break at the height of Roxy Music’s fame in 1975, to record an album capturing the work of his previous, commercially unsuccessful band Quiet Sun, a Soft Machine-esque outfit who’d existed for a couple of years at the start of the decade. Entitled Mainstream it’s proggy but in a threatening King Crimson attacking way, maybe even a tad punk, lots of angular guitar thrust, and surprisingly energized. It’s been around before but reappears via Expression Records on gatefold with dense inner sleeve notes.
- The Bob Stanley’s latest compilation concept album is Motorway City: The Golden Age of Car Travel 1966-82 on Ace Records. It’s a double with his extensive sleeve notes on the gatefold, as well as photos, a celebration of the era when cars were an excitement, a newfound freedom in a Britain whose road systems were expanding (an era when I recall my own grandparents “going for a drive”… simply because “going for a drive” was a fun thing to do). Stanley collects a bunch of road-themed library music, funky, TV-theme-y instrumentals of the kind Barry Adamson and James Taylor consume for breakfast. They include some belters, such as Peter Reno’s amphetamine dancefloor “Silver Thrust” and the gloopy waft of “Night Moves” by Patchwork. Others on board include Simon Park (of “Eye Level” fame), Reg Tilsley, Alan Hawkshaw and John Fiddy.
- Hair metal titans Whitesnake are reissuing three albums from their multi-million-selling 1980s peak, Slide It In from 1984, Whitesnake from 1987 (often simply referred to as 1987), and Slip of the Tongue from 1989. They are utterly preposterous. Yet it’s easy to garner some kitsch enjoyment in the over-produced, air-punching, relentlessly priapic bombast. Some of it definitely falls into the so-bad-it’s-good category, exacerbated by single -entendre lyrics (try “Slow An’ Easy” – “Keep on pushing, babe/Like I've never known before/You know you want it crazy, child/And I just wanna see you on the floor”). Oh, and “Here I Go Again” is an ear-worm that will never quit.
- One of jazz’s queenpin vocalists, Cécile McLorin Salvant, returns with her ninth album, With Every Breath I Take on Nonesuch Records. Where her last album, Oh Snap, kicked at the envelope, mingling tricksy arrangements and challenging approaches, this one see her bed down with old favourites, accompanied impeccably by Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley. Of course she renders them beautifully, classics such as “Send in the Clowns” and gay groundbreaker Billy Strayhorn’s ’s “Lush Life”. Comes on richly mastered double.
- A dozen years back Brit singer-songwriter Dan Croll’s music broke him through to a wide audience, some of whom still value it today (the likes of singles “From Nowhere” and “Compliment Your Soul”). He never exploded into the wider public consciousness but he’s kept at it and, now California-based, his latest album, his fifth, is Winning Streak, on Kartel Records. It’s likeably contemplative and thoughtful; strummy songs about what is and what could have been, enjoyably wordy, realistic, fatalistic, but with a romantic underpinning still intact. It’s an easy-to-like set. Comes on Pale maroon vinyl in lyric inner sleeve.
- Violinist-composer Simon Goff’s third album, Interior Realms Vol 1 arrives in a limited vinyl edition of 250 on the Sonic Pieces label. The sleeve is a thing of elegant stylishness, a square of purple textile die-cut into the card for the title. The music is similarly richly conceived, shimmering sonic layers redolent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor but less rock, building to torrents, moody, somewhere between tone music and gothic modern classical. Comes in info inner sleeve.
- Talking of which, the second album from Northampton outfit AV Sunset also tips its hat to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, although is as close in scope to Mogwai’s more filmic material. Riding string section-like feedback whorls, they explode them to something enormous and sweeping. The album is called VS Reality and arrives on white vinyl on gatefold via the excellently monikered Vandalism Begins At Home Records.
- I make no claims to know what The Proclaimers have been up to in recent years but their latest album is a proper indie-ROCK album, featuring flashy guitar from James Dean Bradfield. It’s called You May Offend, and is on Cooking Vinyl. Dean Bradfield’s band, Manic Street Preachers, is a good reference point, as these are politically enraged anthems. One, “But It Is”, particularly sweeps the listener off in righteous indignation (“When did we decide to aid genocide? We say that’s not who we are but it is”). Musically, it’s meat’n’potatoes but it’s full of vim and the occasional tasty tune. Comes in lyric inner sleeve on red transparent vinyl.
- Nottingham-born, Buckinghamshire-based Kasper “Berry” Rapkin and his band The Swampdogs do not sound English. There’s a raw Delta blues-rockin’ sound, with Mississippi in its DNA (indeed, they cover Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “61 Highway Blues”) Their second album is Blues From the Land of the Living on their own Juke Joint in the Woods Records (named after Rapkin’s studio). Aside from a Son House cover and Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “This Train” (and the aforementioned “Highway 61”), it’s all Rapkin originals, but they fit in snugly with the company. This lot would be at home in any firin’ juke joint from Georgia across to Arizona. Comes with 12” x 12” photo/lyric insert.
- Dorset-raised, London-based singer Olive Jones has a voice that’s going places. She’s worked recently, for instance, with rising Leeds soul-funk outfit Gotts Street Park. Her debut album, For Mary on Nettwerk Records, which comes in lyric gatefold, is a genially easy-going set wherein jazz, blues, and old-fashioned guitar pop meet. It would be nice to hear her voice attempt something more interesting and different. Then again, this set is exactly the sort of thing that could grab a tail wind, say via Radio Two, and blow up. We shall see.
- Oxford’s lively independent label Alkopop! Records go all the way to Indonesia for their latest release, by the band Elephant Kind. It’s their third album and is entitled More Time. They major in indie-funk grooves that dream of being Pharrell Williams but are closer to a slightly post-punkier Hot Chip. This stuff has legs and comes on mulchy fir-green vinyl with a 12” art/info insert and a four-page 12” x 12” lyric booklet.
- Early ‘00s band Bôa are best-known for their 1998 song “Duvet”, which is to be found on their album Twilight, now reissued via Nettwerk Records. The edition I have is on zoetrope vinyl (ie, a picture-disc wherein animation can be perceived when it spins). The album has a convoluted back story, in that it was originally released as their debut in 1998, entitled The Race of a Thousand Camels, but then rereleased as Twilight in 2001, via another label and with extra tracks added. The main players in the band were the son and daughter of Paul Rodgers of Seventies rockers Bad Company, but Bôa, majoring in tunefully angsty guitar pop, sound more like a gothy Cranberries.
- Kent Records once again service the crate-digging deep soul fans. Singer John Edwards had a long career as one of The Spinners but before that he’d recorded various US soul and rhythm & blues hits. His rising solo career had been kyboshed when his label boss at Aware Records, a proper wrong’un, was gaoled for murder. Thus Edwards’ second album never saw the life of day… until now. Tin Man, recorded between 1973 and 1975, is rammed with lush stringed-up soul, fronted by Edwards' pristine tones, veering between raw and falsetto. One for connoisseurs of the genre and period. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
- Fire Records unearth a long-lost album from Scott Fagan, a little-known Sixties hippy rocker who, long-ago, played alongside Hendrix, Richie Havens and others. In 1971 he put together a radical freak-scene Broadway rock opera starring himself and a pre-fame Richard Gere but it quickly tanked. In 2025 the now 80-year-old recorded its songs, which now appear as Soon. Dipped in the boogie-woogie soul of Memphis, where it was recorded, it’s an unlikely offcut from long-ago optimistic rebel times It's now, perhaps, more polished and modern that suits it, but is still delivered with an earnest, old-voiced passion. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
- Kevin Haynes is a London saxophonist of Beninese heritage, long ago part of the groundbreaking Jazz Warriors set-up. He’s travelled the world extensively and tours about with his Grupo Elegua. They now release their third album, about a quarter-of-a-century after their last one. It’s a very JAZZ jazz album – no surprise that he’s sometimes likened to Charlie Parker – but is also marinated in Afro-Latin flavours. One for those who enjoy improvised jazz complexity with enough groove to also shimmy. Comes with a 12” x 12” art/info card insert.
- Nate Amos of Chicago rock band Water From Your Eyes releases his third solo album under his This Is Lorelei moniker. Entitled The Singer in my Band, on Matador Records, it’s a likeable set of undersold lo-fi country-rockin’ strummers, chatty urban bedroom pop laced in well-executed Americana trimmings. Comes in art/info inner sleeve
- When Welsh industrial gloom-noiser Lustmord combines his talents with Slayer/Fantomas drummer Dave Lombardo, no-one’s going to be expecting anything cheery and pretty. And, indeed, as Lustmord Lombardo, their The Pulse of Atoms on Mike Paton’s Ipecac label is a subterranean dirge or cave-like tones, skittering rhythms and sinister threat. Those who like their illbient deep grey will wish to bathe in it. Comes on gatefold double on “smoke” vinyl.
- The second album by Brighton band Moon Attendant is Dum Evol on Big Potato Records. It mingles shimmering stoned indie comedown songs with more psychedelically rocking fare, violin adding melancholy here’n’there, and vocals veering between enunciated singing and shambling C86 stylings. Some of it’s not a million miles from The Pastels, in vibe. Opener “The Sounders” is a stand-out but the whole thing’s palatable. Lyrics on back sleeve and comes with 12” x 12” art/info insert.
- The opulent-trance outfit Above & Beyond (who, like many trance outfits, don’t consider themselves one) run three labels that have become hugely collectable, Anjunabeats, Anjunadeep and Anjunachill. On the last of these imprints is the second album from British-Indian producer Cephas Azariah, Conditions for Observing Light. He’s a spiritual dude, and this bleeds into his music, which melts soothingly around the mind, keyboard-led brain cuddles with flecks of chill-out melody interspersed. One for the anxiety brigade to opiate with (and the very, very, very high to ease down). Comes in art/info inner sleeve.
- Texan label Gulf Coast gives us the fifth album from Iowa blues-rocker Kevin Burt. It’s called This Trip and is devoted to a more stripped-back and personal set than he’s usually known for. I could do without the schmaltzy “Daddy’s Smile” and “Your Smile” (artists singing about their kids is always a minefield), but most of this is narratively tight, attached to well-travelled acoustic licks and tasty harmonica. Getting in the room with this guy would be a treat but here in the UK, his albums are as near as we’ll get. Comes on light grey vinyl.
- Oddrun Lilja, of roots-folk experimentalist trio Moksha, is an Icelander based in Norway. Her third solo outing (as Lilja) is called Muna and is on Jazzland Records. It’s a stew of mellow jazz-folk-soul-rock. Led by her powerful voice, and featuring Bugge Wesseltoft on synth, it “draws inspiration from” a 700-year-old 100 stanza religious devotional poem, which makes it sound far less approachable than it actually is. Comes in photo/info/lyric inner sleeve.
- You may not have heard of Jamie Webster, but his new album, Running Round the Sun, on Modern Sky UK Records, is his fourth to make the Top 10 in the UK. He’s as famous for being Liverpool FC’s totemic mascot singer, but is equally at home firing out strummy anthemic retro indie-pop, such as is found here. Comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve. It has the feel of nice cup of tea. That I’m not much bothered with tea, is neither here nor there.
- Danish-Indian-East-African designer and sustainable fashion mover Veronica D’Souza moves into music with self-released debut album My Only Army, which arrives on gatefold with 12” x 12” lyric insert. She creates a maximalist trip hop, somewhere between FKA Twigs, SZA and The Last Dinner Party. It’s tuneful and well-executed but she’s going to need to either bust new territory or catch a fabulously lucky profile break to stand further out from the pack.
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