1970s
Thomas H. Green
There’s this mod milieu, harking back to the Eighties. Weller at the forefront; Dr Robert and his Blow Monkeys; all righteously hate Thatcher; then the electronically groovy 1990s arrive; Acid Jazz Records; boss mod Eddie Piller; his collection of snappily dressed muso's who magazines wrote about and who nearly had hits. These sorts are still about, endlessly churning out music. It’s impressive. Sometimes the music is too. As with this album.Matt Deighton was in Acid Jazz outfit Mother Earth. He’s one of the aforementioned who keep on bangin’ out music. Much of it well-liked. Those mods Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In October 1967, John Lee Hooker released a single titled “The Motor City is Burning.” The song commented on the civil unrest which had taken place in his Michigan home city of Detroit that July. “Oh, the motor city's burnin',” sang Hooker. “My home town burnin' down to the ground, Worser than Vietnam, Well, it started on 12th and Clairmont, this mornin'.”A couple of years on, Detroit’s MC5 released their version of “Motor City is Burning” (no “The”) on their debut album, the live set Kick Out The Jams. Now, the title is borrowed for the three-CD clamshell box Motor City Is Burning - A Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Record Store Day 2025 is tomorrow (Saturday 12th April 2025)! At theartsdesk on Vinyl we’ve been sent a selection of exclusive RSD goodies. Check the reviews. Then check your local record shop! See you amongst it.THEARTSDESK ON VINYL CHOICE CUT FOR RECORD STORE DAY APRIL 2025Marianne Faithfull Burning Moonlight EP (Decca)A fitting and thoughtfully put together final release from an icon. Marianne Faithfull, who died in January this year, aged 78, was a one-off singer and creative, also a proper 1960s countercultural heavyweight, a woman who lived the best and worst of bright, fast hedonism. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHRattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)Rattle are an unusual band. Consisting of Nottingham duo Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley, their set-up is two drum kits, with which they build simple hypnotic patterns then add repetitive vocals over the top. They don’t sound like anyone else. Well, perhaps a little like the more outré work of femme-centric post-punk bands such as The Raincoats, The Slits, The Au Pairs, and ESG. It’s not music that most will put on to chill out to or bounce around to – it’s too spooked and odd for either – but it also has a weird power, almost like Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Stereo Instrumental Music was recorded in July 1976 and originally issued only on cassette. The release was organised by what was credited as the “Sun Shine Music Shop,” an enterprise which seems to have left no additional imprint. No further “Sun Shine Music Shop” albums are known.In contrast, Ibex Band, the outfit which recorded Stereo Instrumental Music, had a lineage outstripping that of the label which released the album. In 1975, they had issued an album and four related singles where they backed established vocalist Mahmoud Ahmed. They also backed Aster Aweke on one of her early albums Read more ...
Robert Beale
It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this, Britten’s avowedly pacifist opera, Orpha Phelan – whose version of his Billy Budd for Opera North nearly 10 years ago contained one of the most thrilling battle scenes ever staged.And, in her presentation of Owen Wingrave, war is not merely talked about, but seen. That’s very much to the good, as Myfanwy Piper’s libretto makes the adaptation of Henry James’ story very talkative: until very near the end, you might say all the action is in the dialogue.Much can be made of the fact that the opera Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The sticker on the front cover says “The heaviest proto-metal compilation ever released.” And considering the label behind Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy is Rise Above, founded by former Napalm Death and Cathedral frontman Lee Dorrian, this is not idle hubris.Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy collects 10 tracks which were not originally released (a bonus seven-inch with early copies of the LP takes it to 12 tracks). The first band heard are Birmingham’s Heavyboots. They are followed by Band Of Mental Breakdown (also known as B.O.M.B.), Macbeth Periscope, Agatha’s Moment, Jessica’s Theme, Greenfly, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US singer-songwriter Norma Tanega (1939–2019) seemed to melt away. Three follow-up 45s weren’t hits. Her album wasn’t a strong seller. Latterly, though, one of its tracks, “You're Dead,” has been heard as the theme of the TV and cinema versions of What We Do In The Shadows.There was, despite the lack of subsequent commercial success, a second album. I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was recorded in the UK and issued in 1971. Sales were low and it ostensibly attracted Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“German space rock group is already shooting up the charts with their debut US LP. One of few continental groups able to make this musical mode attractive in the US.” That, in full, in its 1 March 1975 issue, was US music business paper Billboard’s review of the single of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn.”Three weeks later, with the single at 75 on its charts, Billboard went into it a little more. “With all the German avant-garde groups knocking vainly at US doors for the past five years, Kraftwerk is the first to make it. The extra ingredient appears to be the hypnotic prettiness of its synthesizer Read more ...
graham.rickson
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to this legend and to Gustav Meyrink’s unsettling 1914 novel, moving the action forward from the latter’s fin-de-siècle Prague to a geographically non-specific dystopian future.Tomasz Kolankiewicz’s booklet essay describes Szulkin and co-screenwriter Tadeusz Sobolewski’s struggling to adapt the Meyrink, Szulkin’s Golem ultimately becoming “a philosophical riddle about our true identity”, clearly alluding to “the day-to Read more ...
Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic effort for an overcooked history lesson
David Nice
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers; sometimes an instant classic emerges. But to revive a music drama that hardly made waves back in 1977? Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots has some strong invention, and whizzes you through historical bullet points so quickly that there’s no chance to get bored. But does it deserve a company giving it their all?It certainly deserved better dressing-up than it gets from designer-director Stewart Laing. This looks like one of those black-box Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017 reunion album featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. “Sophistication,” from Sharks' 1974 second album Jab It In Yore Eye, had an insistent riff Mick Jones repurposed for The Clash's “Should I Stay or Should I go.”There is more to Sharks’ aftermath, but the dovetailing with what would become British punk rock is, on the face of it, unlikely. Sharks were a band born from the aftershocks of the late sixties Read more ...