See: Battery Operated Orchestra – Perfect Wreck
Ahead of finishing a new album later in the year, classy Brighton-based vintage synthpoppers Battery Operated Orchestra have a new video out for Perfect Wreck. You can also pick it up as a virtual single over at Bandcamp.
EP: Dorian- Just What Is It That Makes Dorian So Different, So Appealing?
Dorian is Mr Cox, the former guitarist with the Long Blondes, now in Manchester and making a return to releasing music. A warning though, the Long Blondes this ain’t. It’s not the sound of a stylish indiepop career relaunched. Or a career of any kind really. It sounds like someone who doesn’t give a fuck …
Album Review: Zed Penguin – A Ghost, A Beast
Edinburgh seems to be a bit of a breeding ground for slightly ravaged art rock eccentrics toting cellos. Zed Penguin have been around a while, ploughing not a dissimilar furrow to fellow citizens The Leg, who in turn have collaborated with Paul Vickers late of Dawn of the Replicants to similar effect. While Zed Penguin …
Not Forgotten: Chu Ishikawa – Tetsuo: Complete Box
Right at the end of 2017 came the news that Japanese industrial composer Chu Ishikawa had died aged 51. I wouldn’t want to attempt any kind of obituary – I’m no expert. But he was responsible for what is my very favourite film soundtrack – something that it took me years to track down. So …
The Lovely Eggs – This Is Eggland
Eggland then. A place where the Lovely Eggs have got a producer in (Dave Fridmann no less) and gone full Hawkwind. Which means that my friend Julie, though she doesn’t know it yet, has a new favourite album. Cos that’s really how a love of the Eggs should be passed on – rocking up to …
Album Review: Meursault – Fuck Off Back To Art School & other stories
Having returned to releasing as Meursault last year with the often downbeat but lovely I WIll Kill Again, Neil Pennycook hasn’t been resting on his laurels. The new year has seen him sneaking out this digital album in a relatively unheralded way, suggesting that the material will develop through future performances and other media. As …
Robert Forster – Grant and I (Inside and Outside the Go-Betweens)
It wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Grant and I took its title from the phrase that recurs most in the book. It describes perfectly what you get within. It’s certainly not a full account of the Go-Betweens as a group of people. They are there, but so frame-filling is Robert Forster’s account of …
Mammoth Penguins and Friends – John Doe
This is a bit unexpected. Mammoth Penguins’ first album, while with its own style, picked up not a million miles away from where Emma Kupa’s first band, Standard Fare, left off – quality indieish guitar pop soundtracking vignettes from day-to day life. So when the needle drops on some background noise, stately strings, mandolin and …
The Jesus and Mary Chain – The Foundry, Sheffield 25.09.2017
I’d been a bit reluctant to head out and see the Mary Chain. Bad experiences with other heroes from the 80s stumbling on unnecessarily with nothing new to offer (and nothing much old either) had put me off. But when Damage and Joy came out, wiser and more trustworthy folk attested to its quality, so …
Two new albums from Emma Kupa
Right from her time with Sheffield-based indiepop favourites Standard Fare, Emma Kupa has been of the most distinctive voices in the country. Both literally, with her plaintive teetering-on-the-edge vocals, and lyrically with her inghtful ruminations on people and relationships. So the promise of two new albums in the coming months is a real treat. Her …