Album Reviews
Say Psych: Album Review, Cardinal Fuzz ‘Stay Holy’ Compilation
Cardinal Fuzz is one of my favourite records labels bringing out a series of, for me, essential releases. This is evidenced by the fact that the label was involved in a quarter of the albums on our ‘Essential Psych’ list last year. This year also saw the label being invited to curate a stage at the …
Album Review: Mark McGuire – Beyond Belief
Mark McGuire’s Beyond Belief is a behemoth of an album. It’s an epic double LP, nearly 80 minutes of expansive tracks that feel like the soundtrack to some existential, futuristic film. Though it’s largely an electronic instrumental album, Beyond Belief doesn’t fall into the usual electronic music category. While most synth-filled albums of late tend to keep things dark …
Album Review: Penetration – Resolution
Penetration are one of the great lost punk bands that shone brightly before burning out. Their first two albums – Moving Targets and Coming Up For Air – are punk pop classics that pissed all over what the massively overrated Siouxsie was doing, The secret to their brilliance was the powerful, yet keening, vocals of …
Album Review: Fyrskeppet – ‘Sydostbrotten’
Who the fuck is Fyrskeppet I hear you cry… In this instance it is not so much a who, as a what. In the truly idiosyncratic style to which we have become addicted, Fyrskeppet – or Swedish for Lightship is the latest incarnation of Daniel Westerlund, aka The Goner, aka E Gone. That he returns in a …
Reissue: The Passions – Michael and Miranda
Appearing from the break up of the 101ers, Joe Strummers band pre the Clash, and punk outfit The Derelicts, Barbara Gogan and drummer Clive Timperley formed The Passions in 1978, following their first single release in 1979 the band were signed to Fiction records and recorded their debut album Michael and Miranda released in 1980. …
Album Review: James Taylor Quartet and the Rochester Cathedral Chior – The Rochester Mass
The James Taylor Quartet`s career has seen many changes since their formation in 1987, from Blow Up to the emergence of the acid jazz scene in the early 90`s there live performances have influenced many artists, and have seen them collaborate with The Manics, Pogues and U2 to name a few. This new release from …
News: Black Crowes reissued on vinyl
The Black Crowes were a band for whom the stars almost aligned. Arriving on the music scene seemingly fully formed with their Faces / Rolling Stones / Humble Pie blues rocking coupled to a type of hard rock that exposed the hair metal hoards as being an exercise in style over substance. Fronted by brothers …
Album Review: Pinkish Black – Bottom of the Morning
Pinkish Black is a gothic synth band that came out of the ashes of the Denton, TX experimental rock band The Great Tyrant. That band’s bass player Tommy Atkins killed himself in a bathroom and left keyboardist Daron Beck and drummer/synthesizer player Jon Teague to carry on. Instead of carrying on as The Great Tyrant Beck and …
Album review Rhoda Dakar – Sings The Bodysnatchers
The Bodysnatchers were signed to the legendary British Ska label 2 Tone after only two gigs and were part of that multi-cultural musical revolution in the late 1970s. Yet surreally they never recorded an album so vocalist Rhoda Dakar has finally put that right some four decades later. To realise this dream of finally making …
Album Review: Singapore Sling – ‘Psych Fuck’
‘Psych Fuck’ by Singapore Sling, buy it, love it, the end… Listen, feel, assimilate, emote, sensate… As a kid, I would have sat with the dictionary for hours, chasing “meanings”, following roots, finding nothing, repeatedly exposing words as empty vessels, crude, devoid approximations, blunt communicative tools, pregnant inadequacies… “I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, …