Music
See: Weatherbird release new video for Johnny Strange
What’s that? Is that a guitar jangle I hear? Is that that “loud-quiet-loud” thingy I used to hear so much back in those magical times called “the early 90s”? There’s something quite comforting in the Fender jangle and power-smashed drums with a strong vocal presence that harkens back to a time when ‘alternative’ in music …
NOT FORGOTTEN – EELS – HOMBRE LOBO: 12 SONGS OF DESIRE
Lust, desire and romance have been the most popular subject matter for songs for millennia now – it’s pretty much what keeps the whole music industry going regardless of genre, fashion or the political background of the era. Some of the greatest wordsmiths throughout history have spent their whole lives trying to write the perfect …
Say Psych: Album Review – Lupus by Dead Sea Apes (Cardinal Fuzz)
Ding! The bell at the beginning of this album seems to tell us that we are entering some sort of sacred space, and certainly the processive drone of the first track, Pharmakon, sounds to me like it could be set in a Buddhist monastery. Although the title of the track would suggest otherwise, it is, …
Album Review: The Provincial Archive – Maybe We Could Be Holy
“We hope for a warmer November But we’re changing with the air It’ll be colder soon And we’ll be in the darkness through the daytime Waiting for phone-calls from your shaking voices” Such a sad autumn, young as it is. I can’t and won’t explain the sadness. There are many things that have helped to …
NOT FORGOTTEN – DREAD ZEPPELIN – UN-LED-ED
On paper it sounds like a terrible idea, a bunch of stoners playing reggae versions of Led Zeppelin tunes, fronted by an Elvis Presley impersonator. Leaping from your speakers it’s a different matter. The thing is, Dread Zeppelin could really play. They weren’t just playing for laughs either, they were accomplished musicians with a deep …
NOT FORGOTTEN – CUD – ASQUARIUS
Love at first sound, that’s what it was. The riff that literally tumbled out of the speakers and then that voice. I knew I’d accidentally discovered one of music’s great lost groups and they spoke to me in a way that very few bands did. This wasn’t a passing phase or a temporary thing either, …
Album Review: Harleighblu: Forget me not
If the loss of Amy Winehouse left a soul shaped heart in your record collection, and (as it happens, labelmate) Alice Russell isn’t enough for you, then the answer might just have come from Nottingham songstress Harleighblu. Her new album ‘Forget me not’ dropped today, and immediately she has forced her way to the front …
New Music: Blessa – Between Times
The American poet John Ashbery once said “Most reckless things are beautiful in some way, and recklessness is what makes experimental art beautiful, just as religions are beautiful because of the strong possibilities that they are founded on nothing.” Sometimes, the things people say, whether or not you agree with everything in it or not, …
Not Forgotten – The Bonzo Dog Band – The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse
One of my favourite anecdotes from the history of rock music recalls the Bonzo Dog Band touring the USA in the late 60s and their minibus being stopped by a local Sheriff. The law officer asked if they were carrying any firearms or drugs. When they denied possession of either (preferring alcohol to drugs at …
Track: Pete Fij / Terry Bickers – Downsizing
I’ve tried to write songs, with no success at all. I can play music all right, but every time I try and write songs, they sound, at best, faintly embarrassing. So I have the utmost respect for those who carve a career in this most mysterious of skills (to me at least). It seems like …