Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten: Jethro Tull – Heavy Horses
Where to begin? The beginning I guess. My beginning. Or at least as far back as I can remember. You might be surprised to find out that I didn’t get into music until my early teens. Throughout my childhood, my parents, particularly my dad, were always playing albums, but none of them permeated into my …
Not Forgotten: John Foxx – Metamatic
It’s one of life’s cruel ironies that some people saw John Foxx as a Gary Numan wannabee, as just prior to his solo emergence, Numan had famously stated in the press that “I’ll never be as good as Ultravox!” He was referring to Foxx’s hideously underrated futuristic glam-rock pioneers, his comment instantly prompting millions to …
Not Forgotten: Kate Bush – The Kick Inside
A startling debut from one of the UK’s most unique talents, The Kick Inside has since been eclipsed by better received (and better selling) Kate Bush albums, but there is still a section of her audience that maintain that she never bettered her first album. The Kick Inside certainly has an abundance of whatever it …
Not Forgotten: World Party – Egyptology
Life can be strange. 1993’s Bang had flagged up World Party as a band to watch for the rest of the decade. An intelligent retro-pop act, with a frontman that was frequently capable of brilliance, and possessed the ability to stretch his music across genre boundaries, Karl Wallinger and his bandmates should have been held …
Not Forgotten: Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
When reviewing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a term like ‘influential’ just doesn’t seem to cover it. Neutral Milk Hotel’s final full album (their second or third, depending on whether you include the obscure Hype City Soundtrack), the influence of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has seemingly seeped through independent / alternative guitar …
Not Forgotten: Eagles – One of These Nights
Eagles are one of those bands that split opinion. For some they are the absolute epitome of bland, coke-blasted, West Coast Album Orientated Country-flecked Rock. To others they are an act of rare quality, whose big hit and mega-selling album sadly eclipsed the fact that they were one of the finest rock bands of the …
Not Forgotten: Rowland S. Howard
In 1975, Rowland S. Howard wrote a song called ‘Shivers’, one of the best songs ever to come out of Australia and indeed anywhere (in my humble opinion) at the tender age of 16. Originally written for Howard’s first band,The Young Charlatans, Howard took the song, ‘Shivers’, with him when he joined another local Melbourne …
Not Forgotten: White Noise – An Electric Storm
“Many sounds have never been heard-by humans:some sound waves you don’t hear-but they reach you. “Storm Stereo” techniques combine singers, instrumentalists and complex electronic sound. The emotional intensity is at a maximum.” So read the bold sleevenotes on this unique release on which David Vorhaus ,an electronics graduate, teamed up with two members of the …
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 …
Not Forgotten: Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
It shouldn’t work. It should have been a complete and utter dud. Of the old guard of the 60s and 70s, almost no one had made the hard synthetic production techniques of the 80s work for them. Sure, a few had maintained a certain level of commercial success, but at what cost to their integrity? …