13 October 2015

Hello again. I've got the most annoying tickly cough, so less of the chatter tonight.

Asian Dub Foundation - Stand Up
Another track from the brilliant album More Signal More Noise which came out in July.

Orphan Boy - Money To Money
Don't think I've played any bands from Grimsby/Cleethorpes way before, so consider that rectified. Coastal Tones is the album and it's out now.

Du Blonde - Raw Honey
Another one from Welcome Back To Milk which is, as you should know by now, ace. What a voice.

Featured Album
The Durutti Column - Beginning
The Durutti Column - Katharine
Our featured album this week is The Return Of The Durutti Column, the bands 1980 debut. Physically, it's most arresting feature was the sandpaper sleeve, a Situationist prank nicked from Jacques Derrida whose Memoirs was similarly fashioned. The thing then is that every time you take the book off or put it back on the shelf, it destroys the books next to it. That's Factory for you. Anyway, it's a masterpiece and worth revisiting.

Heavyball - Unhappy Now
A long-awaited LP, Black Eye Diaries, is now available to order and I cannot wait to hear it in it's entirety.

Ex Hex - All Kindsa Girls
A first track since debut LP Rips came out, a cover of a The Real Kids track.

Warm Brains - Pink Blackpool Rock
Another long-awaited album, this time coming next month. Big Wow is the title and this is the lead single from it.

Owiny Sigoma Band - (Nairobi) Too Hot
This is ace. I love what these guys do, mixing London and Nairobi sounds. This is off the new album Nyanza which came out at the back end of August.

Stolen Haven - Used
Off the EP Three Stripe Blues which is out now-ish. It's got just enough about it to stand out from the crowd.

Sea Creature - Songbird
Something a bit older now, from 2013. These are from Bury St Edmunds and the album is called Electric Dreams. Don't know how it passed me by, but glad I've caught up with it now.

Featured Album
The Durutti Column - Requiem For A Father

Air Formation - The Wasted Days
Off the EP Were We Ever There, which came out last month.

Shunkan - Paleontologist
To New Zealand now for this which appears on The Pink Noise which comes out on November 20.

LV - Balance Spring
Brilliant slice of electronica from the new LP Ancient Mechanisms which came out last Friday.

Tom Furse - Run To Me pt 3
Also out last Friday, an EP from Horrors keyboardist Furse titled Run To Me Suite. Four tracks, here's part three. Brilliant.

Here's that on YouTube:



and Soundcloud:



No show next week - Town are playing a made-up football club from Buckinghamshire - so back in a fortnight.

21 July 2015

Insert introduction here.

Du Blonde - Hunter
Another one from the acclaimed album Welcome Back To Milk by the artist formerly known as Beth Jeans Houghton.

Richard Hawley - Which Way
New from the Sheffield troubadour off the forthcoming LP Hollow Meadows which is out in September. Classic Hawley.

I, Ludicrous - Hacky's Wine Bar
Another one from Dull Is The New Interesting, their first release in ages.

Cover Version Corner
Kraftwerk/Gulp vs Miaoux Miaoux - Tour de France
Topical innit. Gulp is the side project of Super Furry Animals bassist Guto Pryce and has teamed up with Glaswegian producer Miaoux Miaoux for this update of the 1983 Kraftwerk classic. One of the better covers I think we've ever featured.

Menace Beach - Super Transporterreum
Not resting on their laurels following the debut LP Ratworld, this is the title track from a new EP. And is splendid.

Girls Names - A Hunger Artist
How good is that? They're from Belfast and the album is Arms Around A Vision.

Ultimate Painting - (I've Got The) Sanctioned Blues
Seeing the humour in getting a parking ticket, this is off Green Lanes which is out now.

Trust Fund - Dreams
And they just keep on coming. From Bristol, these, and this is their new single.

Swells - Banal
Another band from Bandung in Indonesia which is some sort of hotbed of musical genius. I'm sure banal doesn't mean that in the local language and this sure ain't. Clearly influenced by 1990s Manchester and that can't be a bad thing.

Tom Robinson - Don't Jump, Don't Fall
The first new stuff from Robinson in 20 years, this is off the album Only The Now. The single is raising money for CALM - the Campaign Against Living Miserably - which raises awareness of male suicide, the biggest killer of men aged 20-45 in this country. You know, because we're big idiots who don't talk about stuff. Powerful stuff.

One Degree of Separation
OMD - Electricity
The Avalanches - Electricity
Just the titles that link them. Can you believe that's OMD's debut from 1979? Still sounds fresh. The Avalanches simply because it's an age since I played anything by them. That's off 2000's Since I Left You.

Malcolm Middleton and David Shrigley - Caveman
Unusual. This is a collaboration between former Arab Strap man Middleton and visual artist Shrigley on an album called, appropriately, Words And Music which came out last December. Words by the latter, music by the former.

Bullion - Saysah!
Hugely retro stuff from the EP Rooster which is out now.

Dementio13 - A New Economic Freedom
6 minutes of brilliance from the album This Is Civilisation which came out last month.

Here's that on YouTube:



and Soundcloud:



Although the dementio13 track is on neither. Follow the link above.

And I think that'll do it for a few weeks. I need a break. I will return.

14 April 2015

I had a distinct lack of voice last week, hence no show. And hence I'm doing it now.

Dave Hughes - Freedom Of Something
From the album Rise, Again which came out at the back end of last month. Something a little different.

Sweet Benfica - When The Prime Minister Talks To The Lords
A reworking of an old Bright Eyes track called When The President Talk To God. Get it off their bandcamp page.

Snapped Ankles - I Want My Minutes Back
The second single from this London outfit. Good, innit.

Cover Version Corner
Cornershop - Born Disco; Died Heavy Metal
Two versions of this, first from their debut album Hold On It Hurts from 1994. 20 years later, an instrumental, easy listening version of the same record.

Chastity Belt - Drone
A new one from these off the album Time To Go Home.

The Lucid Dream - Mona Lisa
Carlisle answer to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, that is umpteen kinds of splendid. The new self-titled album came out on March 30.

Therapy? - Tides
Another one off the new long-player Disquiet, which really is as good as the reviews say and is very much a back-to-basics return to form.

Du Blonde - Mind Is On My Mind
Featuring the vocals of Samuel T Herring of Future Islands, another one from the forthcoming album Welcome Back To Milk which I am very much looking forward to. That voice...

Love, Hippies and Gangsters - This Is What We Want
From the EP Sun Over Babaluma which came out in January. Psych heaven.

One Degree of Separation
Roxy Music - Do The Strand
Shacklock Meth Party - Pall Mall
Any excuse to play something by New Zealand psych-merchants Shacklock Meth Party. This is off Domino Room which came out in June 2013. And I could only think of one other track with a Monopoly square in the title, hence Roxy Music.

Goran Kajfes and Subtropic Arkestra - Dokuz Seki/ Esmerim
By now, you know I like to play stuff that's a bit different. Hence this. Off The Reason Why vol 2.

Emmy The Great - Swimming Pool (Tom Vek remix)
I played the original of this a while back, but here is a stunning remix from Tom Vek which takes it to different places.

8:58 - The Clock
Paul Hartnoll, ex of Orbital, brings his new project to being. Featuring the vocals of Cilian Murphy. Brilliant. Came out on March 30.

Here's that on YouTube:


and Soundcloud:


Back next week, all being well.

3 March 2015

You know what to expect by now. Also, I've waffled on too much today, so more tunes and less gab.

Arndales - Holiday Inns
Luton first. This is a superb take-down of the blandness of the mainstream off their EP Dog Hobbies USA which came out in January.

The Sherlocks - Escapade
Another band from Sheffield with a commercial sound, but enough about it to be diverting. They're two sets of brothers and this is their second single.

Nat Lyon - We Will Never Be
From his album 5-Meter Intervals which is available as a pay-what-you-like download from his bandcamp page (link above). This is the highlight from a pretty chilled-out album.

Cover Version Corner
Sex Pistols/Frazier Chorus - Anarchy In The UK
Well it doesn't much more different than that. Of course the first track doesn't need and introduction other than it let me say 'bollocks' on air legitimately. The Frazier Chorus version is on the B-side of the 12" of the 1987 single Sloppy Heart.

Drenge - We Can Do What We Want
They're back and with adding a bassist to the line-up have a fuller, more rounded sound. This is the first track off their second album, Undertow, which is out on April 6.

The Pop Group - Shadow Child
Off their first album in 35 years. Citizen Zombie came out two weeks ago and picks up where they left off - similar sound, same politics.

Boxed In - Foot Of The Hill
Last seen by me supporting Django Django. Their debut, self-titled album is pretty darn good.

Kindred Shins - As Is Tradition
Off their drip-fed new EP. This is really rather good.

Cowtown - Castle Grayscale
To Leeds now and something that came out at the end of January. Excellent.

Moonlandingz - Sweet Saturn Mine
What happens when two of my favourite bands - the Eccentronic Research Council and the Fat White Family - combine. The collaboration was almost inevitable when the ERC signed to the Fat White's label. Glad they did.

One Degree of Separation
Beth Jean Houghton - Dodecahedron
Du Blonde - Black Flag
Du Blonde is Beth Jeans Houghton. No more the folky psychedelia stuff that she did with the Hooves Of Destiny like in the former track. The change of direction more than warrants the change of identity and Black Flag is the new single with an album to follow. The former is off 2012's Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose.

Animal Daydream - Glass Ships
To Sweden now and some pop from slightly off the beaten track. These are from Gothenburg and the EP Easy Pleasures came out in January.

Ata Kak - Bome Nnwom
This is joyful. A record that just makes you think that everything isn't actually that bad. Ata Kak is from Ghana and this is off the album Obaa Sima which came out in 1994 as a cassette. The guys at Amazing Tapes From Africa gathered up as many cassettes as they could and remastered the whole thing from those and reissued it.

Guster - Long Night
And to finish, some laid-back pop from Boston, Massachusetts. The album Ever Motion. their seventh, came out mid-January.

Here's that on Youtube:



And Soundcloud:



Back next week. See you.