2 January 2018

My last Tuesday show. From next week, I'm going back to Mondays because reasons. It'll still be the usual. Like this:

Rachel Mason - Time To Resign ft. Donald Trump
Also known as Future Clown, LA singer Mason does a Cassetteboy on 45 who can f--- right off in 2018 please.

Anarchistwood - Bomb In A Luggage Rack
Anarcho-dayglo-punk warriors with a single from the back end of November.

Whirling Hall Of Knives - 8ark
A freebie from the Irish instrumentalists to herald the new year.

DateMonthYear - March
Another one from November, this time from Hamilton in New Zealand. Not a band, they say, but a new way of making music.

Kudzu - No Backbone
The lead single taken from the LP Defeated which is due out early in 2018.

Peggy Sue - Slow Fade
The London-via-Brighton duo with a track from their as yet untitled fifth album, due soon.

The Creature Comfort - What We Want (Power, Corruption And Lies)
Mancunian psych-influenced rockers with a terrific new one that came out a couple of weeks ago.

John MOuse - End Of Mankind
He said he was done making music, but John 'MOuse' Davies got back in the studio with former bandmate Steven Black - Sweet Baboo to you - to make the album Replica Figures. Out in February.

The Stroppies - Gravity Is Stern
Missed this in spring, the album The Stroppies came out in May. They're from Melbourne.

Cross Country - Grass Stains
Even older, this is from September 2016. They're from Cincinnati and is off the EP Trials.

Sam Valdez - It's Alright
Blending shoegaze with Americana to create her sound.

Mythic Sunship - Cosmic Rupture
Taken from their third LP Upheaval which is out on the 12th.

Vast Asteroid - Sick
More from LA and more shoegazey stuff, taken from their self-titled LP which came out in November.

The Junta - I Second That Emoji
From Salford and another one from earlier in 2017 that we'd missed until now. This is off the EP Ergo which came out back in June.

Milkywhale - Rhubarb Girl
From Reykjavik, this is off their self-titled album from May. Another one we missed...

Tetraneutron - Strawmanistan
And now you must forgive the indulgence. One of the things I'm most proud of in 2017 is making a record - this record - with beatmaker Pete McGarry. Still very available at Broken Down Records.

Youtube:



Soundcloud:



Bandcamp:






Back in 6 days then. Ta-ta.

28 February 2017

Hello. Been a while, eh? As such, I have a massive backlog of stuff to play, so I'm dispensing with the featured LP so I can cram more in.

Simon Roberts - The American Dream?
aka Classicalbanksy, this is Roberts's debut as a composer and producer. The LP Operatic Pop is due later in the year.

Jonny Kinkaid and The Imaginary Nowhere Band - Note To Self
From Bristol, this is off the album F Is For Fascist which came out at the start of the month.

Ride - Charm Assault
New stuff from old shoegazers after a 20-year hiatus. Off the back of their reunion gigs, there's a new LP in the works.

The Golden Age Of Nothing - Sleepwalkers
Teessiders whose album Monuments comes out in April.

Scott H Biram - Long Old Time
Texas singer-songwriter with a track from the LP The Bad Testament which came out last Friday.

Phobophobes - The Never Never
Love these. This is a belter. A critique of modern consumerism that comes out on March 24.

John Mouse - Tough Day For The Trains
They said they were done, but you can't keep a good band down. It's out on March 10.

Divisionists - Say Can You
A track from their debut album Daybreak which is out on March 17.

The Sly Persuaders - Wild For The Night
This came out as a single last autumn, but the South London rockabillies have a self-titled album out as of last week on which this features.

The Kumari - Space Witch
A new single, their fifth, out on the ever-reliable Metal Postcards records.

Beatrice Dillon - Curl
Off a split-single with fellow Londoner Karen Gwyer on the intriguingly named Alien James label.

Analogue Wave - Hope
These are an Irish pair of electronica merchants. The single came out on Friday while an LP is in the pipeline.

Future Orients - Motto
These are from Beijing and this is off the LP Eat Or Die. It came out last autumn, but I've only just come across it. Super stuff.

Warm Digits - End Times feat. Field Music
This is the Newcastle duo's first release for Memphis Industries, their new label. An album will follow.

Orbital - Kinetic 2017
They said they'd quit, but they just can't. Back together and making new music. Terrific.

Youtube:



Soundcloud:



Bandcamp:

15 November 2016

Here we are again then.

Childcare - Film Club
On tour with Bastille, but far far better than them. This is out on Friday.

Goodnight Lenin - Desire
A new one from the Birmingham outfit which is rather good. Out on the 21st.

Los Campesinos! - I Broke Up In Amarante
A new album is due early next year. Sick Scenes is the title and you should be excited because these are consistently excellent.

Featured album: Hope Not Hate #MoreInCommon
The Membranes - Do The Supernova
Superhand - Bass And Guns
Another compilations for the featured LP of the week. This one is a 95-track monster and costs you just a fiver, money which goes toward the anti-fascist charity Hope Not Hate. The Membranes you probably know - John Robb's punk outfit - while Superhand are an Anglo-Swedish band.

Maschine - Night And Day
From Brighton, the album Naturalis came out last month.

Phobophobes - Human Baby
Love these guys. This came out last Friday and their debut LP is due early 2017.

John MOuse - The Teacher
John MOuse are no more, about which we are sad. Their last ever gig was recorded though and is slowly being released on bandcamp. We miss them already.

Moonlandingz - Black Hanz
You may remember these as the fictional band made up by the Eccentronic Research Council and Fat White Family. They're back with a new EP, also called Black Hanz. Out now.

Spawn - Redemption
Dutch skapunk? Of course Dutch skapunk. Absolutely brilliant. Off the LP Dance Of The Lunatics, their third.

Wax Age - Forget
Don't think we've had a band from Epsom on before. I went there once.

Featured album: Hope Not Hate #MoreInCommon

BEAK> - Kenn
Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame is the driving force behind BEAK>. Wonderfully different.

Cobby And Litten - I Can See The Lights
To Hull and producer extraordinare Steve Cobby and poet Russ Litten return with a new EP, Polar. It's fantastic.

Hudson Mohawke - Shanghaied
This is part of the soundtrack to the game Watch Dogs 2 which HudMo has done and released as an album.

Simeon Smith - If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution
And finally, off the EP All Is Undone. Boards Of Canada-esque beauty.

Here's your Youtube:

and Soundcloud:

and Bandcamp:

Not on next week - clash of commitments. Back in a fortnight.

1 September 2015

I return, slightly less stressed than a month ago. Anyway, I've changed it round a little bit, but the focus still remains new music. Let's see if I can remember which buttons do what on the console. Anyhoo...

John MOuse - Your Funny Little Ways
From Cardiff, John Davies is John MOuse and this is the new single taken from the album The Death Of John MOuse which is tremendous and you should buy it. This is out on the 18th.

Diet Cig - Dinner Date
Also out on the 18th, these are from upstate New York. It's on a double-A side - kids, ask your parents - with Sleep Talk.

Fruit Bomb - Goin' Home
From Manchester and featuring parts of house favourites Nai Harvest, this came out a few weeks ago. I'll be catching up on things from the last month or so for a while yet, methinks.

Featured Album
The Broken Heed - Funny Little Things
New feature section now. The Broken Heed is personal friend John Hartley who, like me, has suffered depression lately. He found CALM - the Campaign Against Living Miserably - a help. One phone call to their impartial hotline costs £7, so John decided to record the album, also called The Broken Heed, to raise money for the charity. It's a very personal album, but also very good. Crowdfunding raised the cash for a physical release. Get it off bandcamp.

Lou Barlow - Moving
A new album, the first in six years, from Mr Barlow. Brace The Wave is out on Friday.

Menace Beach - Ghoul Power
Another track from the new EP Super Transporterreum which is out on the 25th and is excellent.

Houdini Dax - Found Love In The Dole Office
Another one from Cardiff - there is some great stuff coming out of South Wales at the moment. A very pleasing ditty off the album Naughty Nation which is out now.

Poledo - Loser
Oxford now, and this is really pleasing. Off an EP called Egg Ccun Catpil Butfli. Me neither.

Nightingales - The Only Son
Another one from the Birmingham veterans latest LP Mind Over Matter. It really is a superb album. The oldies showing everyone how it's done.

April Towers - A Little Bit Of Fear
To Nottingham now. This came out last Friday.

Bruja - Horsey & You
Bruja means witch in Spanish, as anyone familiar with Juan Sebastian Veron will already know. Anyway, these are from Barnsley and this is off a self-titled album which is out now.

Featured Album
The Broken Heed - How To Be A Man
Another from our featured album of the week. There are so many things trying to tell you what being a man is. It's all meaningless.

Ceiling Demons - Even If
Mysterious Yorkshiremen purveying alternative hip-hop. Bit different innit.

Traams - Succulent Thunder Anthem
I doubt we've had a Chichester band on before. Difficult to know what you'd be influenced by down there. Either way, I like this. Off Modern Dancing which is out in November.

Sextile - Can't Take It
An LA band and off the album A Thousand Hands which came out last week.

Lesbian Horse - They Are A Part Of The Wave Of The Future
Another one from this project which I've played before. Since then, I've been in touch with the brains of the operation which is Sam Jones, a France-based Welshman. No albums. No physical releases. Just watch the stars (well, social media) and keep your ears open.

Here's that on YouTube:



And Soundcloud:




And I guess we'll give it a whirl next week as well.

23 December 2014 - Christmas special

Our 100th show! Wooo... And also our third christmas spectacular. A bumper crop this year.

Wild Billy Childish and The Musicians Of The British Empire - Poundland Christmas
2008 was when capitalism fell and was propped up on the backs of the people at the bottom of that particular pyramid scheme. That's when this was recorded and it's as relevant now as then. Thatcher's Children is the album and there's new stuff from Childish coming soon, both with his band CTMF and in collaboration with the Wave Pictures. Both are keenly anticipated round these parts.

The Fall - Jingle Bell Rock
The traditional Fall festive cover version. This is off a Peel session from 1994. Unmistakeable.

Broken Down Lorry - All I Want For Christmas Is A Bit Of Peace And Quiet
Twitter is, contrary to popular opinion, a wonderful thing. I put a plea out for new and unsigned to send me their christmas records and one that came back was this. Recorded around 2010 for no particular reason. Key change!

Eels - Christmas Is Going To The Dogs
Originally recorded in 2000, you can find this on Useless Trinkets... a collection of B-sides, rarities and previously unreleased stuff which came out in 2008.

Slow Club - Christmas TV
To Sheffield and this lovely number dates from 2009 and the Christmas Thanks For Nothing EP. Just a lovely record.

Teenage Fanclub - Christmas Eve
You can't beat Teenage Fanclub. Indeed, I've been a fan since I was a teenager. This is on a compilation done by XFM for the Big Issue which came out in 2000 called It's A Cool Cool Christmas.

Alton Ellis and The Lipsticks - Merry Merry Christmas
The legendary Trojan Christmas Album has many gems on it and this is no exception. The album is just wonderful and gets such an airing round ours that christmas without ska just isn't a real christmas.

Bootsy Collins - Diss Christmiss
And now to funk it all up. From the 2006 album Christmas Is 4 Real. I play those last two to reflect how christmas is celebrated in other parts of the world where it isn't grey, miserable and damp. Just a totally different mindset.

Lullaby For The Working Class - The Utilitarian Christmas Jingle
This really paints a Dickensian - maybe even Hogarthian - image of christmas past. I don't know too much about it other than they're from Lincoln, Nebraska and it came out in 1998.

Los Campesinos! - The Trains Don't Run It's Christmas Day
The Crookes - You're Just Like Christmas
Two new releases for this christmas and two of my favourites - I'm holding my favourite back until later in the show. The Crookes are from Sheffield and that's very jolly while Cardiff's Los Campesinos! do something different. It's quite like I see the season. It can be boring, you do the same things year after year, it can be fraught and tetchy, but you know what? I wouldn't change it for anything.

The Kinks - Father Christmas
A traditional story of a department store Santa getting mugged. From 1977 and made an appearance on the 1978 reissue of the album Misfits.

Tomorrow's World - I Don't Intend To Spend Christmas Without You
We've played these a few times before, it's Jean-Benoit Dunckel, erstwhile of Air, and Lou Hayter from New Young Pony Club. This is from 2009 and the Cherry Red Records compilation Christmas Cocktails.

Broken Record - My Beer-Drunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees In The World
Hell of a title. Hell of a tune as well to be fair. This is brand spanking new from the Edinburgh outfit.

Matt Bouvier - Santa Give Me Something To Live For
To Sweden now, Malmo in fact, and another brand new record. This starts horribly, but that doesn't last for long before it gets going. Out now on a Small Bear Records compilation.

Clinic - Christmas
The B-side to the 2002 single Come Into Our Room, that's a jolly pleasant tune.

Christ. - Making A Snow Angel
Straight out of the Boards Of Canada envelope, Christ. is Scotsman Christopher Horne and that's off the 2007 album Blue Shift Emissions.

Mike Harding - Christmas 1914
From 1977, but in this centenary year even more poignant. Just what did happen that christmas may never be truly known, but the accepted tale certainly has an air of the myth about it. Anyway, top record.

DJ Yoda - 5-Minute Christmas Mini-Mix
The star of Huddersfield's Festival of Light earlier this month, here's him doing his thing with christmas clips and samples back in 2010.

John MOuse - When A Child Is Born
This is the christmas record of this very christmas time. Bloody brilliant. His album The Death Of John MOuse was one of the highlights of the year and this caps off 2014 nicely. Absolutely love it. The right balance of bitter and light.

Half Man Half Biscuit - All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit
Got to finish with this one, as is now traditional. From 1986 and the EP Trumpton Riots, an all-time classic.

Here's that on YouTube:



and a tiny bit of it on Soundcloud:


So there we are. 100 shows. Raise of the bat, acknowledge the crowd on all four sides before digging back in. The 90s were nervous, but we got there. Now, nothing silly for a few overs and get focus back.
Merry christmas to you all. Back for one more time in 2014 next week.

4 November 2011

Early nights, cold nights... Cosy up with this week's selection.

CTMF - Zero Emission
Who needs records longer than two minutes? Given I have several over six minutes... Anyway. The B-side to their recent 7" Punk Rock Enough For Me, which I think I prefer.

Beau - The Night Before Trafalgar
I heard an acoustic version of this a couple of weeks ago, but this is the original from the 2012 album Fables And Facades.

Vision Thing - Living With Ghosts
Liverpool alt-folk band whose new LP is called Hauntology. I'll declare an interest - the bassist is a friend which is how I came across it. Still wouldn't have played it if I didn't like it.

Cover Version Corner
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds/PJ Harvey - Red Right Hand
PJ Harvey's version may be familiar to viewers of Peaky Blinders, which I understand is on television. Before that, from 1994's Let Love In.

Curxes - Valkyrie
Pronounced Curses and off a forthcoming album called Verxe, which is annoying. The music however, is fantastic. More of this please.

Ωracles - Melt Tonight
To Berlin now and another daft name, albeit replacing a letter with a Greek semi-equivalent rather than the wrong letter. Off their debut EP Standford Torus. 

The Horn The Hunt - Find It Free It
Bit closer to home now - Leeds to be clearer. Off their latest LP Terrafidella which is out now.

The Unfortunates - Margate Sands
There are a few bands called The Unfortunates. These ones are from London and this is off an EP called For Boys With One Track Minds which came out in August.

Ghost Society - Under The Sun
To Denmark now and a great track off an album called The Back Of His Hands, Then The Palms. No, me neither.

Hopeku - Ambush
Canada now, Quebec more precisely, off an EP called Kosoku, all of which I got through without tripping over my own tongue.

One Degree of Separation
Barcelona - Kasey Keller
John MOuse - Robbie Savage
Retired footballers for this week's. Exquisite story-telling from Cardiff's John MOuse off his current LP The Death Of John MOuse. Before that, from 2000 off the album Zero One Infinity.

Shift Work - Scaled To Fit
I know I've played this before, but so what when it's this good. Seriously, as good a track as I've heard in years.

Hells Kitchen - It's Not For Me
And we round off this week with this from Krasnodar in Russia. Reminds me a lot of mid-period Underworld which can never be a bad thing. The album is called Letters and is out on Festival Lounge.

Some of that's on YouTube:


and some of it on Soundcloud:


More next week.

2 September 2014

We were bumped for football again last week. Stupid midweek games... Anyway, we're back and in a first for the show, we have LIVE MUSIC in the studio.

John MOuse - I Was A Goalkeeper
From the album The Death Of John MOuse which came out in July and was criminally overlooked by myself. I'm making good on it now though. There's a quite remarkable version of the national anthem, On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At, on there as well which is worth seeking out.

Modern Faces - Lufthansa
An unsigned  band from Dunfermline, this is part of a double-A side release with Matter Of Time on the flip side to this. I travelled a lot with Lufthansa when I worked in Germany. I always wondered where they found pickles so small to fit in their teeny-tiny pastrami sandwiches. No answers to that conundrum are to be found here, but it's a bloody good tune anyway. It was released last week.

Ravioli Me Away - Cat Call
Quirky, to say the least. From the album The Inevitable Album, which is among the best titles of this and any other year, which came out two weeks ago. It really gets in your head.

Live session, part 1
Ross Taylor - Song To Woody (live)
Delighted to welcome Ross to the studio to play us a few tracks, starting with this cover of a Dylan number. We spoke about influences, other projects and the songwriting process as well. I recorded the show and will attempt to get clips of the live sections up on here at some point. Needless to say, I was hoping rather than trusting that this was all going to work, but it did so beautifully. Apologies to Ross for using him as a guinea pig, but someone had to be first. I will definitely be doing it again.

Here he is tuning up, mic and level-checking.


The Pooh Sticks - On Tape
From 1988 and the album Orgasm. Bit of an earworm this, but no less bad for it.

Pulled Apart By Horses - Lizard Baby
Bit of a Leeds-a-thon for the next three tracks starting with this. The new album Blood came out yesterday.

Hookworms - The Impasse
Their debut album Pearl Mystic was quite remarkable, so the expectations for their second are huge. It's coming out in November, it's called the Hum and this is the first release from that. Fantastic.

Flies On Me - Can You Smell That Burning Noise?
Self-styled musical revolutionaries, this is available as a free download from their bandcamp page. And well worth getting hold of, just as I did.

The Landseers - The Royal We
It's things like this that make Twitter work for me. Without chatting to, ostensibly, strangers about the Tour de France, I'd not have found it.

Teen Brains - Fluke
Another one from the compilation put out by Beech Coma records - volume 2, specifically.

Live session, part 2
Ross Taylor - A Story For Louise (live)
Ross Taylor - The Garden (live)
Two Taylor originals for the second part of our live session. Both can be found on the forthcoming EP also called The Garden. For more of Ross, check out his Facebook page and he's on Soundcloud too. Do check him out. We'll definitely be having him back in and huge, huge thanks again to him for coming in.

warrenpeace - Hungry
And now for something completely different... The album release passed me by, which is odd as I've played a track from it ages ago. The whole, SDR007, is a work of twisted genius fusing manic guitar and some heavy beats. Well worth checking out.

Whilst - Umgebung
From the EP Everything There Was Was There, which is easy for me to say.

Shift Work - Scaled To Fit
And to end, this from an EP of the same name. The best thing I've heard this year, maybe in five years, maybe even in ten. Utterly brilliant. I've basically had it on a loop for a fortnight. Absolutely love it.

Here's most of that on YouTube:



and some of it on Soundcloud:



and I'll try to get the live bits up somewhere at some point.
Back next week.