Song of the day: CLARENCE CARTER - Patches (1970)

A world away from Clarence Carter’s usual oeuvre of innuendo and sexual drama, “Patches” is as full of corny sentimentality as any weepy country song. The eponymous hero of the tune single-handedly brings up his younger siblings, tends the fields and still has time to go to school after he becomes an orphan. His father’s [...]

Album: LIBRARY TAPES - Höstluft (Make Mine Music MMM033 2007)

Library Tapes is the project of Swedish pianist David Wenngren. Höstluft is the third album in less than two years, and the first for Make Mine Music. Alone In The Bright Lights Of A Shattered Life and Feelings For Something Lost both appeared on Resonant, and were both as melancholy as their titles suggest. They [...]

Album: ULRICH SCHNAUSS - Goodbye (Independiente ISOM68CD 2007)

Early nineties ’shoegazers’ Slowdive always got a pretty rough ride by the press in the UK. By the time they released Pygmalion, their wonderful third and final album, even their label Creation seemed completely disinterested in the group. They, of course, regrouped as Mojave 3, and have peddled a fairly innocuous fare of country-tinged pop [...]

A Few Forthcoming Long Players

ANGELS OF LIGHT We Are Him (Young God) 28th August 
CARTA The Glass Bottom Boat (Resonant) 20th August
VIC CHESNUTT North Star Deserter (Constellation) 27th August
FEU THERESE Ca Va Cogner (Constellation) 8th October
GRAVENHURST The Western Lands (Warp) 10th September
PJ HARVEY White Chalk (Island) 24th September 
HRSTA Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes (Constellation) 10th September
MÚM Go Go Smear [...]

Song of the day: DISCO INFERNO - Waking Up (1991)

Disco Inferno are one of those bands who seemed to fall through the cracks of history. They started off as fairly dour Joy Division copyists, but quickly developed a style and sound of their own, using samples and electronic processing of the group’s basic guitar / bass / drums format. They were doing ‘post-rock’ as [...]

Song of the day: ULTRAVOX! - Just For A Moment (1978)

Through the eighties, Ultravox had a succession of slick synth-pop hits that continue to be mainstays of oldies radio stations. They were unfashionable at the time, and little has changed over the years. The three albums that they made for Island with John Foxx - prior to Midge Ure, Chrysalis Records and pop stardom - are [...]

The Online 78RPM Discographical Project

A popular feature in the latter years of the late John Peel’s radio show was the ‘Pig’s Big 78′, a daily dose of pre-war esoterica introduced by his wife Sheila. It could be a classic old blues, jazz or hillbilly number, some music hall novelty or something quite bizarre and singular. Some of these were [...]

Song of the day: THIN WHITE ROPE - The Clown Song (1991)

The Thin White Rope emerged from the Bay Area of northern California in 1984 at the back end of the so-called ‘Paisley Underground’ which spawned such acts as the Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate. The group’s early psychedelic tendencies were reined in as the years passed, and they evolved into a fairly dry, country-tinged [...]