Nine Feet Underground

Not going to write a load of bollocks about this.  It's a live version of one of the tunes on their just-released debut album.  On the album the song is titled, slightly more politely, 'GFY'.  Less politely, I would like to dedicate the song to Nigel Farage, in the fervent hope that he would. [...and yes, they are Australian]

A taster for Vanishing Twin's forthcoming second proper album release, 'The Age of Immunology', 'Magician's Success', is a bouncy collision between the sound of the sadly lamented Broadcast and, recently returned from lengthy hiatus, Stereolab. In the musical Venn diagram of left-field sounds resulting from the intersection between the influences of those bands, there is a third element - something that Cathy Lucas and her band mates bring and make the sound of Vanishing Twin their own. [The Broadcast overlap isn't entirely surprising given that band member Phil M.F.U was also a member of that tragically-curtailed band.] Most of all I enjoy the song's languid psychedelia with nods to both krautrock and tropicalia, which, coupled with the choice of words in the lyrics and Cathy's unashamedly English-phrasing, make for a captivating summer's-day tune to lose yourself in. 💗

In the face of something too awful to deal with or ignore, sometimes the only response is to lose yourself, or, as Hibushibire would have it, 'Turn on, Tune In, Freak Out!', their recently released new album. It is an album that threatens to swamp you like a tidal wave of sound, with barely any let up in the aural assault, but if you accept your insignificance in the face of a wall of guitar squall, then there is much to enjoy. 'Blow! Blow! Blow!', which could be about a couple of things, starts off with a riff that bounces off the sidewalls like a car on ice, driven by someone with a death wish, which is interrupted, not by a terminal collision, but by a mid-section of acid psych guitar, which allows you to catch your breath before a return to the death race. In my pantheon of Japanese rock bands, Hibushibire occupy some kind of intersection between Acid Mothers Temple and, maybe, Kikagaku Moyo, though definitely closer Mokoto Kawabata's end of the spectr...

Drum 'n Bass, like so  many new musical forms before and since, started as a vital and exciting underground movement - I remember listening to the Jungle Brothers original sessions for John Peel way back, when it was termed 'Jungle', and had a raw, rough and exciting edge.  As it gained mainstream acceptance to the point where D'nB crept into TV adverts, it became so watered down and bland that it lost its appeal. Apparently, though, it never went away, but went back underground, in part I guess 'cos of the emergence of Garage (I'm told it should be pronounced "Garridge" by the yoof, just in case you are daft enough to know how the word should be pronounced 😏) and its many offshoots and sub-genres. J Majik was part of Goldie's Metalheadz stable in the prime of D'nB and hasn't made an album in 20 years or so, but 'Full Circle' is a return to form with nods to "old school" acts like LTJ Bukem and Ed Rush and Optica...

Another new song...this time from The Skints' latest album, 'Swimming Lessons'.   Nothing to say other than I like it, especially 'cos it features Protoje on vocals too - 'nuff said

I've been been following Brazil's Boogarins ever since I heard their songs '6000 Dias (Ou Mantra dos 20 Anos)' and 'Tempo' (Hmm! there's a common theme there...) way back in...let me see now...2015 or 2016. Their blend of tropicalia, psychedelia and rock is enjoyably intoxicating at it's best, but, annoyingly, their albums have been inconsistent: not that they've been bad, just that - without a grasp of Brazilian (be very wary of grasping Brazilian) and/or Portuguese (are they the same thing? I am afraid I don't know, though Google Translate seems to think they are) a route in to some of the songs is difficult. Their latest, soon to be released in the UK, album, 'Sombrou Duvida', which allegedly translates as 'Shadow Doubt', is the one that finally lands as an album for me.  Several songs have already become favourites, including the song above, 'Te Quero Longe', which has a trippy, languorous, hazy summer's ...

I'm reading this book, 'Good Night and Good Riddance', about the influence John Peel and his radio shows had on music and cultural life for over 35 years.  It's a great book that I'd thoroughly recommend and, despite the book's subtitle, it's no hagiography, and casts a critical eye at times, even though, on balance (and I'm up to 1979), it pretty much confirms what fans, including myself, thought of him and his maverick musical taste. This post, however, is not a book review - that'll appear on goodreads after I finish it - it's about a question that gets raised in the book when the story reaches the mid-1970s.   [Oh, and in case the title of this post misled anyone, this is not going to be about the Midlands grebo band, affectionately referred to as PWEI aka Pop Will Eat Itself: this is not the article you are looking for.] My question - and it's not posed as a question in the book - concerns the state of rock music around ...

The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again... ...back once again to the wonderful venue that is South Street Arts Centre, this time to see the even more wonderful Robyn Hitchcock and support, in the form of Jessica Lee Morgan, which is where I'll begin... Jessica Lee Morgan is the daughter of singer Mary Hopkin (best known for her hit single 'Those Were The Days', staple of many a drunken evening underground in the frozen north) and Toni Visconti (most famous, I guess, as the producer of many of David Bowie's albums). She plays guitar and sings and is ably assisted by her partner, Chris Thomas, on bass. I have to confess she and her music had passed me by, but as the set progressed I warmed to the music. Since I was probably less than 10 feet away from her, there's a real intimacy to the performance and a couple of songs from her set, most notably 'Around The Block' (whose lyrics and delivery struck a chord) and 'Cut Down, Broken Down', dre...