Blanck Mass
Calm With Horses (Original Score)
INVADA Records
When not one half of the group Fuck Buttons, Benjamin John Power has been making music as Blanck Mass. I never gelled with group work but love his solo electronica pursuits. So I was pleased to hear it was him behind the score to the movie Calm With Horses. The film is wonderful, based on the story/novella of the same name from Colin Barrett’s Young Skins collection. Read More
Sammy Hagar & The Circle
Lockdown 2020
Mailboat Records
One of the worst things about lockdown – and I’ve had a telling off from a few musicians already – was the interminable live sessions; bedroom recordings of half-cocked covers. Earning income is one thing – some people needed the money, others were donating to charity, the majority of course just passing time and sharing some music but most of it was dreadful. And there were high profile failures, from Charlie Watts forgetting his drum kit to Elton John forgetting the vowels… Read More
Kevin Keller
The Front Porch of Heaven
Kevin Keller Prod
Kevin Keller’s “ambient chamber music” is the sort of balm I am always there for – and glad it’s there for me. For most of the last decade it’s been one of my absolute go-to genres. The figureheads for me – and for many – in this ambient/minimalist world are of course Eno, Harold Budd (R.I.P.) and then of course there are many others from the worlds of indie-rock (Robin Guthrie) and classical (Bruno Bavota) and most overtly it’s in the world of modern film-scoring (Clint Mansell/Cliff Matinez) where soft electronica sits in and underneath shoegazing guitar motifs and delicate frames of piano. Read More
The KLF
Solid State Logik 1
KLF Communications
Need proof 2021 is going to be a better year? A wee glimpse and glimmer arrived on New Year’s Day with sudden appearance of this singles collection to all streaming services and the news that The KLF was back in the business of actively promoting, er even acknowledging its musical catalogue…
Rewind to 1992, Messers Cauty and Drummond disintegrate their band – they burn a million pounds in a performance art extravagance/extravaganza and delete their catalogue; it re-appears for a time and obviously anyone with a browser can find what they want and many with record collections held on to their treasures but the band is gone. They disavow almost all knowledge of all of the offshoots from/within The KLF, including of course The Timelords (Doctorin’ The Tardis) and The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (It’s Grim Up North) leaving trace memories of some of the best, weirdest and most wonderful dance-infused indie-pop tunes of the late-late 80s and early-early 90s. Well, there have been the books, the docos, the mixes and the general memories of it all already to help keep it alive.
But now the music is back and this collection of eight singles – those towering achievements (Justified and Ancient, Last Train to Transcentral, 3AM Eternal, What Time Is Love?) feels not just like a reminder but part of the salve for bruised souls and wounded hearts in this time of pandemic, rigged markets, shit-fuck cunts and whatever else might be buggin’ ya or conspiring to be all up in that grill.
There’s also news of further music and more from the back-catalogue eh. Rejoice! 
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Todd Rundgren
A Wizard A True Star…Live!
Purple Pyramid Music / Cleopatra Records
Todd Rundgren – the maverick. Producer and one-man-band wunderkind! There’s so much to admire, from songwriter and singer to multi-instrumentalist, he goes above and beyond mere musicianship to being some sort of spiritual conduit for the full gamut of power-pop. But one of the things that is sometimes forgotten in any moisty-palmed Todd appreciation is his tremendous abilities as bandleader. And we get to hear one hell of a band here, as Todd takes the songs from his 1973 album out to the stage. Presented on CD and DVD, this concert recording from when Rundgren represented his challenging and magnificent opus A Wizard, A True Star captures the man in full flight and a terrific band that can spin these weird dreams and turn on a dime.
The first half of the album bounces skittishly from half-song to half-song as Tin Pan Alley and psychedelic rock shake hands through the medium of sensitive singer/songwriter and all agree to near-equal turns at the wheel.
In the second half we get the blue-eyed soul version of power-pop (Does Anybody Love You) and that terrific run through the medley of soul tunes – Curtis Mayfield (I’m So Proud) and the Delfonics (La La Means I Love You) and songs the audience can relax down into. Of course this audience knows every hiccup and jerk to even the weirdest and most wonderful of the songs here (You Need Your Head’s rock riff, Rock and Roll Pussy’s keyboard and guitar dueling, Dogfight Giggle’s inner-monologue madness of cackling electronica, You Don’t Have to Camp Around’s gay-punning singalong). So they’re already well on board before Zen Archer hurtles off on the shriek of a runaway sax, and still hanging on strong for Hungry For Love’s piano-driven, doo-wop informed sparkle, or I Don’t Want To Tie You Down’s softer balladry.
That one person could conceive this run of music was such a thing in and of itself, but to concoct it for the stage – some 35 years on and then still sound in such surprisingly great voice too…well, that’s Todd! And Rundgren’s most concise version of his brilliant musical madness still baffles and blows minds here in this finally-presented version of the live shows.
Still wizarding. Still being a true star.
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Rob Simonsen
The Way Back (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Watertower Music
The Way Back was an okay movie, an occasionally ‘good’ or at least thoughtful movie – but where it’s been heralded as a great sports drama, the real story was the one of addiction and attempts at redemption; not really a sports drama at all then. But the drama was so well served and at times set up by Rob Simonsen’s score. In fact, as good as Ben Affleck was (and it’s a solid performance from him) the real star of this movie, for me, from opening notes, was the music. Read More
ML Buch
Skinned
Anyines
One of the great fallacies is the idea that electronic music could only seem icy and detached. Sure, that can – intentionally – be a component of the sound, but where the style was once some sort of outlier it’s now best-positioned to provide poignancy and comment on how we live; we’ve caught up to it. Or something. That’s very much the case with ML Buch’s debut long-player, her songs and instrumental segues appearing as warm, thoughtful connections and comments on the human condition. Never icy. Never detached. Marie Louise Buch, a Danish-born, now Berlin-based composer, musician and vocalist creates pop songs and hides them inside glitch-free electronica glides; the music liquid-like in its flow, the lyrics speaking directly to and from the human condition. Read More
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton
The Heart’s Wash: Solo Guitar Works
(Independent / Bandcamp)
Guitarist Joshua Chuquimia Crampton has had the idea/s for this record for more than a decade – he first began tinkering around with some of the concepts towards a solo guitar record in 2011 but shelved it. You might have heard some of his guitar playing in the contributions to his sister’s records (poet and electronic composer/musician, Elysia Crampton). Read More
Michael Rother
Dreaming
Groenland Records
Michael Rother is, just casually, a superstar. Founding member of Neu! And in some people’s world that alone is enough. Add in his work as part of Harmonia, the fact he was in an early version of Kraftwerk and his 10 solo albums over the last 40 years – including film soundtracks and special edition singles and side-projects and collaborations and, well, it’s an impeccable track-record. Read More
Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so this most recent session probably marked five years. I’ll check and see if I got a bonus…
Anyway, for my final review-segment of 2020 I talked about Billie Holiday – twice. In a way. A bit odd perhaps, but she was one of my favourite and most listened to artists in this strange years. Read More
Frank Zappa
A Very Zappa Birthday (ep)
UMG Recordings, Inc.
Had he still been alive, Frank Zappa would have celebrated his 80th birthday this month. As we know he barely made it into his 50s. As we know from watching any of the clips from the talk show appearances he made in the 1980s he’s missed as much for his mind as his music and for a guy that seemed to arrive fully formed and belligerent to, erm, be frank, it was so clear his journey was one of constantly evolving. Even if you’ll never care for his music there’s his political outlook which has continued to seem influential. Read More
Nellie McKay
Bagatelles (ep)
PALMETTO+
While people like Amanda Palmer go for attention and gimmick themselves out as a covers-clown with a uke or available via Twitter 24/7 for the AMAs that only the truly desperate could want, Nellie McKay’s actual genius seems vastly under-heard, under-appreciated, under-discovered. Read More