Play For Today – Current Playlist 8th February 2017

  The world is not making me very happy at present (my thoughts on all that are covered to an extent here, so I won’t go on about it) – but I am still enjoying music at least, so here’s a selection of things that…

Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part One)

Last year, I ended up writing multiple ‘releases of the year’ lists because I kept forgetting great things and having to add more posts to include them. I feel like keeping it (relatively) concise this year but will probably end up doing the same again….

Not the Releases of the Year 2016

  ‘Album of the year’ lists are fine for representing a specific time period in music, and interesting because of how personal and subjective they are  – an element which becomes eroded by time, as is easily seen from the consensus found in the majority of ‘great albums…

Play For Today – Playlist December 9th 2016

1. Jesca Hoop – Memories Are Now (Sub Pop, Feb 2017)   Not listened to it many times yet, but the forthcoming album from singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop is sounding pretty good so far 2. David Bowie – Diamond Dogs (RCA, 1974) The death throes of Bowie’s glam…

Releases of the Year 2016! Preliminary note…

2016 – oh well; at least there was lots of good music released this year (and it’s still coming!) As usual, I probably won’t put my favourite releases of the year in any order (apart from the number one ‘release of the year’ itself. I know…

Album Review: Rachel Mason – Das Ram

 Rachel Mason ‘Das Ram’ Cleopatra Records (LP) / Practical Records (cassette) Release date: 18 November 2016 Rachel Mason has done so much work in so many fields (performance art/non-performance art/filmmaking/music/etc/etc – check out her website for a cross-section) that it’s easy to immerse oneself in her work….

Play for Today: 21st January 2016

  It’s fair to say the past week or so of my listening (and writing) has been derailed somewhat by the passing of David Bowie. There’s been (and is) so much online about the mawkishness/validity of feeling bereaved over the death of Bowie/famous people in…

The Slinky Vagabond: David Bowie 1947-2016

I was listening to David Bowie on the way to work today; I would have been doing that anyway. The fact that his death was reported on the news this morning did make the listening horribly poignant though. And even more, it made me notice just…

For Whom The Cowbell Tolls…

Thanks for this article are owed to Jamie Cowey (for the title) and the anonymous person whose enlightening comments on my original version of this have been incorporated into the section on Honky Tonk Woman… AND SO… The cowbell has presumably been part of the…