how it felt to be alive in February 2020

The correct response to the title here is of course it depends who you are and what you did. But anyway; in a February when the big news story was the alarming spread of coronavirus/COVID-19, which history will tell us is either – (a) a…

what January 2020 sounded like

  Despite the portentous title, this is a round up of things I was sent by nice PR people that sounded interesting, since I said at some point a while ago that I’d do this regularly (and why not?) so here they are, in alphabetical…

Play For Today: special summer bonanza edition Part One

  It’s been ages since I’ve posted a playlist, so I thought I’d change the format slightly. Background: I write about music a lot for various publications, but as a music journalist I also receive hundreds of promo type emails every week and, when something…

Weekly Update: Complicated Comforts

For a variety of reasons, it is being a slightly stressful, sleepless time, so I’ve been looking at things that are, in a variety of perhaps complicated ways, comforting or soothing (to me). I suppose comforting because it can be a relief to have one’s…

Play For Today – Current Playlist 3rd January 2017

  A new year, a (slightly) new look, yet another playlist! This time, things I am listening to as the year begins, including (naturally) some things that I got for Christmas… Patti Smith – Radio Ethiopia (Arista, 1976) 2. IC Rex – Tulen jumalat (Saturnal, 2017) 3. Aidan Baker w….

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….

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…

Weekly Wafflings

  For a variety of reasons, it’s been far longer than intended since I last posted anything here. So this is now the first of my weekly updates, which will mostly, I hope, be posted every Friday. It’s been a funny summer; a house move,…