It’s time for your six-monthly review…

  What a shock; I haven’t even slightly kept up with weekly (or even monthly) updates on here and now we’re in July already. Everything in the world seems so grim that it’s hard to actually do anything at all so I shall fall back on…

Anatomy of an Earworm

Despite the title, this isn’t really about earworms as such – although they certainly have a place here – this is to do with the background music/soundtrack to your – or my – life. There are serious, life-changing conditions like ‘Musical Ear Syndrome” (kind of…

Play For Today – Current Playlist, 12th January 2017

  Currently working on several more substantial articles, but in the meantime, here’s what I’ve been listening to in the last little while; which quite a lot of actually new music, as it turns out… Julia Kent – Asperities (The Leaf Label, 2015) – a…

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

  Here are some more of the things I thought were good this year Vaguely (or very) shoegaze-related releases of the year I didn’t like the term ‘shoegaze’ back in the early 90s and I don’t like it now. I dislike ‘dreampop’ even more. Neo-shoegaze…

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…

Weekly Update: Halloween Horror – Outsider Music & Venusian Death Cell

It’s Halloween next week; and what better time to write a few words about the parallel universe of outsider music? ‘Outsider music’ is one of those nebulous but still quite useful terms that litter the language of music. Like “singer-songwriter”, it doesn’t really denote a…

Tea-table Books 1: Dust & Grooves by Eilon Paz

  Tea-table* books is an occasional series devoted to the best books for casually enjoying while relaxing with a hot beverage. Usually large format and illustrated (yes, just like ‘coffee table books’), the best tea-table books are of course just as good when read from cover-to-cover, but…