Music Reissues Weekly: Too Much Sun Will Burn - The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 Volume 2

An endlessly mined seam comes up with the goods - yet again

Together or separately, British psychedelia and 1967’s related music have been ceaselessly looked at. There cannot be an awful lot more to say. Nonetheless, the law of diminishing returns is there for ignoring so herewith the follow-up to the 2016 box set Let’s Go Down & Blow Our Minds.

Music Reissues Weekly: Duffy Power - Innovations, Live at the BBC

DUFFY POWER - INNOVATIONS, LIVE AT THE BBC Additions to great blues-jazz stylist's catalogue

Essential additions to the great British blues-jazz stylist's catalogue

Sometime in early October 1963 John Lennon and Paul McCartney encountered The Rolling Stones and offered them one of their songs; one which became the London blues aficionado’s second single. “I Wanna be Your Man” was duly recorded on 7 October 1963 and released on 1 November. Thanks to The Beatles, the Stones charted for the first time. A Liverpool-London, north-south divide had been breached.

Music Reissues Weekly: Stranger In Town - A Del Shannon Compendium

A DEL SHANNON COMPANION Baroque wonders, haunted psychodrama & garage-punk power

Baroque wonders, haunted psychodrama and garage-punk power

After Del Shannon took his own life in February 1990 at age 55, some obituaries were careful to point out that he stood apart from other pop stars who were big in pre-Beatles America. “The most tragic thing would be for Del Shannon to be lumped with, as he sometimes was in the past, all the Bobbys and Frankies and the other teen idols,” said the L.A. Weekly.

Standing at the Sky's Edge, National Theatre review - razor-sharp musical with second-act woes

 STANDING AT THE SKY'S EDGE, NATIONAL THEATRE Chris Bush and Richard Hawley write a love letter to a friendly and flawed hometown 

Chris Bush and Richard Hawley write a love letter to a friendly and flawed hometown

Buildings can hold memories, the three dimensions of space supplemented by the fourth of time. Ten years ago, I started every working week with a meeting in a room that, for decades, had been used to conduct autopsies – I felt a little chill occasionally, as we dissected figures rather than bodies, ghosts lingering, as they do. 

Music Reissues Weekly: Padang Moonrise - The Birth of the Modern Indonesian Recording Industry

PADANG MOONRISE The Birth of the Modern Indonesian Recording Industry

Eye-opening compilation where knowing the context is essential

“Ka Huma” by Ivo Nilakreshna sounds as if a jazz band was taking on rock ’n’ roll. There’s a swing and sway, busy rhythm guitar and a lead female voice singing a yearning melody. An instrument which seems to vibes is in there. But there’s more than the familiar elements. Most of the influences are unrecognisable.

Music Reissues Weekly: George Martin - A Painter In Sound

GEORGE MARTIN - A PAINTER IN SOUND Dizzying pre-Beatles tribute to the musical polymath

Dizzying pre-Beatles tribute to the musical polymath

A strange new single went on sale in Britain’s record shops in April 1962. Credited to Ray Cathode, “Time Beat” combined a metronomic rhythm with peculiar, otherworldly sounds. It was not a standard pop record. The flipside, “Waltz In Orbit”, was also about its tempo and was just as weird. Not many copies were sold.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Best of 2022

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY: THE BEST OF 2022 It was about more than The Beatles

It was about more than The Beatles

The Beatles loomed over everything else. It wasn’t inevitable, but the arrival of the revealing Revolver box set and Peter Jackson’s compelling Get Back film confirmed that there is more to say about what’s known, and also that there are new things to say about popular music’s most inspirational phenomenon of the 20th century.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Mirage - The World Goes On Around You

THE MIRAGE - THE WORLD GOES ON AROUND YOU Exhaustive excavation into Hertfordshire’s ill-served Sixties psychedelic pop band

Exhaustive excavation into Hertfordshire’s ill-served Sixties psychedelic pop band

Each new Beatles album offered a chance for other acts to record their own versions of songs which didn’t make it onto singles. What was on the long-player could pick up attention if it was covered. Revolver was no exception. Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers’s version of “Got to Get You Into my Life” was in the charts the August 1966 week Revolver was issued.