I’ve got an admission: I never really got Radiohead, in no small part because of Thom Yorke’s singing. I appreciate his technical abilities and songwriting, and that a lot of people find his anguish cathartic, but the more he goes for it the more I switch off.
“Sandra” is one of my favourite tracks from my album Between The Moon and the Milkman which was released last year. While living in Paris a few years ago I shared a flat with an older French lady. We loved to chat every night when I came home from work, but one time she told me a story that stayed with me about her late husband, who was an abusive alcoholic. When he died, his only final wishes were to be buried. So of course, she had him cremated.
There’s this mod milieu, harking back to the Eighties. Weller at the forefront; Dr Robert and his Blow Monkeys; all righteously hate Thatcher; then the electronically groovy 1990s arrive; Acid Jazz Records; boss mod Eddie Piller; his collection of snappily dressed muso's who magazines wrote about and who nearly had hits. These sorts are still about, endlessly churning out music. It’s impressive. Sometimes the music is too. As with this album.
For lovers of British folk from the 1970s on, Peter Knight is a potent force – renowned for his years with Steeleye Span, in their 1970s heyday and from 1980 through to 2013’s classic set written with Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith.
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Rattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)
Langenu are a black metal band. On stage at Estonia’s Tallinn Music Week, they are fearsome. Blood-vessel-burstingly intense. Tempering their force with twists into progressive, psychedelic-adjacent territory, they are a band any rock fan would dig.
Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is an ambitious reinvention that both captivates and, at times, frustrates. Following Isaac Wood’s departure, the band leans into a more collaborative and folk-inspired direction, trading their post-punk chaos for something more delicate and introspective. It’s a bold move, and one that yields some truly beautiful moments, even if the overall experience doesn’t fully resonate.
A pizzicato violin opens Song Over Støv. Gradually, other instruments arrive: bowed violin, a fluttering flute, pattering percussion, an ominous double bass. They merge. The climax is furious, intensely rhythmic. Suddenly, it is over.
America – the pro-wrestling-ass nation, the ultimate society of the spectacle – famously likes things big, and modern country and western music has gone along with that. Big hats, big trucks, big sentiment, big pop production, very big sales indeed, and not a lot in the way of subtlety. But country also has a parallel history, of course: as music of the little guy, the theatre of the domestic, a place for preservation of simple folk traditions in the face of the overwhelming scale of modernity.