Music Reissues Weekly: Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM

CHISWICK RECORDS 1975-1982 - SEVEN YEARS AT 45 RPM The British independent label at 50

Triple-album 50th-anniversary celebration of the mould-breaking British independent label

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 - Seven Years at 45 RPM is a triple album marking the 50th anniversary of the first release on the titular label. That record was a four-track, seven-inch EP by the rough, Rolling Stones-ish pub rockers The Count Bishops. It came out in November 1975.

Album: Wolf Alice - Clearing

★★★★ WOLF ALICE - CLEARING Wolf Alice once again make magic from the familiar 

Ten years from their debut, Wolf Alice once again make magic from the familiar

Wolf Alice are a band who consistently over-deliver. Their presentation is so staid, their cited influences so safe (The Beatles! Blur!), their politics so “bad things are bad, m’kay?”, that they give every impression they’re going to be bland and generic.

Music Reissues Weekly: Chip Shop Pop - The Sound of Denmark Street 1970-1975

CHIP SHOP POP - THE SOUND OF DENMARK STREET 1970-1975 Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies

Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies

One of the more interesting tracks on Paul Weller’s fascinating new cover versions album Find El Dorado is his interpretation of “When You Are a King,” originally a 1971 hit for White Plains, an ensemble which evolved from the touring version of “Let’s go to San Francisco” hitmakers Flowerpot Men. White Plains, it turns out, are represented on another new release.

Album: Paul Weller - Find El Dorado

Inspiring curation of some pretty great covers, and hints of majesty

Paul Weller occupies a strange place in the cultural sphere. Especially since he was adopted as an elder statesman of Britpop in the mid 1990s, he’s been particularly beloved of a core audience whose tastes are extremely conservative. So much so, in fact, that middle-aged men who ape his classic mod haircuts are now a shorthand for meat-and-potatoes, Brexity, red-faced, pub-coke bloke-rock. Yet Weller himself is anything but conservative.

Music Reissues Weekly: Beggars Arkive - Gary Numan's 1979 John Peel session

BEGGAR'S ARKIVE Gary Numan's 1979 John Peel session

Saying goodbye to Tubeway Army

Tubeway Army’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” hit the top of the UK single’s chart in the last week of June 1979. It stayed there for four weeks. Its parent album, Replicas, lodged itself in the Top 75 for 31 weeks. In April, just as Replicas was out, Tubeway Army began recording demos for the next album: the band which had been assembled for the task debuted on BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test on 22 May.

Music Reissues Weekly: Motörhead - The Manticore Tapes

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY: MOTORHEAD - THE MANTICORE TAPES Snapshot of Lemmy and co in August 1976 proves fascinating

Snapshot of Lemmy and co in August 1976 proves fascinating

Manticore was owned by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and their manager. The organisation provided the name for the band’s label. Apart from ELP and its individual members, the best-known signees to the imprint were Italian prog-rockers PFM and former King Crimson member Pete Sinfield. Despite this new album’s title, Motörhead were not with Manticore.

Album: Mocky - Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1)

Is the Canadian polymath hiding behind his exquisite production and arrangement skill?

Dominic “Mocky” Salole has had a long career in which the tension between authenticity and pastiche has been a constant. Toronto-born, of English and Yemeni heritage, he came of musical age in the Bohemian hotbed of 1990s Berlin with a close-knit bunch of other Canadian ex-pats, including Peaches, Chilly Gonzales and Feist.

Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review - a top night with a characterful, very American blues rock queen

★★★ BONNIE RAITT, BRIGHTON DOME The US star concludes her UK tour with a rockin' south coast send-off

The US star concludes her UK tour with a rockin' south coast send-off

If you walked into a bar in the US, say in one of the southern states, and Bonnie Raitt and her band were playing, you’d have the best night of your life. They are the kind of purely American rhythm’n’blues experience, tempered with FM radio balladry, that somehow works best, and perhaps only, on those endless highways and dusty plains.

Stereophonic, Duke of York's Theatre review - rich slice of creative life delivered by a 1970s rock band

★★★★★ STEREOPHONIC, DUKE OF YORK'S THEATRE David Adjmi's clever and compelling hit play gets a crack London cast

David Adjmi's clever and compelling hit play gets a crack London cast

The tag “the most Tony-nominated play of all time” may mean less to London theatregoers than it does to New Yorkers, but Stereophonic, newly arrived at the Duke of York’s, deserves the accolade wherever it plays.

Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain review - revelations of a weird and wonderful world

★★★★ ITHELL COLQUHOUN, TATE BRITAIN Revelations of a weird and wonderful world

Emanations from the unconscious

Tate Britain is currently offering two exhibitions for the price of one. Other than being on the same bill, Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun having nothing in common other than being born a year apart and being oddballs – in very different ways. And since both reward focused attention, this makes for a rather exhausting outing – I’m reviewing them separately – so gird your loins.