“Collector of the Light” is based around what sounds like a treated bass guitar. As the neck is moved up and down, multiple notes are plucked at once. The instrument’s sound is subaquatic, wobbly. Over this, a distant, echoey voice sings of being the “collector of light”, restoring dreams and “silver points of wonder”. Atmospherically and structurally, a parallel is the 1968 13th Floor Elevators’ single “May the Circle Remain Unbroken”.

As the music industry slips into the rhythm of lockdown, so the spigot slowly becomes untapped and events, livestreams and similar start to flow more steadily. This week a host of big names are up to a bunch of different stuff, all worth checking. Dive in!

A Theatre for Dreamers/Von Trapped Family Livestream + Dave Gilmour Live at Pompeii

“Like mellotrons before them, synthesisers could project a strange and deep emotion – something in the wiring had an inherent melancholy. Previous generations had often disparaged synths as dehumanising machines but, at the turn of the 80s, a new generation of musicians appeared who could coax them into creating modern and decidedly moving music.

Midway through another week of lockdown, here's a cross section of small good things to keep the eyes and ears entertained. There's some lively stuff here for the old grey matter to chew on. Take a look. Dive in!

Neil Young Fireside Sessions

Even though nothing on Tape Archive Essence 1973–1978 was released at the time it was recorded, every track evokes material which was issued. Any fan of the German legends Cluster and Harmonia needs this album gathering extracts from tapes key member Hans-Joachim Roedelius recorded on his own during the period when both outfits were active.

When I saw that the Berlin Philharmonic had thrown open the doors to its virtual concert hall the thing that most interested me was to see some Karajan. When I was a child in the mid-1980s I lived for a while in Berlin and my father took me to the Philharmonie several times. I remember seeing Karajan, then in the final years of his long Berlin reign.

ZZ Top always seemed like a Texan version of Status Quo. It turns out, from watching this entertaining but hardly revelatory documentary, that is kind of what they are.

Netflix’s ReMastered series is one of the streaming channel’s undersung gems.

“Whipped cream with knives” is how Harold Prince, who directed the Broadway premiere of A Little Night Music in 1973, famously described this particular Sondheim show. And nowhere is that borne out with more exquisite agony than in this duet between two unhappily married women.

Coming in at around four hours, in two parts, this 2015 documentary is ostensibly about Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, but really, via the prism of his existence, it’s as much about America’s journey through the first two thirds of the 20^th century.