Music Reissues Weekly: White Noise - An Electric Storm

WHITE NOISE - AN ELECTRIC STORM Delia Derbyshire climbs on board for a tilt at the pop market

BBC Radiophonic legend Delia Derbyshire climbs on board for a tilt at the pop market

An Electric Storm opens with “Love Without Sound.” Once heard, it’s unforgettable. A disembodied voice which could be either female or male sings about making love without sound. There are female-sounding squawks and yelps. Revolving percussion sounds like drain pipes being hit by toffee hammers. The other instrumentation is clearly electronically generated. And, it has a tune.

Album: Blues Pills - Birthday

Swedish-American quartet reinvent retro-rock to their own catchy formula

Swedish-American four-piece Blues Pills are new to this writer but have been around since 2011. Their fourth album makes me wonder why.

Lady in the Lake, Apple TV+ review - a multi-layered Baltimore murder mystery

★★★★ LADY IN THE LAKE, APPLE TV+ A multi-layered Baltimore murder mystery

Natalie Portman stars in screen adaptation of Laura Lippman's novel

Laura Lippman’s source novel for Apple’s new drama became a New York Times bestseller when it was published in 2019, and director Alma Har’el’s screen realisation has fashioned it into an absorbing dive into various social, racial and political aspects of mid-Sixties America.

Music Reissues Weekly: Barry Ryan - The Albums 1969-1979

BARRY RYAN - THE ALBUMS 1969-1979 Musical drama personified

Musical drama personified

In April 1985, The Damned’s Dave Vanian was speaking with Janice Long on her BBC Radio 1 show. He said “Barry Ryan and Paul Ryan have been sadly forgotten. Everyone waxes lyrical about Scott Walker which is marvellous but this is absolutely superb. There’s a tension in there, it starts off pretty but it grabs you after a while.”

Album: Deep Purple - =1

★★★ DEEP PURPLE =1 Good-humoured chunky set of feisty rockin' from the old war-horses

Good-humoured chunky set of feisty rockin' from the old war-horses

Ever since their 2013 album Now What?! hard rock veterans Deep Purple have been on a roll, both creatively and commercially. They’ve seemed a revitalised force. An album of covers aside, their output since has also sold/streamed multitudes. Not bad for a unit that’s been going for 56 years, with a stable line-up for well over 30. Their latest album is more enjoyable and feistier than cynics might imagine. It’s business as usual, of course, but Deep Purple wear their heritage with aplomb.

Fly Me to the Moon review - NASA gets a Madison Avenue makeover

★★★★ FLY ME TO THE MOON How politics and propaganda drove America's race into space

How politics and propaganda drove America's race into space

It’s over 50 years since men last landed on our orbiting space-neighbour, but director Greg Berlanti's Fly Me to the Moon transports us back to the feverish days in 1969 when Apollo 11 was about to tackle the feat for the first time. The film’s promo material rather misleadingly bills it as “a sparkling rom-com”, but it has a few other strings to its bow.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Cryin’ Shames - Please Stay, Do The Strum! - Joe Meek's Girl Groups and Pop Chanteuses

The fabled Tea Chest Tapes yield more bounty

Liverpool’s The Cryin’ Shames were responsible for two of mid-Sixties Britain’s most striking single’s tracks. The February 1966 top side “Please Stay” was so eerie, so wraithlike it came across as an attempt to channel the experience of making successful contact with a spirit presence. “Come on Back,” an unpolished September 1966 B-side, could pass for US garage punk at its most paint-peeling.

The Bikeriders review - beer, brawls and Harley-Davidsons

★★★ THE BIKERIDERS Beer, brawls and Harley-Davidsons

Austin Butler is leader of the pack in Jeff Nichols' biker-gang bonanza

The best-known book about motorcycle gangs is Hunter S Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, a classic foundational text of the so-called “New Journalism”. It was published in 1966, two years before Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders, the source material for Jeff Nichols’ new movie. Lyon (now 82) was primarily a photographer, but in this case accompanied his pictures with interviews with his subjects.

Music Reissues Weekly: Margo Guryan - Words and Music

MARGO GURYAN The jazz composer who changed tack to embrace Sixties pop

Lavish box set dedicated to the jazz composer who changed tack to embrace Sixties pop

Late summer 1966. Jazz was Margo Guryan’s thing. She was not interested in pop music. This changed when she was played The Beach Boys’s “God Only Knows.” Amazed by what she heard, she tuned in to pop radio for the first time. Her head was further turned by The Beatles and The Mamas & the Papas. A copy of “God Only Knows’s” parent album Pet Sounds was bought.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Beatles - Stowe School 1963

THE BEATLES - STOWE SCHOOL 1963 A schoolboy’s momentous tape recording

A schoolboy’s momentous tape recording

“We hope if you like it, you'll buy it,” says Paul McCartney. It’s 4 April 1963 and The Beatles are on stage and about to perform their third single “From Me to You.” It’s out in a week.

To his left, John Lennon instantly responds to the entreaty. “And if you don't like it,” he retorts. “Don't buy it.”