Tuesday, September 16, 2025

IX TAB: Ropes, Rituals, and Inescapable Dread

Capricorni Pneumatici – ‘Ix Tab’, Eighth Tower Records I don’t often start reviews like this, but I think the accompanying text with this release speaks (in tongues) for itself: Ix Tab is an album dedicated to the mysterious Mayan deity, goddess of ropes and snares, and patroness of those who hang themselves. Originally released on […]

Beyond Telstar – The Horror and Western Themes of Joe Meek

Various – Joe Meek – A Curious Mind Outer Space! Horror! Death Discs! The Wild West! Demos!. Cherry Red Joe Meek, astronaut extraordinaire (in his Holloway flat), was the launchpad for some of British pop’s most eccentric experiments. But while the stars get most of the spotlight, A Curious Mind – a new 3CD box […]

The Residents Wage War on the 80s – American Composers Series 1982-1987

The Residents’ ‘American Composer’s Series‘ – Cherry Red There are bad years for music. Then there’s 1983. It was the year everything got airbrushed. Bowie traded Berlin’s paranoia for peroxide and pastel suits. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ was less an album than a an attempt to allocate him his own GDP.  UB40. Just…UB40. MTV had turned […]

Scratching that Itch – A Year in the Music of Lee Perry

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry Presents Confusion: The Jamaican Upsetter Singles 1971 One of the reasons I love music is the way that it captures an unrepeatable moment in time – thoughts, emotions, character, mistakes, genius, and madness saved forever, to be savoured long after everyone concerned has passed away. Little captures that feeling of peering into […]

Motown Who? Michigan’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Roots

va – Motor City is Burning A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972 If Motown’s brilliant PR is to be believed, Michigan’s contribution to music starts and ends with Detroit soul. Actually, that’s unfair. You’d get a token gesture of MC5 or maybe even The Stooges thrown in as well. Sorted. Except that Michigan was bristling with music […]