Back catalogue: All genres

Review: As part of a new looking back on German art rocker Nico's esteemed career by the indie label Domino, Desertshore chronologically follows The Marble Index, and is her third album, following the prior project's establishing her as an avant-garde artist with one foot in the mainstream, in stark defiance of the the prejudiced poo-poohs that followed her first (baroque pop) album, Chelsea Girl. Desertshore is more of a reconciliation of her prior two projects, bringing back the initial western pop sensibility while now firmly basking in a newfound weirdness-and-she-knows-it. From the opening dark waves of 'Janitor Of Lunacy' to the piano-balladic injection of sadness that is 'Afraid', this is another avant-garde masterpiece by the musician, never justifiably passed over.

Review: Nico's Marble Index was the first album to establish the German musician's home in the avant-garde; the story of the fashion model turned "legitimate" artist is as old as time, yet is rarely told today. In contrast to her first album, Chelsea Girl, which consisted almost entirely of pop chansons, Nico's sophomore LP here tracks nicely with her working introduction to John Cale in his harmonium era, drawing inspiration primarily from modern European classical music, not three-minute hookcraft. Long out of print, this slow-burner of a critical classic now hears a worthy reissue via Domino.

Review: The only album Nico gave us that didn't feature John Cale was a visionary piece of work. Not for a moment suggesting the absence of her regular collaborator improved things, but Drama of Exile certainly saw the iconic German musician, singer and songwriter move in some different and very new directions. Enlisting the help of Philippe Quilichini, a Corsican bassist, and introducing a Middle Eastern rhythm section definitely helped, but ultimately you can't help feeling this was an album she was always supposed to make. That voice, once described by the critic Richard Goldstein as sounding like "a cello getting up in the morning", was perfect for what had come before, but as the focal point of experiments in coldwave, synthwave, goth and new wave, it seems to take on new resonance and power. A thing of obscure beauty that deserves every bit of this repressing.

Review: The highly respected Northern English music journalist John Robb once described The Nightingales as "the misfits' misfits". In a small part, this is probably owing to the relentless changes in lineup the group have experienced since forming in Birmingham in 1979. However, that's really quite a reductive reading of the statement. Realistically, the post punk outfit just don't quite match their peers, with a take on the genre that incorporates elements of folk and gypsy rock.

Or at least that's our reading. Agree or not, In The Good Old Country Way was the outfit's third studio album, and at the time of its original release (1986), was recognised among their most polished and refined work. Nevertheless, it still sounds like a raw and rather uncompromising workout, sweat-soaked and dirty, experimental but really just aimed at making you spill your drink.

Review: "NINE INCH NAILS' GROUNDBREAKING DEBUT ALBUM
REMASTERED AND RE-RELEASED

Fans can now revisit the conception of Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor's Null Corporation has teamed with UMe/The Bicycle Music Company to release Pretty Hate Machine: 2010 Remaster on November 22, 2010. After completing the score for David Fincher's The Social Network, Reznor oversaw the digital remastering of Pretty Hate Machine from the newly unearthed original tapes with engineer Tom Baker (whose NIN credits include The Downward Spiral, Broken, The Fragile, With Teeth and Ghosts). This remastered version includes an eleventh track, a cover of Queen's ''Get Down Make Love,'' originally the B-side to the ''Sin'' single and produced by Al Jourgensen. Rob Sheridan, NIN's longtime art director, has also re-imagined the packaging of Pretty Hate Machine under Reznor's supervision.

As a young musician in Cleveland, Ohio, Reznor took a job at a local recording studio and employed unused studio time to develop his own material. The nascent album was later recorded with his favorite producers including Flood/Mark Ellis (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey), John Fryer (Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil), Adrian Sherwood (Ministry, Cabaret Voltaire) and Keith LeBlanc (Tackhead). The result was the first Nine Inch Nails album, 1989's Pretty Hate Machine. All songs were written, arranged, programmed and performed by Reznor. The album featured the breakthrough singles ''Sin,'' ''Down In It'' and ''Head Like A Hole,'' and ultimately sold over 3 million copies, reaching Triple Platinum sales status. In the wake of the album's initial underground success, NIN soon developed a reputation as one of the best live acts in rock and joined the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in 1991. NIN have since sold more than 18 million albums, collected Grammy® Awards and headlined arenas, amphitheaters and festivals worldwide.

The Bicycle Music Company acquired the rights to Pretty Hate Machine from a division of Prudential Securities in the spring of 2010. It was Bicycle's intention from the onset to enable Reznor to regain some control of this lost piece of NIN's legacy, resulting in this artist approved 2010 reissue of one of music's most groundbreaking and influential albums.

Reznor is currently working on new music as a member of the group How To Destroy Angels, continuing his Nine Inch Nails efforts and composing for future film score projects.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Head Like A Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down In It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want To
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. The Only Time
10. Ringfinger
11. Get Down Make Love"

Review: "I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring," David Bowie famously quipped at his 50th Birthday concert in Madison Square Garden. That was 1997, and sadly we can now look back at the years between then and now as the last the icon would enjoy, although given the pantheons of unreleased material, music and other, we still have more than his legacy alone to learn from. He certainly kept his word, then, not least by opting to work with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, a band that found inspiration in myriad styles and sounds, from Human League to Pink Floyd, carving out a 'industrial electronic rock' niche for themselves. In addition to tours and one-off shows, recordings of their collaborations are remarkable, generating fresh wholes from the enormous sums of these parts.

Review: Nirvana still seems cool as fuck all these many decades after their frontman died. Their musical legacy lives on each time a new generation licks into the grunt chromes of the music, or each time we get a reissue or special limited edition picture disc album like the one. It is a very real and raw recording from their show at Hollywood Rock Festival which was actually held at Paca da Apoteose, Rio de Janeiro on 23rd January 1993. Plenty of the band's classics made the setlist and they sound as sleazy and gritty as ever on this recording.

Review: The third, controversial final album from Seattle's Nirvana should require little to no introduction. Repressed, remastered and redefined again and again, the Steve Albini-produced, mainstream-eschewing swansong has become one of the ugliest left-turns the 90's grunge scene ever spat up, and the subject of much heated internal fan debate over which is the definitive version. Celebrating its 30-year anniversary with a super-deluxe box set, boasting eight LPs made up of additional live performances as well as a myriad of memorabilia from the In Utero era, for the more lackadaisical collectors, there's this single LP gatefold pressing in a premium 'tip-on' sleeve similar to 2021's reissue of Nevermind, which comes with a bonus 10" of b-sides also featured on the monstrous deluxe edition.

Review: Despite the personal problems we now know Kurt Cobain was suffering at the time and which would eventually drag the band into oblivion, Nirvana sound pretty much on top of their game on this broadcast of a Japanese show from February 1992. The set list revolves around tracks from the international bestselling Nevermind album but anyone who thought global recognition might have seen the band polish up and bland out would be sorely mistaken - raucous, distorted and blessed by a vocal performance that veers from disdainful to hysterical, from opener 'Negative Creep' to the 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' that closes it, they're 100% chaotic punk rock energy.

Review: Nirvana's legacy is one of the most compelling of any 20th Century rock band. The voice(s) of a disillusioned generation weaned to sickness on processed culture, ending in tragedy, the ferociously powerful combination of music and message has understandably been long-lasting and still influences people today, but the albums-proper, and sad conclusion, usually dominate conversations about the group's work. Incesticide is proof of how much we're forgetting. Comprising demos, outtakes, cover versions, radio broadcasts, the 1990 non-album single, 'Silver', among other things, much of what's here was circulating among fans in low quality formats prior to the compilation's formal release in 1992, and goes some way to showing off the breadth and scope Nirvana were capable of. An education for the committed and unconvinced alike, grab it while you can.