Review: Mumford & Sons drop a surprise single release alongside Pharrell Williams, 'Good People', delivering on a long-awaited promise to hop in the studio together after years of knowing each other. Finally falling back on their immediate instincts, 'Good People' hears the band and the solo wunderkind sing of tiredness and revelation, making adept use of a dry, driving, sportsmanlike instrumental palette (think hand claps, stomps, gospel harmonies). Though cryptic in theme, the mood on this one-off is one of triumph and impending miracle works to come.
Review: Pearl Jam's latest is an up-tempo rocker with a catchy melody and introspective lyrics about the search for meaning in a dark and uncertain world. Full of imagery of darkness and light, the song builds to a powerful crescendo at the end. The B-side of the single features an instrumental version of the song, is just as powerful as the original, and it gives fans a chance to appreciate the song's intricate musical arrangements. A reminder that Pearl Jam are still one of the most vital and relevant bands in rock music today.
Review: DJ Slow, JA-Jazz, and Jame Spectrum may not be household names across the world, but those who follow Pepe Deluxe seem willing to follow them to the ends of multiple sonic spectrums, and then push through into the Other Side together. The trio, better known as Finnish electronic music obscuros Pepe Deluxe, have been making beats and other pieces since around 1996, first garnering a name for themselves with an infectious combination of hip hop, breakbeat, downtempo and big beat.By 2007, when they released their third album, Spare Time Machine, the remit had changed, slightly, and was less interested in sampling, more concerned with revitalising old school music genres like psyche, baroque pop and surf rock. Freedom Flag brings us up to date, circa 2024, and it seems there's enough room for both approaches, with this two-tracker rooted in everything from trip hop to brass-topped indie.
Review: Emotional Rescue returns to early 1980s Manchester with the previously unreleased music of Michael James Pollard and his beautiful distillation of indie pop in Too Confusing and bedsit cover version of Ashford and Simpson's Surrender.
While studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic, (MJ) Pollard lived and played in a band in a ramshackle house in Walley Range. In the cellar studio he would write and record his own songs using their guitars, fretless bass and keys, as well as his own Casio VL-Tone VL-1 and Simmons Clap Trap to augment his drums onto a 4 track TEAC.
By 1983, and now solo, he was recording out of Dislocation Dance's studio (ERC111), had secured a Peel Session and via Factory Records' Lindsay Reade, was discussing with Fundacao Atlantica about releasing an album.
Working with singer Sioux Goddard as a duo, they put down 8 songs in 2 weeks in summer '84. However, Fundacao Atlantica's financial difficulties and soon closure meant the songs were lost until now.
Recovered off the original tapes and lovingly restored, Too Confusing captures the optimism of the sessions, a summer love melody of forlorn youth. Surrender accompanies, recorded back in that cellar in '81, with friend Stephanie Danziger on vocals, its lo-fi simplicity is a perfect take on an all-time classic, making this a newly prized gem of British indie pop history.
Review: Portishead's limited edition 10" vinyl release showcases live renditions of 'Sour Times' and 'Roads', capturing the band's signature trip-hop essence. Recorded in 1998 at The Warfield in San Francisco and Norway's Quart Festival, the tracks highlight Beth Gibbons' haunting vocals and the group's atmospheric instrumentation. The minimalist red sleeve with debossed cover adds a tactile dimension, making it a must-have for collectors and fans seeking a tangible connection to Portishead's live artistry.
Review: London retro soul specialists PREP almost feel lost in the 2020s. Everything from their sound, which is pretty unique in today's musical landscape, to release and merchandise artwork screams mid-late-20th Century modernism, owing as much to the crimson and purple-hued aesthetics of classic Miami iconography as anything more recent years have offered us. Meanwhile, aurally speaking, their output straddles lines between funk, soul, synth pop and yacht (those who know, will know), all of which have an ability to conjure strong images of easier, simpler times gone by. 'As It Was', a cover of the Harry Styles pop anthem, takes things into particularly seductive, slap bass and sax infused atmospheres, the air thick with intimate suggestion, which may or may not conjure thoughts of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' letting loose at a boat party.
Review: Primal Scream's Dixie-Narco EP was released in 1992 and is an often rather overlooked gem from the band's output in the early 90s. It was laid down at Memphis's Ardent Studios and was an experimental continuation of the sounds they had explored on their legendary Screamadelica album. Everything form country blues to acid house to rock gets distilled across the four tunes, and there is even a rare Dennis Wilson cover included. The EP has long been out of print and very hard to find but thanks to this special Record Store Day reissue - a first since 1992 - fans can now add it to their collection.
Review: DFA Records prime mysterious new Brighton signees Proper Monday Number with a sure start, flicking the proverbial Rube Goldberg machine into gear with a banging remix of their otherwise unreleased debut track 'High Horse'. Here, of course, it's LCD Soundsystem / DFA's very own James Murphy at the remix controls, together with resident DFA DJ and "decent human" Matt Cash. Toolroom dance moods extend over a lusciously simple seven minutes, bringing home FM stabs and LinnDrum faceslaps aplenty. And the lyrics: "stop what you're doing now... you ain't got no crown! get off your high horse! turn this ship around!" In our day and age, we need more anti-stagnation, ego-teardown anthems like this, so we welcome the sentiment by the masked duo.
Review: Proper Monday Number is one of Brighton's most acclaimed electronic duo and here it teams Suzi Horn of cult DFA's Prinzhorn Dance School with producer Christoph Boseley. Their Deep Clean Your House EP packs five sharp, DIY dance-pop tracks into a tight 15 minutes of no filler, all fire heat for the 'floor. Mixing mid-2000s electro, bassline and a touch of nostalgia for 90s house vibes, it channels the gritty energy of your teenage bedroom's busted speakers. But this isn't just a throwback, it's a fresh, cynical-smashing blast of attitude and energy. Fun served up with a serious purpose that cannot fail to energise you to your core.
Review: If there's an indie band we needed back right now, surely it's Pulp. For many, the name invokes memories of Britpop fever, but to the trained ear Jarvis Cocker and his crew could not have been further removed from the brash, ballsy movement that dominated charts in the mid-late-1990s. Prior to their catapulting into the common conscious with 'Common People' and the albums Different Class and This Is Hardcore, the Sheffield outfit had been rejected and largely ignored by the masses. The irony being they probably represented the average British experience more than any other outfit they would temporarily be lumped in with as the Oases and Blurs of our world exploded. A long time coming, the return references an infamous Stone Roses gig in 1990 and aptly focuses on disappointment and the perils of nostalgia with typically leftfield, theatrical crooning. Member berries be warned, they see you and we do too.
Review: Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray's Sons Of Slough project has done plenty of tinkering in the intersection between club and dub music, and somewhere between all that Scottish rock perennials Primal Scream often find their own comfortable nook to stretch out. As such, this 12" seems like a natural course of events, even if it came about through the pure whimsy of a day-dreaming muso (Weatherall) wondering what would happen if an obscure bonus track got stripped down and sent through the echo chamber. Bobby Gillespie was into the idea, and this record was the end result. One for all Balearic head nodders and soundsystem meditators alike.
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