VINYL OF THE MONTH
Manduria Bite Me (Wild Honey)
The debut from Milan punkers Manduria is a six-tracker haemorrhaging rock’n’roll cheek and sass. They riff and fuzz and bang about without a care in the world, shouting and revelling in reverb mess, howling like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins while cranking up the amps like The Cramps, the rhythm section indulging in a mono-stomp that penetrates the inner brain like Joe Pesci’s vice. There’s a track called “I Hate to Think” and you don’t need to. On “Buongiorno” they slow things down for a dip into Link Wray instrumental twang but otherwise it’s all ballistic, closing with the demented two-step Balkan-beat goonery of “New Born”. A gig by this lot would be a must. Come to Britain, please, Manduria!
CHRISTMAS VINYL OF THE MONTH
The Coral Christmas on Coral Island/She Died on Christmas Day (Run On)
Mersey outfit The Coral have maintained success for a quarter of a century so it’s about time they took a sally at a seasonal single. The A-side is a spoken word affair narrated by James Murray, the late grandfather of the band’s Ian and James Skelly. It’s a sequel of sorts to his narration of their recent concept albums, most especially 2021’s Coral Island, and is ripe with nostalgia-infused imagery and hope for troubled times, looking to the future, but it’s the B-side that shows off the group’s songcraft. Entitled “She Died on Christmas Day”, it’s about someone who “haunts every Christmas now she’s gone” and exists somewhere between the 1950s of Joe Meek and Roy Orbison, rendered over a simple dramatic retro chug, giving off kitsch-leaning drama. One could imagine a tinsel-strewn Marc Almond covering it. Which is not a bad idea.
VINYL REVIEWS
Joe Harvey-Whyte & Paul Cousins In a Fugue State (None More)
Brit steel guitarist Joe Harvey-Whyte earns his bread’n’butter sessioning for everyone from Liam Gallagher to Billy Bragg to Nilüfer Yanya. But left to his own devices he enjoys exploring then peripheral possibilities of his instrument. This is the case with his latest album, created with tape loop experimentalist Paul Cousins. It was born out of a two-hour improvisation they created to assist insomniacs. “A cure for insomnia” is often a way to say something is dull enough to send one to sleep. In a Fugue State is possibly lovely enough to send one to sleep, but is equally cuddly to bathe in awake. It consists of soft-edged steel guitar tones gliding about clouds of tonal fuzz and glitched spacing. An ambient set to wallow in.
Golden Toad Unite the Worms (Tip Top) + Pete Fij Love’s Coming Back/Houston (Tip Top)
Two tasty treats from Brit indie label Tip Top. Al Brown, video maker to the indie underground, and once of uncategorizable London psyche oddballs Japanese Television, releases his debut solo effort. No strummy poor-me-since-Covid singer-songwriterly reflections for him. Instead, the excellently titled Unite the Worms opens with a bleepy electronic doom-scrunch then settles to reverbed, subterranean distorted pieces which are sort of instrumentals except for Brown’s strange background vocals which (apart from the shouty Fall-ish two-minute “I Am God”) act mainly as further mind-distortion (check “Creeper” for best evidence). Original and with an off-the-cuff feel, this is one for the heads. Comes on bright red vinyl in cover art that captures the freakiness of the entire exercise.
Long ago Pete Fij was frontman of Creation Records gonna-be’s Adorable, and more lately he created waves with his Lee Hazlewood-esque twangy balladry accompanied by ex-House of Love guitarist Terry Bickers. Now he’s out on his own and from the sound of his new 7” single, his guitar pop muse is alight. Side A, “Love’s Coming Back”, has the growl, buzz and catchy chorus of Darklands-era Jesus And Mary Chain. Showcasing a quieter aspect, “Houston”, on then flip, basks in a downtempo melancholy. As a taster for a forthcoming album next year, these two nuggets bode well.
Øyunn I Know You Can Do It (Midnight Confessions)
John Peel used to say sometimes, when he played a new track, that he wasn’t sure whether he liked it but that it was doing something original and he felt compelled to share it. This is how I felt when I first heard Øyunn but her debut her debut album has grown on me. Siv Øyunn Kjenstad is a Denmark-based Norwegian drummer who’s worked with the likes of Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Frahm, and now ventures forward solo. She sings and raps against a skippy, pared-back, blobby, abstract electronic funk, percussion to the fore. She has similar jazz experimentalism to Cécile McLorin Salvant but with the scatting lightness of Emily Saunders, although she sounds like neither of those. She’s a one-off and deserves the according respect. Comes with a 12” x 12” 12-page photo/lyric booklet.
EarthBall Outside Over There (Upset! The Rhythm)
Prolific Vancouver loons EarthBall once again head, via free jazz, into territories more usually inhabited by the likes of Butthole Surfers or Terminal Cheesecake, which is to say psychedelia that thashes at the leash like a 140-pound rottweiler. There is a whole lot going on here, all at once. The skronky sax leaps out, as do the relentless episodes of sludgy riffing, but, as important, are the passages of tinkling wind-chime unease and beds of electronic fuzz and feedback. Vocals are shared between bassist-percussionist Isaebel Ford (spooked-sounding) and Jeremy Van Wyck (shouty), but these are not songs in any traditional sense, they are assaults designed to flip the brain into out-there zones.
Ahkatari Blood: Act I (Fifty?!K7)
11 years ago Detroit hip hop duo Ahkatari, consisting of rapper Antonio Walker-Bey and production-master Hugh Whitaker, released their debut, TJD004. It was an oddball concept piece about a globe-trotting secret agent. The sequel, and their first album since, is set in Istanbul and is thoroughly original. Walker-Bey’s vocals swim around amid muddy, fuzzed beats, plenty of echo creating a psychedelic effect, everything smeared with murky sounds from the region, music samples that send the listener chasing through dusky Turkish carpet markets. The rhythms hit too, just check out the roll on “Eastern Sunrise”. Weirdly catchy, it’s a late contender for hip hop album of the year. Comes with 12” x 12” art insert.
U Archenfield (LEX)
If ever there was a definitive hauntological release, it’s this. London producer U has been creating offbeat electronica for a dozen years, from industrial clattering to Pole-style glitch-throb. His latest project, though, is a dark-ambient album and found-sound exploration of the Herefordshire region of Archenfield, focusing especially on its reputation for hauntings, occultism and weird folk happenings. It combines sound clips, some spoken, some sung, some musical, with melancholy tones, echoing distant piano and dust-on-the-needle hiss. The result isn’t sinister, though, just fascinating. One for deep listening. Comes with a wonderful scrapbook-style 12” x 12” 24-page booklet that gives insight into the various yarns the music delves into.
Various Downundaground II (LaSape)
Melbourne label LaSape have put together a second volume of electronic cuts by Australian talent. The only one I’ve heard of is Rob LFO (not to be confused with LFO), but don’t let that out you off. The music on board ranges from forward-thinking ambient noodle to pulsing space ballads (check out Pills’ “Bianacjagger”) to the deranged farting jazz curiosity that is “Dance of the Poogs” by Jack Prest (who also mastered the album). It’s a fine ear-interesting collection and the well-named Kurt Paradise deserves due credit for putting it together.
Various Jalapeno Records: Twenty Five (Jalapeno)
Jalapeno Records reach a quarter of a century old. They are a Brighton institution and sum up a major aspect of that city’s love for funky hip hop parties and clubs. I’ve sometimes been backward in enthusiasm as I can find the relentless jollity of their output a bit much - but now is the time celebrate. Spread over three records, this compilation feels young, fresh-faced and full of vim, from Skeewiff’s bouncin’ breakbeat’n’banjo take on folk-blues classic “Man of Constant Sorrow” to Purple Disco Machine’s chugging house-ish remix Kraak & Smaak’s “Alone With You” (feat. Cleopold) to the xylophonic Bakearica of Dr Rubberfunk's “Sunset Breakup”. Other artists on board include the label's big bands, The Allergies and Ephemerals, as well as input from Smoove & Turrell, Izo FitzRoy, Golden Girls, Flevans, Sam Redmore and Gizelle Smith. When summer comes, you’ll likely find one or two of these playing in some far flung festival field. Happy anniversary!
CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR THE VINTAGE CREW
Soft Cell The Art of Falling Apart: Limited Edition 2LP Set (Mercury)
With the passing of Dave Ball, this reissue of The Art of Falling Apart reminds of his superlative synth-pop talent. Of the three studio albums he and Marc Almond’s band released during its original Eighties incarnation, The Art of Falling Apart is the underrated masterpiece (and one of theartsdesk on Vinyl’s all-time favourite albums). The reason it’s less beloved is because it’s so dark. As Mark Almond once pointed out to me, a few years later Depeche Mode would achieve global success exploring their own fusion of bleak angst and electronic punch, but the world wasn’t ready in 1983 when The Art of Falling Apart appeared. As a for-instance, “Numbers” is a perfectly cynical encapsulation of compulsive, bleak, one-night-stand sex. Not what anyone wants to hear at the disco! The rest is full of comedown greatness. One song’s even called “Kitchen Sink Drama”. The bangin’ ’title track is as good an ode to the destructive side of hedonism as has ever been penned. The original album came with a 12” containing Soft Cell’s novel, divisive Jimi Hendrix medley alongside "Martin", a masterpiece of psychotic nastiness, based on George Romero’s 1977 film of the same name, about a man's murderous meltdown. These two now form Side Three, while Side Four contains “It’s a Mug’s Game”, the wordy lesser B-side to “Where the Heart Is”, alongside aptly numbed-out “Numbers” B-side, slowie “Barriers”, a juicy 2025 mix of the duo’s groovin’ cover of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider”, and a US edit of “Heat”. This is a vital package.
Various HELP: 30th Anniversary 7” Boxset (War Child)
Three decades ago a who’s who of British pop and rock came together to record an album in aid of War Child, who were then providing essential aid during the Bosnian war. Aside from Sinead O’Connor’s impassioned version of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe”, it was all recorded in a single September 1995 day and released less than a week later. For fans of the era it’s epochal in multiple ways. Oasis deliver a hanging-out-with Kate Moss’n’Johnny Depp version of “Fade Away”, The Stone Roses and Radiohead offer, respectively, alternate and early versions of songs from major albums. Blur appear with a sweet one-off number called “Eine Kleine Lift Muzik”. Orbital, Portishead, The Chemical Brothers (with The Charlatans) and The KLF represent for the era’s electronic innovators, the latter appearing as The Massed Pipes And Drums Of The Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guard & The One World Orchestra, contributing a bonkers jungle-flavoured two-minute version of the theme to The Magnificent Seven. The Manic Street Preachers make their first recording since the disappearance of Richie Edwards on a strummy version of “Raindrops Keep Falling on my head”. There’s even a supergroup featuring Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller. Others on board include Stereo MCs, Suede (doing Elvis Costello’s anti-Thatcher classic “Shipbuilding”), Neneh Cherry, Terry Hall and, er, Terrorvision. As a snapshot of an era, it couldn’t be more perfect. As a musical outing it has more than enough to please most. Arrives in a limited-to-500 edition box of 10 7” singles.
Squarepusher Stereotype (Warp)
Talking of the 1990s, Tom Jenkinson, AKA Squarepusher, has dug up his first release. It’s a shame that the two record set, in inner sleeves covered in images of associated memorabilia, does not contain Jenkinson’s fine memoir of its origins. This was emailed to journos as pre-release PR and tells of a Stella-fuelled July 1994 weekend at his mate’s house in Southminster, Essex, while the parents were away, a non-stop rave party with his live set-up at the core. It goes on to mention live sets at long-lost techno mecca, Eurobeat 2000 at Turnmills, and 12” singles that no-one wanted because they didn’t fit any obvious danced music genre (also, I suspect, because some of them batter on for 10, sometimes 16, minutes). For those of us who spent times in dingy warehouses where battering European techno blended with gabber and the roughest end of drum & bass, it's very much the sound of those times, albeit Squarepusher does more interesting things than many workaday contemporaries. As with the previous review, it’s a snapshot of a time and place. For those who were around, it brings a tingle. For those who weren’t and think the 1990s were about Blur vs Oasis and all that crap, wrap your ears round it and know the other truth.
Frank Sinatra At the Hollywood Bowl 1943-1948 (Sing Inc.)
Sing are a new company taking a deep dive into long-ago classics with a vinyl taster for a bunch of previously unheard Ol’ Blue Eyes recordings. Using specialist restoration techniques, they give us highlights from shows at the Hollywood Bowl in the 1940s (1943, 1945 and 1948, to be precise). It’s a window into another time as Sinatra caresses the lyrics to songs such as “Long Ago and Far Away”, “Ol’ Man River” and “She’s Funny That Way”, accompanied in style by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Richly mastered, while slushy in places, it still has a nostalgic potency, particularly at this time of year.
Elton John Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy: 50th Anniversary 2LP Set (Rocket/EMI)
It’s hard to overstate how massive Elton John was in 1975 when this album came out. It sold one-and-a-half million copies within its week of release, in the US alone. And it’s not even wilfully commercial. It’s also one of John’s favourite of his own albums, not showy or try-hard poppy, an autobiographical concept piece by the singer and lyricist Bernie Taupin about their early days together. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is the “big song” off it. Hearing it again for the first time in decades (a friend had it when we were teenagers), I’m not won over, although “Tell Me When the Whistle Blows” has a schmaltzy honkytonk charm. For the fans, though, it’s quite the package, a double in gatefold on splodgy white’n’maroon vinyl in info/art sleeves with a 28-page 12” x 12” booklet full of notes and imagery. The second record contains six demo versions and four tracks from 2005 live shows.
Depeche Mode Memento Mori: Mexico City (Columbia)
Depeche Mode’s seventh live album celebrates their Memento Mori album which, in turn, had the 2022 death of their band mate Alan Fletcher at its heart. It was recorded at the Foro Sol stadium in Mexico City and is the soundtrack to Fernando Frías’s film of the same name. In photo inner sleeves, its four records are well mastered to vinyl, showcasing a set that features six songs from the title album alongside a bunch of Depeche Mode classics, such as “Personal Jesus”, “Everything Counts” and “Enjoy the Silence”. One of their skills is in rendering these intimate electronic tunes gigantic, without becoming pompous. But the fans will mainly want the final side which features four tracks from then Memento Mori sessions; “Survive”, “Life 2.0”, “Give Yourself to Me” and “In the End”. The good news is that three of these are moody slowies that show no quality drop-off from the parent album (the other tune is an instrumental).
The Zombies Odessey and Oracle (Beechwood Park)
Much has already been written about The Zombies’ initially unsuccessful contribution to the high Sixties. Odessey and Oracle was a band, who’d been riding the success of their monster hit “She’s Not There” for three years, breaking out of their beat pop straitjacket and diving fully through the studio-as-instrument doors opened by The Beatles. However, unlike Sgt. Pepper and the like, the lysergic element is low; it’s more of a baroque pop affair, boasting piano led musicality, and a stand-out number (and eventual hit) in the mighty finger-poppin; “Time of the Season”. Despite the lack of interest at the time, Odessey and Oracle’s re-evaluation over the years resulted in the longterm reconstitution of the band’s career and is now beloved by Sixties connoisseurs.
The Creation Biff Bang Pow: The Singles Boxset (Demon)
The Creation were another Sixties band who received their due long after the era, most famously because Alan McGee named his label after them. They had a more recent small boost when one of their songs, “Making Time”, became the theme to TV show The Great Pottery Throwdown. This song leads off their new boxset, as it was their 1966 debut single. It’s there with its B-side (“Try and Stop Me”), alongside 19 other songs on 10 7”s collected in pairs in gatefold sleeves. The first eight singles and B-sides are here, right up to 1969’s harmonically lush “For All That I Am”, gems all, especially the proto-scuzz-rock “How Does it Feel to Feel?”. They mingle jangling psychedelia with mod-ish pop art thrust and are as good as any band from the period. The final two records gather together four other songs worth owning, inclusing the stoned “Ostrich Man” and jolly Head-era Monkees-ish “Can I Join Your Band?”. A golden set.
Goldie Timeless: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition (London)
Back in the mid-Nineties, it looked as if there might be a drum & bass takeover of pop. It never happened but the major label investment was there. What set them thinking this was Timeless, the 1995 debut album by Goldie, a man who had charisma and hustle. He also had a cohesive vision, taking jungle, a brilliantly energized new music of faceless 12”s and underground dub plate nights, and successfully giving it a long form. This in the age when albums were the money. The truth is that when most of us think of Timeless, we’re actually thinking of the impeccable opening 21-minute suite of “Inner City Life”, “Pressure” and “Jah”, featuring the perfectly estimated vocals of the (now late) Diane Charlemagne (who’d once had hits with the Urban Cookie Collective). This section still sounds outstanding whereas the rest of the album mostly contains floaty synth-wash noodle of the kind we’d play as we wafted down from the night out's chemical highs. Whatever, it’s a key 1990s album and arrives sounding fat on double on gold or white vinyl in art inner sleeves.
Ray Charles Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul + Love Country Style + Come Live With Me (Tangerine)
Ray Charles’ record company Tangerine was set up in 1962. A spate of releases is forthcoming, starting with these three. 1963’s Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul sees Charles in his commercial pomp, before The Beatles came along and cast he and his peers into the wilderness. Soul was being born at the time, with Charles and Sam Cooke at the forefront, but whereas Cooke’s take on it sounded more like what we think of 60 years later as soul, Charles’s style on this album draws more explicitly from the era of swingin’ jazz, a flavour of Technicolor musicals. With that said, it’s a delicious, widescreen orchestral feast, full of standards such as “Busted”, “Over the Rainbow” and “Ol’ Man River” sung with a calm-inducing effortlessness. 1970’s Love Country Style isn’t really country at all – just check out his smoothly funky version of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”, a highlight, for evidence – but, with its syrupy strings and easy listening soulfulness it does feel appropriate for Christmas listening, in the same way that Nat King Cole does. 1974’s lesser-known Come Live With Me continues the stringed up slushiness on Side One, ah, but Side Two sees Ray Charles embrace the funk, stepping into the areas inhabited by Stevie Wonder who, of course, had Charles as his idol.
Ultravox The Collection: Deluxe Edition (Chrysalis)
This greatest hits set originally appeared in 1984, at the end of Ultravox’s run of success with Midge Ure year as singer, a couple of years before the group fizzled out. It contains “Love’s Great Adventure”, their final major hit, which was attached to the album. The sell with this boxed four-record Deluxe Edition is Collection II, two discs of alternate versions, remixes and live takes. It’s always good to hear this band at the most stark and electronic and cuts such as the alternative mix of “All Stood Still” and the 2025 remix of “Serenade” do this well. Otherwise, Ultravox’s mingling of prog tropes with synth-pop is divisive at theartsdesk on Vinyl. While “Vienna” is, despite its po-faced pretentiousness, a stone classic, one has to be in a particularly cheesy mood to revel in the bombast of “Hymn”. Nevertheless, a collection worth picking through.
Irma Thomas Wish Someone Would Care (UMG/Ace)
To tell a little what life was like on her side of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, 60 years ago, Irma Thomas was twice married and had four children by the age of 19. But she’d also already released four singles. Unstoppable, she finally broke though in 1964 with the title track hit from this album. The song is a perfect portion of early soul, and the album backs it up with a richly realised collision of rhythm’n’blues’n’gospel, including “Time is on My Side”, the song that would be borrowed by The Rolling Stones for their first American hit. It also contains the manic Northern soul of “Break-Ah-Way” which, slightly retitled, would give actress-comedienne Tracey Ullman her breakthrough hit in 1983. An album with never a dull moment.
Levellers Zeitgeist: 2LP Deluxe Edition (Elektra)
30 years ago The Levellers were at the peak of their unlikely commercial powers. Unlikely because they were traveller-centric folk-punks who didn’t fit what the music press were into. Their music has never been my thing but, as the years pass, I admire them more for their uncompromising stance in the era of Menswear and retro-centric journos inventing BritPop down Then Good Mixer in Camden. Zeitgeist was their only chart-topping album and arrives in gatefold as a double with the second record a collection of offcuts and alternate versions, including a take on their stomping, boozy Top 20 hit “Just the One” featuring Joe Strummer (which sits next to a likeable hoedown called “Drinking for England”). Comes with a 12” x 12” lyric/photo insert that also contains an essay by Jon Robb.
Everything But The Girl The Best of Everything But The Girl (Chrysalis)
It’s interesting that this new Best Of collection, on gatefold double, opens with the duo’s 1990s electronic reinvention; Todd Terry’s well-loved remix of “Missing”, the band’s own Ben Watt remixing “Tracy In my Room” as Lazy Dog, 2023’s “Nothing Left to Lose” and 1996 hit “Walking Wounded”. They’ve had multiple Best Of’s before and potential buyers should note this set doesn’t strictly adhere to the hits-to-the-fore principle. It doesn’t include bona fide hits such as “Wrong” and “Love is Strange”, favouring instead cuts such as loosely bossa nova-flavoured peach “Rollercoaster” (from the 1994 EP of the same name) and 2023’s “Run a Red Light”, neither of them Top 40 fare. To my ears these sit well beside golden oldies such as “Each and Every One” and “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”, making for an imaginatively curated collection. Comes with 12” x 12” four-page photo-lyric booklet.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience Bold As Love: The Axis: Bold as Love Sessions Boxset (Experience Hendrix LLC/Legacy)
From “the authorized Hendrix Family” comes a five-record set of as much material related to his second album as they’ve been able to locate, including some that’s not previously been released. The production is overseen by engineer Eddie Kramer, who was involved when it first appeared all those years ago. In this case “the authorized Hendrix Family” means Hendrix’s half-sister Janie, who inherited the estate from his dad and is a controversial figure in fan circles, due to the way she’s treated his wider family and her tendency to milk his catalogue. However, for the ultra-fan, there’s meat here. The first two records are the impeccable original album in mono and in stereo, then we go to multiple early takes alongside tunes from the sessions that didn’t make the final cut, including hot rockin’ “Mr Bad Luck” and Beatles-ish, wah-wah-laden “All Along the Watchtower” B-side “Burning of the Midnight Lamp”. The final sides contain eight cuts from a Stockholm concert and are decent bootleg quality, alongside four versions of songs taken from television shows, including a tasty “Purple Haze” taken from Dutch TV show Hoepla. One for Hendrix superfans only.
Faces Early Steps (Rhino)
For the Faces and/or Rod Stewart completist comes two sides featuring some of their earliest recordings. Side One contains four songs recorded in autumn 1969 at Olympic Studios and Side Two contains four songs recoded a couple of months earlier at the Rolling Stones’ Bermondsey rehearsal space. The former set has more clarity and consists of three songs that would later appear on the band’s 1970 debut album, plus one previously unreleased Faces song, “Train”, which is a minor cracker, enhanced by studio banter at the start. The Bermondsey set is rougher but more spirited and loose, opening with blues covers (Big Bill Broonzy’s “I Feel So Good” and Howlin’ Wolf’s “Evil”), followed, again, by a couple of originals that would appear on the debut album. The second side reminds what a blast it must have been to see this band live.
Various Safe in My Garden: American Pop in the Shadows (Ace)
Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley is the kingpin of intriguingly themed compilations. Some of these have hit home mightily at theartsdesk on Vinyl, some less so, but it’s always interesting to see where he heads next. This time, the concept is easy listening Sixties pop which, Stanley persuasively argues, acted as a counterpoint to the freak scene raging as America turned on, tuned in and dropped out, and Vietnam burned. His choices are often imbued with (very sightly) stoned peace’n’love feeling, exemplified by Brewer & Shipley’s “Dreamin’ in the Shade (Down in L.A.)”, a lesser cousin to “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”, while at other times, the songs merely wear the semantic drapery of hippies, but are actually purest lounge cheese, as with Love Generation’s “Love is a Rainy Sunday”. Love is not a rainy Sunday, not in 1968, love is dope, guns and fucking in the streets, but these songs may have given distant but sympathetic observers a tiny, comfy whiff of patchouli. En masse, it’s too wet for theartsdesk on Vinyl but there are some luscious stringed-up numbers along the way. Comes on double with typically detailed sleeve notes from Stanley.
The Cranberries MTV Unplugged (Island)
The Cranberries divide listeners. There are those who relish singer Dolores O’Riordan’s quavering semi-yodel and those who find it annoying. There are those who can handle their sometimes earnest lyricism and those who can’t. The Irish band had a devoted global following, once at the centre of a 10,000 strong riot in Washington DC when a radio station miscalculated the appeal of a free concert. They are not for me but their 1995 MTV Unplugged session delivers nine songs, including the huge hits “Linger” and “Zombie”, stripped to a folky, fiddly pub-friendly renditions. It has never been on vinyl, before and arrives in gatefold double.
Nina Simone Let It All Out: Selected Singles 1961-1978 (Ace)
As time passes, it becomes ever clearer that Nina Simone was one of the greatest performer-musicians in the history of popular music, a true giant. This collection rams the point home. This fierce and tormented woman could be 150% politically engaged - just listen to “Revolution (Part 1)”, “To Be Young Gifted and Black” or “Why? (The King of Love is Dead)”, her eulogy for Martin Luther King Jr – but she could also hit hard with jazz-pop diamonds such as “Suzanne” and “Work Song” or the boozy gem “Gin House Blues”. And, of course, there’s the deathless “Ain’t Got No; I Got Life”, of which there are two versions on this double set, with dense, informative sleeve notes by Ace Records’ Tony Rounce on the gatefold.
ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION
Aksak Maboul Before Aksak Maboul (CrammedLab)
If anyone has earned the right to a little self-indulgent biographical reflection, it’s Marc Hollander, the man behind Belgium’s Crammed Discs, global music curation supremo, and lifelong purveyor of boundary-pushing weirdness. This 13-track set, subtitled “Documents and Experiments 1969-1977”, collects odds’n’bods he created in his early-to-mid 20s, sometimes with collaborators, including future members of his maverick art-pop outfit Aksak Maboul. It opens with a 1969 cut by his band Here and Now (not the UK hippy lot) which sets the scene, kind of punk-jazz, like a free jazz Hawkwind. From there, we’re into a series of primitive electronic experiments, most of which will be primarily of interest to analogue synth nerds (like theartsdesk on Vinyl). Some are explicitly Musique Concrete, but others prefigure the more outré output of Warp Records in the Nineties. The whole thing ends back where it started with free jazz noisiness. Comes with a lovingly put together 12” x 12” eight-page “fragmentary bildungsroman” which gives background, replete with photos.
Bad Sam Trauma (Property of the Lost): Bad Sam are a Welsh band whose singer, Dean Beddis, as the press release hints, has something of Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson about his delivery. But there the similarity ends. Bad Sam are a punk rocktronic duo whose cacophonic attack hangs on the wrigglin’ basslines of Richard Glover (who’s also in Newport rap metal perennials Dub War). Think Rage Against The Machine fused with Crass through the prism of a messy, cellar-dwelling garage band. Song titles such as “Tupperware Death Party” and “Perpetual Consumption” give an idea. They’re not happy! Comes with 12” x 12” art/lyric insert.
Godtet + The Sydney Symphony Orchestra Godtet + The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (LaSape): “Jazzual” is a word I’ve long used to describe the area where jazz merges into noodly chill-out. Mostly it’s to be avoided. The latest album from Australian quintet Godtet drifts into this territory but has an ambition that raises the bar. The group work with Sydney composer Novac Manojilovic, who has written and arranged the whole thing, and a full orchestra, and the result, while sometimes background modern classical waft, also encompasses more interesting filmic percussiveness (“Stepper”) and ambience (“Bliss Angels”).
Trond Kallevåg Minnesota (HUBRO): Hubro Records are never ones to shy away from high concept projects, and thus is the case with the fourth album from Norwegian guitarist Trond Kallevåg. The idea of these 11 sad-eyed violin-laced guitar’n’electronic instrumentals is to muster the connections between Norway and the US, notably 19th century settlements in Minnesota. Thoughtful, indie-cinematic and windswept, it’s ear-interesting and deserves to be picked up for use in a film.
Gabriel Gosse Mojo (TC Production): The second album from virtuosic French jazz guitarist Gabriel Gosse leans into easy R&B pop. Working with cult singer Philippe Katerine, saxophonist Emile Parisien, and Franco-Cameroonian vocalist Ann Shirley, alongside his own band (Antonin Violot on drums, Bertrand Beruard on bass) he musters a nine-track set which sometimes forefronts his soulful abilities as a vocalist, and, at others, revels in instrumental jazz grooves. It’s well-calibrated headnod fare for Ronnie Scott’s regulars. Comes in info/photo gatefold
Pouya Ehsaei Project People of the Wind (Akazib): Terming music “leftfield” often raises questions about context; leftfield to whom? But the latest album from British-Iranian producer-musician Pouya Ehsaei is leftfield by most measures. It combines electronics with a fairly eccentric use of woodwind, notably baritone sax (played by Tamar Osborn), and off-kilter percussion, as well as, sometimes, the spoken and/or chanted wordage of fellow Iranian Tara Fatehi. Imagine a fusion of dub and free jazz with a bit of a Yoko Ono vibe. It’s off-the-wall but a grower.
Prince 85 Electronic Talk (Prince 85)
Prince 85 is a producer best known for working with The Weeknd. On the cover art of his latest 12” four-track single, he channels Vin Diesel as space criminal Riddick, but on plastic he turns up techno sledgehammering redolent of long-lost Nineties act Emperion, taking a punk rock joy in the gnarly noises that fuel this 4/4 dancefloor ramraid. The exception is sleek remix production by Ian Pooley (another 1990s name) who flips the whole thing into a funkin’ bass-bubblin’ sexy roller.
The Dollies What Would Your Mummy Think? EP (Krautpop!): From Cornish label Krautpop! comes the (I think) second single from three-quarters female punk outfit The Dollies. Sneery, shouty and rich in riffological rock spirit, this four-track EP is a tasty, attitude-fuelled calling card, especially the furious, snarling, sweary, anti-sexist-tosser “Say it Again”.
Carrier Rhythm Immortal (Modern Love): One has to respect producer Guy Brewer’s disdain for predictability, leaving behind, one after the other, reasonably successful careers in both drum & bass and techno, to explore more esoteric electronic zones. His latest, Belgium-based Carrier persona is akin to a modernist tribute to Basic Channel’s Rhythm & Sound dub techno innovations. Brewer, however, steps away from rhythmic propulsion in favour of spacey sonic-architectural gigantism, minimalist and stern, but also spooked and head-bubbling in places. Earnest but ear-interesting. Comes on double.
Portugal. The Man Shish (Thirty Tigers): Like Spoon, Portland’s Alaska-bred Portugal The Man are a US alternative rock band who have indie blood but who wander, musically, where they fancy. Their latest album, their tenth in a 20-year career, comes in photo inner sleeve in gatefold on red “eco vinyl” with a 12” x 12” lyric insert. It ranges between material that sounds like Harry Styles to “Pittman Ralliers”, which is metal, to other cuts which embrace the warping power of 2025 studio tech. It’s a catchy set imbued, lyrically, with articulate rage at capitalism chewing up the environment and wrecking our future. Catchy and clever.
Zimmer90 Interior (Zimmer90)
On their debut album, TikTok-friendly Stuttgart duo Josch Becker and Finn Gronemeyer hit the sweet spot between yacht rock and Balearic dance. Those into harder-hitting dance styles will have no time for Interior, but the young seem to favour dance music that doesn’t pack a punch, where dynamism is replaced by sweetness, and this album also has a Random Access Memories-style funk, alongside pop catchiness. It’s not a keeper for me, but I can see the appeal.
Islandman Island5 (Rest in Space)
Those who enjoy energized jam-bands such as My Baby, Ozric Tentacles and The Egg could do worse than check out Istanbul’s Islandman. The trio’s fifth album is loaded with instrumental grooves which, like the aforementioned bands, have enough actual tunes to delineate them from those jam-bands which just fret-wank endlessly into tedium. With their forward pulse and psychedelic synth trimmings, they sound like ones to nod out to in a small club or festival.
Maribou State Portraits: 10th Anniversary Edition (Counter): 10 years ago theartsdesk on Vinyl was just beginning and I wrote positively about this debut record, possibly even in our first edition (but I can’t locate the review). Since those days this Hertfordshire duo (who grew up in the same town I did!) have gained a significant following; they made the Top 10 with their most recent album, their third, and headlined the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury. Their easy-going blend of chugging house rhythms, soulful songwriting and woozy atmospherics still works but hasn’t aged so well for me. This isn’t really their fault. It's down to the growing ubiquity of similar Insta-clubbing music, ie, like proper club music but, sonically, leaving you enough headspace to be partly elsewhere via a phone. It’s back, on gatefold double, the Holly Walker-sung “Steal” still striking, and the final side all remixes, by Ross From Friends, Alex Bowman and Ben Pearce, each with their own warm 4/4 stroll.
James Allsop Stars and Sand (Impossible Ark): Saxophonist James Allsop has collaborated with a diverse array of jazz adjacent artists over the years, from The Last Poets to Jamie Cullum to his own long-disbanded noiseniks, Fraud. His latest album playfully wanders around everything from dubbed-out space-scapes (“Orugōru”) to bouncy Latin-tinted bubblers (“Yew”) to mad psychedelic free jazz (“Gravity”). It’s musically tight but never earnest; instead it’s playful and welcoming. Comes in art/info gatefold.
AND WHILE WE’RE HERE
- Time Won’t Bring Me Down, the third album by Radioactivity, is the first album in a decade for a band with roots deep in Texas’s punk scene (containing players once active in bands such as Marked Men, Mind Spiders, Bad Sports and more). It appears as a joint release from Dirtnap Records and Wild Honey Records and contains 11 songs that match in-yer-face guitars with melody and a singer able to bellow and emote at the same time. Somewhere between The Saints and Bad Nerves, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel but does what Radioactivity do with aplomb.
- Danish vibraphone player Viktoria Søndergaard fires out her debut album, Music of Secrets on April Records. It combines skillfully constructed jazz with a dissonant sense of abstraction, amplified by Søndergaard’s forceful vocal additions. Not the usual. Check “Benitez” by way if an aperitif.
- Saul Adamczewski, once of Fat White Family, and his pal Ben Romans-Hopcraft, have cleared out demonsm (particularly the former) making music as Insecure Men. On their third album, A Man For All Seasons on Fat Possum Records, it sounds like they’re having fun, unashamedly embracing 1970s glam stomp and even, upon occasion, a laidback jazzy soulfulness, but interjected with their own grounded London lyricism and hints of something grimy. It’s an album of frolics and wistful charm and is a grower.
- Varèse Sarabande is a specialist label which prides itself on reproducing music from films to the highest fidelity. For the Back to the Future superfan they now deliver a smorgasbord of Alan Silverstri’s themes and cues from the whole of the trilogy. This one will be enjoyed by those who enjoy old-fashioned large-scale cinematic orchestral swoop. For theartsdesk on Vinyl, while there are moments of soft-tempo emotional intricacy, this music works best attached to the film.
- Massive-Down-Under five-piece Boy & Bear started their life as a folk group but now create mainstream pop-rock. Their latest is called Tripping Over Time and is on V2 Records. It’s mostly not to my taste but has the occasional Paul Simon-redolent dinner party-funker (such as “Vertigo”) on board, which raises the game slightly.
- Eleni Drake is a prolific 2020s singer-songwriter. Her third album, Chuck, on MNRK Records has soft power. She has a delicate airy voice which, for most of the album, breathes quietly over hardly-there acoustic guitar. The exceptions are the slightly more indie-rocking “Paper Moons” and “Brockwell” and a couple of country numbers. Whatever the soundtrack, the subject matter is usually love, lost love and longing. Comes with 12” x 12” four-page lyric/photo booklet.
- Leeds outfit Ubunye combine Afro-funk with jazz chops on their second album, Tell Me the Truth or Don’t Tell Me Anything on 33 Jazz Records. The jazz-fusional displays of instrumental virtuosity and bombastic classical leanings are too much for theartsdesk on Vinyl but, occasionally, especially on the faster, less M.O.R. numbers, South African singers Xolani Mbathe and Nokuthula Zondi earth the project and give it distinctiveness.
- The world of techno is a place of granular divisions, where cultural minutiae, personal presentation, and possible interconnections with frowned-upon production practices are matters of bitter conjecture, as much or more than the music. In this environment Belgian DJ Charlotte de Witte is a divisive character, a successful big room club-filler but under suspicion from the stern, Rakhmetov-style underground-ists. I shall stay out of such discussions and simply suggest that her eponymous debut album on her own KNTXT label contains some DJ tool bangers but its 4/4 hammering, over four sides, otherwise lacks the overall character to render it longform listening.
- You have to admire smalltown Italian garage trio Bee Bee Sea who’ve been going for a decade without gathering a substantial following outside their country’s punk scene. Their fifth album Stanzini Can be Allright on Wild Honey Records doesn’t tweak then formula – although there’s a lovely slowie called “Memories of Another Life” along the way – but why should they? It’s clearly what they love and they deliver it with vim.
- I’d never have predicted when I heard then magnificent but off-it’s-moment “The Only One I Know” in 1990 that The Charlatans would be the great survivors of “baggy” and have a successful career for the next 35 years (10 of their albums have gone Top 10 and three have topped the UK charts). Their 14th album, We Are Love on BMG, comes in lyric inner sleeve and is likeable and easy-going. It also feels personal. They haven’t lost the ability to write tunes, as the psychedelic opener “Kingdom of Ours” proves, alongside cuts such as the wordy “Glad you Grabbed Me” and thoughtful “For the Girls”.
- New York singer Johnny Burgos inhabits a space somewhere between Justin Timberlake, Mark Ronson and classic soul. His second album A Long Short Story on LRK Records is smoothly accessible, poppy but with R&B chops. Those looking for indie soul talent should check it.
- Manchester indie band The Man From Del Monte were under the radar even during their original late-Eighties incarnation. They didn’t fit into the usual indie stereotypes of the time, neither post-C86 or Madchester sorts. Instead, their music was as if Haircut 100 were possessed by the spirit of The Higsons. Those are two quite obscure Eighties old man references, so imagine unpretentious, optimistic, lyrically cheeky, witty acoustic skiffle-pop. And that’s exactly what’s on their new album Better Things, on Original Sound Records, which they made since reforming last year.
- Andy Blade was once frontman of original 1970s London punks Eater who were, at the time, famed for their extreme youth. He has gone on to create his own quirky catalogue of indie guitar pop, the latest of which is Tiny Specks in a Huge Abyss on Munster Records. His album of last year, Being Alive is Fun, drew attention for being a cohesively enjoyable set of guitar pop. His latest adopts a rumbling monotone production that makes the whole album feel like one long song, featuring multiple female collaborators and encompassing everything from perspectives on Karen Carpenter to the cosmos. Along the way it reminds of both Love & Rockets and The Only Ones, which can only be a good thing. Comes with 12 “ x 12” info insert.
- Brazilian musician Sessa’s third album Pequena Vertigem de Amor, on Mexican Summer Records, is a deep dive into the firm but mellow grooves that put his homeland on the pop map. It’s easy, instrumentally assured, with an underlying sensual funk and, in songs like “Nome de Deus”, a soft-sung originality. It’s bedroom music but with its eyes on the broader canvas.
- Yay, a Christmas song! Brit folk-punker Frank Turner’s new compilation includes his wistful acoustic version of Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody”. It’s a three record set which, like his 2015 The First Ten Years, gathers together a deep-dive into his catalogue. A (sort of) limited edition of 5000, the first record consists of live cuts and originals such as the catchy, emotive “Cleopatra in Brooklyn” and jolly brass-fuelled “Bar Staff”; the second record contains covers such as Chris T-T’s “Giraffe #1”, and the third has acoustic versions. If you’re a fan, it’s juicy.
- The sixth album from Montreal violinist-composer Jessica Moss is called Unfolding and is on Constellation Records. Side One contains two longform deep dives, including the 13-and-a-half minute “Out, Now” created with Necks drummer Tony Buck, a significant slice of doomy ambience. Side Two weaves about between minimalist and maximalist downtempo modern classical ponderings that are mostly gloomy in character.
- Heavily bearded Sussex singer Alan Young records under the moniker Serious Child. His fourth album is called What Lies Beneath and is on his strangely titled Four Left Feet Ltd label. His songs lean into folk but vary from gauzy, spooked madrigals to jollier numbers that revel in guitar pop (notably “Stunt Double”). His lyrics, whether serious or light-hearted, reflect our times and his times (“What used to be called ‘telling lies’ is now called doing your own research”).
- The seventh album from Auntie Flo, AKA Brian D’Souza, a Londoner of Goan origin, is Birds of Paradise on his own A State of Flo label. It continues his mission into combining global roots sounds with 4/4 chug. His music is the kind one puts on after returning from a night out rather than for havin’ it large, although “Ceibo” does a good job of channellingb Moby’s “Go”. Pleasant on the ears.
- The debut album from Scottish singer Rianne Downey has already reached the UK Top 20, partly as result, possibly, of her support slot on Tom Grennan’s tour. Entitled The Consequence of Love on Run On Records, its country-tinted accessible strum-pop that would be fun to come across in your local pub but, on vinyl, doesn’t reach into my soul.
- Festival-friendly Brit band Me and My Friends release their album Bring Summer in mid-Winter, to bathe us, perhaps, in sunshine music at a time of year when we need it. On Split Shift Records, it’s an ever-dancey stew of Afrobeat jollies and jazzy instrumental chops. One song is even called “Happiness”. A light, easy-to-enjoy set.
- The latest from female-fronted Montreal band Afternoon Bike Ride is called Running with Scissors and appears courtesy of Friends of Friends Music. It’s a thoughtful affair wherein indie songwriting merges into smeary electronica, well-representing the contemplative, diaristic musings of the lyrics, written by singer Lai Kurihara.
- The second album from Yndling (Oslo singer-producer Silje Espevik) continues her journey into territory that mingles the airy shoegaze of Lush with something more electronic and meaty. It’s called Time Time Time (I’m in the Palm of Your Hand), and is on Spirit Goth Records. In our age when Slowdive are regarded by the younglings as a key act of their era, it does what it does well and may do well.
- Florida singer Gatlin first appeared half-a-decade ago but it’s taken her until now to release her debut album. She seems to have spent the time discovering who she is and her debut is a proudly LGBT affair called The Eldest Daughter on Dualtone Records. It comes in photo gatefold in lyric inner sleeve and is lush piano-led singer-songwriter material. Those fancying a taste should check out the confident statement songs “If She Was a Boy” and “Soho House Valet”.
- Berlin-based Brazilian musician Mauricio Fleury has been around a while (he’s played with everyone from Gal Costa to Quantic to Marlena Shaw) but his new mini-album, Revoada on Altercat Records, showcases a dude who still revels in his own Latin-funk grooviness. By way of comparison, it’s the sort of thing we might expect on Acid Jazz lately.
We welcome any and all vinyl for review. Please hit thomash.green@theartsdesk.com for a postal address.
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