compilation Archive
07 Dec 2024
Album Review: Afterimage – Faces to Hide
“Post-punk” is one of those labels – epithets, one might even say – created by music journalist to describe a type of music, but ultimately (as some or other playwright […]
27 Oct 2024
Album Review: Return of Halloween Nuggets
Way back in 2014, Rock Beat Records put together a three-CD set called Halloween Nuggets: Monster Sixties a Go-go. Of a piece with some other fine compilations from the same […]
14 Oct 2024
Album Review: Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated – BBC Sessions #1: 1962-1965
A great deal of what is thought of as the British Invasion (“beat era” if you’re from the UK) arose from the blues and r&b scene in the very early […]
05 Oct 2024
Album Review: Famous Monsters Speak
American pop culture has taken some wacky and unexpected turns over the years. The 1950s saw the rise of science fiction in film; creatures from outer space seemed to be […]
20 Sep 2024
Album Review: Chick Corea Trilogy
More than a decade ago – 2013, in fact, Chick Corea released a live album, Trilogy. Featuring him on acoustic piano with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade (plus […]
20 Jul 2024
Album Review: APB – The Radio 1 Sessions
A postpunk band from rural Scotland near Aberdeen, APB never quite hit the big time. The band released but two albums during its time in the spotlight, though the group […]
12 Jul 2024
Album Review: Barbara Dane – When I Was a Young Girl / On My Way
With a strong and sonorous voice, Detroit-born singer and guitarist Barbara Dane launched her recording career in the late 1950s. An impassioned political activist, Dane’s music was suffused with an […]
11 Jun 2024
Album Review: The Brat – Straight Outta East L.A.
Time has an odd way of changing our perception. Most anyone who heard Sex Pistols in the 1978 would have found them abrasive, chaotic and noisy. As Never Mind the […]
05 Jun 2024
Book Review: Zip it Up! The Best of Trouser Press
Trouser Press looms large in my life. As a teen, I consumed as much music journalism writing – features, interviews, reviews — as possible. By that point I had long […]
04 Jun 2024
Album Review: Little Girls — Valley Songs
Pop music never ceases to amaze. If one looks past the mega-hits – and then looks even farther afield beyond the commercial near-misses — there remains a cornucopia of overlooked […]