Scott Walker – The Collection 1967 – 1970 - June 2013 June 2nd, 2013

Twenty-five years ago an adept I traded tapes with proffered a C90 of Scott Walker, then still misfiled in the forgotten kitsch crooner bucket, which proved revelatory. The collective subconscious was slowly rehabilitating Walker’s most significant four sixties solo albums, reissued here, wherein the former pop star suddenly steered his soul-searing vocals toward the phantasmagorically…

The Bevis Frond – White Numbers - May 2013 May 19th, 2013

The Walthamstow guitar guru Nick Saloman is sixty this year and his 21st Bevis Frond album is an undimmed double cd set. Fusing classic sixties rock and plangent pounding post-punk neo-psychedelia in a string of plaintive and psycho-geographically specific guitar-pop nuggets, it’s capped monumentally by an exemplary 45 minute modal jam. File The Bevis Frond…

The Fall – Re-Mit - May 2013 May 12th, 2013

The 18th century polymath Thomas Young, the last man to hear every Fall album, died denied the delight of this pinnacle of the ‘70s survivors’ catalogue. Gauleiter Mark E Smith disparages individuality, but his krautrockabilly template is bevelled by Peter Greenway’s retro-futuristic twanging. Kinder Of Spine uses shards of 60s pop 7″s as scaffolding for…

Barbara Dickson – b4 Seventy-Four, The Folk Club Tapes - May 2013 May 12th, 2013

Had she never taken Lloyd Webber’s shilling and sung for The Two Ronnies, the musical theatre star Barbara Dickson might have remained a folk scene phenomenon.This raw double set of reel to reel recordings from 1969-73 finds Dickson’s precision engineered phrasing and perfectly poised voice, an egoless vessel that contains the old songs’ sentiments, set…

Endless Boogie – Long Island - May 2013 May 5th, 2013

Experiencing Endless Boogie live accidentally in the mid-noughties, I assumed the band was a muso in-joke, but like all the best jokes Endless Boogie’s turns out to be quietly profound. “What do you get if you cross those glorious late sixties/early seventies extended electric John Lee Hooker/Canned Heat blues jams with the repetitious zen drone…

Meat Puppets – Rat Farm - April 2013 April 28th, 2013

Meat Puppets sickened Eighties hardcore punk puritans with country, bluegrass and psychedelic additives that eventually became palatable. Today, after decades of drugs, departures, and detainments, the resilient Phoenix trio’s signature sound is a fleet of foot, tie-dyed, hillbilly acid rock hybrid draped on the nimble exoskeleton of Curt Kirkwood’s languidly lysergic licks. The title track…