Various Artists – Doug Shipton presents Dedicated Swallower Of Fashion - May 2011 May 16th, 2011

Doug Shipton roots resolutely through second hand shops worldwide, scoring impossible obscurities for the Finders Keepers label, which offloads Hungarian Seventies funk, Turkish Sixties psychedelia, Australian biker movie soundtracks, Czech prog, and Iranian acid-folk onto jaded hipsters. Diggers like Shipton seem drawn, almost morbidly, to the vainglorious attempts by artists far from the perceived epicentres…

Various Artists – Before The Fall - March 2011 March 13th, 2011

Before The Fall is a superbly sequenced selection of rock and roll, vanilla soul, reggae, garage, country, psychedelia, prog and novelty nostalgia, each track having once been covered by Manchester’s art rock survivors The Fall. Approach in ignorance and emerge thoroughly educated by The Fall’s front-man Mark E Smith, whose ears, though famously waxy, remain…

Vialka – La Poursuite de L’Excellence - February 2011 February 20th, 2011

Vialka are a French duo, comprising Marylise Frecheville on drums and vocals, and Eric Boros on guitars, who essay an environmentally friendly progressive rock in miniature. Their seventh album finds the poly-rhythms, complex chord changes, and surges of mood usually associated with Seventies behemoths or hyrda-headed post-rock collectives leap forth in unusually lean and lithe…