Month: May 2004

These bad-ass niggaz don’t half swear a lot. That’s what an alien would most likely say in reposte to the new album from Danger Mouse and Jemini. But then aliens would. Aliens are cool. Aliens don’t give a shit about paying lip service to the customary bad-mouth parlances of those customary bad-ass niggaz. Aliens care only about one thing: finding a nice pair of brogues and a nice quiet place to slip them on. And perhaps if folks like Jemini Continue Reading

This is a coool album. No. A coooool album. Little Beaver, singer and guitarist, shone briefly in the early 70’s with his smooth soul minor classics such as ‘Joey’, ‘Party Down’ and ‘We Three’. Signed to TK Records in ’71, he wrote and played session for a number of already established acts such as Betty Wright and Blowfly/Clarence Reed before releasing material in his own right. ‘Joey’, his first hit, is dark, slow funk with soft guitar stabs and narcoleptic Continue Reading

‘Call it nu soul, or call it what you will…’ reads the press release. So I will, thank you very much. I’ll call it lounge music, because that is what it is quite frankly. Okay, tracks like ‘In The Black Of Night’ and ‘Naturally’ might have some tricky, shuffling break things going on and some frisky, frivolous scatting courtesy of easy-listening sweetheart Lady Z, but the core of the material is pretty much based in the soft leathery chairs of Continue Reading

Where exactly is it that Ash want to be? Maybe it doesn’t matter, they are on borrowed time after all, back from the brink, written off commercially in the late 90s and a sweaty coke-flecked hair’s width away from being declared bankrupt. Nonetheless they continued to be eaten from the inside out by a rock ‘n’ roll myth that maybe they didn’t fit, careering haphazardly across Planet Cliché. Of course that was all consigned to history by 2001’s mainstream-smooching, bubblegum Continue Reading

Tim Burgess said in the run up to ‘Up At The Lake’s release that he wants The Charlatans to see in their 20th anniversary. That really is a crying shame, because as hefty as that number seems, that day is but 4 years away. It does though put into context their achievements which, in spite of everything (from critical lashings, tragedies and just some plain undeserved bad luck), have been numerous. And if this is the sound of them coasting, Continue Reading

Alt-country we’re perfectly comfortable with – and all of its unwashed t-shirts, shaggy haircuts, bruised personalities and cute, smooth-skinned chancers that are just that little too meek to sell their soul and go all the way with rock ‘n’ roll. The bare bones of the real-deal though we weren’t so sure of. We thought that was the preserve of ageing Midwestern country folk happy to hum the same song to themselves day in day out, year after year, decade after Continue Reading

‘Original Pirate Material’ was 15 years in the making. From the moment the rap obsessed kid from the Midlands first heard copies of his older brother’s Run DMC and Beastie Boys records right up until the moment he upped and relocated to the UK Garage capital of London. White kid from Birmingham makes good. White kid from Birmingham makes unshakeably well-realized and clued up hip-hop/garage hybrid. White kid from Birmingham introduces the ordinary and unremarkable narratives of the British underclass Continue Reading

First, we have to make up our mind about one thing; is it acceptable to be influenced in this day and age by The Police, or is not acceptable? Whatever the age. The fact there’s only two of ‘em is no excuse. There’s similarly no excuse in having played in bands performing cover versions of Police and Queen songs in pubs and bars around West London and Brighton for the last 45 years. These things don’t just happen by accident. Continue Reading