The words ‘genius’ and long-awaited’ seem something of a platitude thesedays whenever uttered in deference of Kate Bush. Still there’s no getting away from the fact that the enigmatic singer-songwriter who reared us suckling babes on a mixed-diet of leotards and bleak literary references is something of a rarity in English music: a fresh and imaginative icon unafraid to scale the dizzying heights of invention or retire into the bosom of English heritage both; as happy to trade steps with Continue Reading

The problem with building a commercial career around a beef with the mainstream and the success of other artists like LL Cool J is that it doesn’t leave you much room to go once you find yourself riding a minor triumph like the solid New York anthem ‘4-3-2-1’. But in spite of all expectations, Canibus found himself raising the temperature and the bar still further with ‘Second Round K.O’ – a ferocious left-hook of a track that caught the whole Continue Reading

‘Don’t open your mouth ‘till you’ve seen this DVD’ boasts the cover. You might also want to add, ‘Don’t open the box until you’ve read this review’. Self-styled ‘Queen Of Scream’ Melissa Cross is a sincere enough lady. Whether she’s talking about taking a dump or singing over the pencil, this feisty, flame-haired rock siren really does have your best interests at heart. You see; there’s a way to scream and a way not to scream and this hansom DVD/CD Continue Reading

The kitchen-cupboard Brian Wilson wiggles his crusty old bedroom-slippers at us again with a rather special brew of Gorky and Furries style horseplay and 60s recording techniques. Stealing liberally from Pet Sounds, tracks like ‘My Patch’ and ‘How To Be So Real’ sparkle like diamonds in a men’s urinal regardless of the iffy means through which they’re earned. It’s all perilously close to being all pastiche, but its pretty all the same. Alongside the liberal doses of inspiration found in Continue Reading

The gods honest truth of the matter is we can’t get enough the eighties, can we? And with the exception of exhuming Falco, Baltimora, Michael Hutchence, Paula Yates, Divine and Stuart Adamson and putting them in a supergroup of dead 80s icons fronted by Holly Johnson we can’t do much more than we are doing in dragging it kicking and screaming into the new millennium. Why do we do it? Why do bears shit and moonwalk in woods? It’s part Continue Reading

Buoyed by the recent (or recent enough) success of comeback single ‘Gravity’ and the brotherly support of fellow droning miserablist, Chris Martin, brothers Danny and Richard McNamara rifle through the archive of B-Sides, rarities and things we’d largely forgotten – a broad choice given the fact that most indie-lovers had up till recently largely forgotten most things the band had done, and furthermore, didn’t really care either way. So in a way it’s a bit like your best mate helping Continue Reading

A man is chiefly defined by what he does with his hands, and that David Axelrod’s career can be partly defined by a rock interpretation of Handel’s Messiah is more eloquent an illustration of the man than any turn of phrase you are likely to find here. Axelrod always was and always will be something of a unique proposition in music of the late twentieth-century in that he clearly never gave a fuck about satisfying the expectations of the popular, Continue Reading

All the way from Motor City and stirring up the kind of underground buzz usually reserved for Tubes straight out of Kings Cross: Big Tone – fat beats, fat bass, fat buzz. After Defari and Little Brother we get to see another side of ABB Records as Big Tone rakes his mic through the dust and grime of Detroit to expose its gritty underbelly, touching on everything from the fairer sex (‘Girl’) the dog-eat-dog pragmatism and the dreams and the Continue Reading

They may indeed have matured from being a teeny-bop sensation to a ‘tight live band’ but which you rather have? Call me a nerd, but I’d rather have scores of willy-hungry teenage girls throwing their pants at me than being celebrated for solid performances and pleasing but unmemorable compositions. But that’s just me. Hanson have had all that and more – but still they want to be taken seriously. And whilst the band’s ability to grow credible facial hair has Continue Reading

Honeysuckle Dog was a lost slice of country soul, an album buried by it’s label’s demise in 1973 and now released fully for the first time, stepping bewildered and blinking into the world of 2005. And it fits, kicking off its shoes and settling on a porch somewhere in Alt Country land. Chris Smither, born and raised in New Orleans, cut his teeth on the Cambridge, Mass. folk scene where he was discovered by producer Michael Cuscuna, resulting in a Continue Reading