There surely has to be a point at which the throwing of a curveball ceases to be the surprising and high-impact field event one might expect and instead becomes obvious and predictable. Likewise, anyone expecting the unexpected with Frank Black is likely to be anything other than satisfied with ‘Honeycomb’. Just when you thought it was as inevitable as dirty bath water Black wrong foots you again, resists the temptation to provide the things you really, really want and continues Continue Reading

If a cook at your local restaurant prepared a meal that would only half-cooked and presented it to you on lukewarm platter you’d look at him perplexed. If your favourite football team failed to show up for the second half, chances are you’d reconsider your allegiance to the club. But when a successful and critically favoured artist like Ed Harcourt serves up 28 or so odds and sods of B-Sides, unreleased songs, rudimentary ideas, uneven rarities, rough mixes, rough sketches, Continue Reading

pic•a•resque (pĭk’ə-rĕsk’, pç’kə-) adj.1. Of or involving clever rogues or adventurers.2. Of or relating to a genre of usually satiric prose fiction originating in Spain and depicting in realistic, often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social degree living by his or her wits in a corrupt society. Now would seem like an especially good time to make like The Arcade Fire, only marginally less so. The zesty Canadians have set the bar so damn high this year Continue Reading

Originally released in 1989, ‘Shakespeare Alabama’ was the debut album by Fanclub/U2/INXS wannabees and psychedelic guitar band Diesel Park West arriving at a place not dissimilar to that one occupied the equally indebted Cosmic Rough Riders and vacated just as quickly. Previously, only the band members themselves had an inkling of how the album should listen, the rest of us had to endure what was by and large a thoroughly b-list entity. This new special edition, however, has been tastefully Continue Reading

The Cowboy Junkies began their career with a compilation of songs made famous by other artists, whether or not they bow to the inevitable creeping of age and finish on one remains to be seen, but judging by this inspired if unenergetic selection of songs it seems unlikely that they’ve finished squeezing the juice from the mango of life’s rich melancholy. Off the road for months and with winter digging in deep the band decided that February 2005 might benefit Continue Reading

Continuing their exploration of the more experimental side of electronic music the Swindon-born-San Fransciso-perfected industrial dance duo release umpteenth studio record ‘At The Center’ – spelled, yes you got it, the good old American way. Why? Lord knows. But then it’s not unreasonable to forget your roots if you’re from Swindon – home to such vicarious talent as Diana Dors and XTC – although it does have an excellent bus service and robust council recovery plan by all accounts. What Continue Reading

This modern world, eh, ain’t it just great? The key to its success is that everyone knows things were more or less good enough way back when, they just took far too long. So now we can be deliriously happy with our remote controls, browsing Ikea’s shelves online from our Ikea armchairs, and blink-of-an-eye information-superhighway delivered mp-free downloads of derivative recycled musics. Nothing’s really changed, it’s all just quicker, fitter, happier, more convenient. And now, the latest innovation: the Euro Continue Reading

Heads up. Here’s something you don’t get every day. Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2 is a compilation of some fourteen remakes of songs by the increasingly resonant Kraftwerk – the pioneers of electronica. Anyone who knows a little bit about Kraftwerk will be familiar with the band’s seminal Trans Europe Express album (1977). On Trans Slovenia Express Vol. 2, Kraftwerk classics are reinterpreted by artists from Slovenia. Some of the artists are newcomers, others have been around since the Kraftwerk Continue Reading

With cool, fancy remixes for eminent folks like Kelis, Goldfrapp, The Rapture and Spektrum attracting interest from a fairly broad range of quarters, it’s unlikely there was ever going to be a shortage of ideas or guest appearances on this bright, eager and frighteningly fresh second album ‘Eat Books’ from Berlin’s freak soul-brothers Schwarz. And true to expectations: there ain’t no shortage. Fair enough, a number of the tracks tip a wink in the direction of electro-pop shufflers like Heaven Continue Reading

It pays to be young. More specifically it pays to be young in a grown up’s world. Take as proof, if you will, the Jackson Five, Charlotte Church, the cast of Bugsy Malone and odd-toff child-star antique-expert sex-change chap James (nee Lauren) Harries. No-one said anything about long term gains. We might not be skirting quite that close to conception here, but The Subways obviously consider their youth so bankable that they saw fit to title their debut album accordingly. Continue Reading