we may already have had the two best albums of 2016. Blackstar and Lucinda’s The Ghosts of Highway 20 are gonna be hard to beat. What are you looking forward to in what’s left of the year?
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.

Suede – Night Thoughts came out yesterday – awaiting delivery
February:
The Cult (looks interesting?)
Field Music
Steve Mason
March:
Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression
(that’s the one I’m really looking forward to)
Night Thoughts is pretty good. My usual reservations with Suede apply, namely that I enjoy the rockers a lot more than Brett’s tortured ballads, but when it’s on form it’s top notch – I reckon Outsiders is one of the best things they’ve done.
The ones I’m looking forward to fall firmly in the “definitely not new” camp: The new 4 disc Bowie At The Beeb reissue alongside vinyl releases of The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory and Space Oddity, as well as reissues of Van’s Beautiful Vision and Inarticulate Speech, with hopefully more Van reissues to follow. Also Phil Collins’ Face Value, which is a great album and I don’t care what anyone else says.
In terms of ‘new’, I have the Steven Wilson on its way to me – other than that, big fat nothing…
Hi Mr Diamond, your comments on the Van releases piqued my interest because I have been waiting for news of them for months now. I searched after reading your post but can find no new information on when these reissues will new released or any of the other releases us Va fans are eagerly awaiting. Are we being lead up the garden path again?
New Pet Shop Boys on April 1st. Possibly new Gaga at some point, too.
Never too sure about Gaga but I’ve only “seen” rather than “heard” her. Is there one song Mini that might convince me to listen further?
Well, if you don’t like Bad Romance (unedited album version) or Poker Face, you can forgeddaboudit. Although the new stuff will no doubt bear no resemblance to these whatsoever, for better or worse.
Hey, mini! Shouldn’t you be working on that BobBoxBlog? I’ve heard of a holiday break but aren’t you stretching it?
*whipcrack*
My ears have been busy elsewhere tigs. I’ll get to it.
(thanks for the discipline)
My pleasure…mm…nnn..oof.
Saw Field Music in Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Friday and their new stuff sounds mighty fine so I’m very much looking forward to their new one, they’re becoming a Sunderland Steely Dan/10CC I’m saying. Meilyr Jones was the support act and he went down a storm and I’ll be getting his debut. I’m also very much looking forward to the Caverns of Anti-Matter LP which is Tim Gane and Joe Dilworth of Stereolab. There’s a New Animal Collective on the way, and I believe new EPs from Loop and Wire.
I thought the thread topic was going to finish with “…hot cross buns are already for sale”
Instead it’s talk about music….who’d have thunk it?
Hot cross buns, like mince pies are the work of the Devil.
Nobody has mentioned the excellent new Eleanor Friedberger album that came out on Friday. I’ll certainly be listening to that one more often than Blackstar.
I haven’t mentioned it either, but that explains why I couldn’t find it when I looked. Unfamiliar with her previous solo or as a Fiery Furnace, the track on the Unshod coverdisc leapt out at me and said buy, buy, buy, her take on a well remembered intro and chord sequence being so intriguing.
On a first listen the new one would seem like a good place to start then,if you like that, go back to the first one. Personally I find the Fiery Furnaces a bit patchy but some of the tracks certainly point the way to the solo stuff.
……I forgot to say, it’s on Freegal so if your local library is signed up, you can download the album for free!
Yes to Field Music and Suede.
Also read the Mojo review of ‘Still in A Dream: A Story of Shoegaze 1988-1995’ and I’m even more excited about it. Due to arrive on Friday 29th.
Got my eye on these forthcoming releases:
Graham Nash – This Path Tonight (April)
Mavis Staples – Livin’ On A High Note (February)
Treetop Flyers – Palomino (March)
Lissie – My Wild West (February)
Struggling to like Lucinda Williams’s latest. I hope it’s a grower, pop pickers.
I heard a Lissie track on 6music this week and it was mightily disappointing. She has turned all AOR on us and not in a good way. Lucinda on the other hand is fab and the guitar work of Bill Frissell on this new album is just stunning.
Fourth listen, and yes, you may be right.
For the first time for more than four decades, I just can’t be arsed.
Aw. Come join us in the sauna, tigs.
Only if you turn the lights off.
Current Pledgemusic campaigns include Steve Diggle and Love Zombies which should be worth a punt. On the reissues front will be get the long rumoured Blood on the Tracks bootleg series release from Bob (and wouldn’t the rest of the Sinatra sessions be good?
I presume that Bowie’s Five Years box is the start of a reissue campaign? Talking of reissues does any one know what’s up next in Macca’a archival set?
Apparently Flowers in the Dirt which interests me greatly if it has unreleased Macca/Costello performances from the time.
Now that would be interesting if the Costello tracks are part of the deal.
New albums due from The Jayhawks, Trashcan Sinatras, Teenage Fanclub (as ever), Nada Surf and Treetop Flyers. Looking like a good year.
Afterword dub fans may go for the following two dub reissues, which are coming out in the next few weeks:
1. Skin Flesh and Bones – Dub in Blood (out 12 February)
Set of rare dubs originally on Phil Pratt’s Sunshot label
2. Page One & the Observers – Observation Of Life Dub (out 26 February)
As the title suggests, this is a set of Niney the Observer productions. First time ever on CD.
Went a bit mad yesterday and bought the new Eleanor Friedberger, Fat White Family, The Besnard Lakes, Screws (remixed) by Nils Frahm, John Cale’s re-issue of Music For a New Society with a re-recorded version M:FANS and a ten album box of The Monkees.
Plenty of go at there next week at work!
And lots of fantastic stuff still to come http://www.resident-music.com/collection&path=77
That must include just about everything the Monkees recorded?
How about a Nights In, ip?
Give me a week or two @Tiggerlion to digest that lot and I’ll give it a go.
And it must be pretty everything they did @Fiction Romantic but I’m sure that someone on here can confirm that. And it was only £30, a real bargain!
Let me know about the Fat White Family by way of a review. Read a lot about them and heard a track on 6music earlier this week which was very good but not how I expected them to be. Seems like they are getting a lot of a coverage and they are one of the showcase artists at this years SXSW which I am going to.
P J Harvey. ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’ 15 April 2016
I read somewhere that Scritti Politti will be releasing a new album in 2016…if this is true then I’m going to be very happy.
But I seem to recall other years when we’ve been told the same news, and nothing happened. Does anyone here know if it might be true this time?
Green interviewed here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03f9n15
He played a couple of new ones at a WORD IN YOUR EAR gig saying new album was imminent – yes that long ago
Green was on RadMac a few days ago (still available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vpb2r ) and he is working on new stuff. The best bit was finding out that vocal was half a beat out on ‘Road To No Regret’. He was flabbergasted, it was a great bit of Radio.
Great Minds etc!!!!
Most looking forward to the new one (“The Peace and Truce of…”) from Future of the Left which is due on 1st April.
There’s also a final one from School of Seven Bells due in February too, apparently written in 2012 before Benjamin fell ill.
Repeat mentions for Pet Shop Boys and Caverns of Anti-Matter too.
There’s supposed to be a “final” Swans album out around May too I think.
Just remembered, Loretta Lynn releases her new album Full Circle in March. If it’s as Good as Van Lear Rose was, it’ll be a corker. http://www.lorettalynn.com/50/?p=2377
Yes to Field Music – got some lovely vinyl version on pre-order from their site – but this year, I am mostly anticipating Teddy Thompson & Kelly Jones’ ‘Little Windows’, which looks set to be a thing of beauty. April 1st release, lead single here….
Wasn’t aware of that Chris, thanks for the nod. Really like it and added to the list. Bloody hell!!
It’s from ’68, it’s in mono, it’s got Jimi on it, I’m McGoughing and McGearing it next month, it should be McTriffic.
The new Ed Motta album due in the next couple of weeks – loved his “AOR” album from a couple of years ago which captured that super sheen Steely Dan/AOR “Too Slow to Disco” 70s sound to perfection. The new one looks interesting with a host of 70s jazz funksters in the line-up:
Also, the new Greg Dean – similar smoooth vein – with nice track featuring Jarrod Lawson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0052CfcIqmw
There’s also a new Tord Gustavsen album out this week – a vocal set which sounds interesting. Not many jazz albums out there exploring the tradition of Norwegian church music.
I’m looking forward to the new film, title TBC, starring Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson, Stockard Channing as Liz Taylor and Brian Cox as Marlon Brandon, all taking an unplanned road trip together.
I can really see Channing as Liz Taylor. Two of my faves!
Professor Brian Cox?
Oh, I’m really looking forward to the solo Amanda Bergman album due February 26; Docks.
Here’s the first single, “Falcons”: