1. Autechre – NTS Sessions
2. Demdike Stare – Stitch by Stitch
3. Demdike Stare – Passion
4. Field Music – Open Here
5. The Orielles – Silver Dollar Moment
6. Pram – Across the Meridian
7. Virginia Wing – […]

The Rolling Coastal record is alright but a bit forgettable – they’re good live though.

Wha? XTC?!!. Your homework is Drums and Wires, Skylarking and Apple Venus – in that order.

Ah OK, to be honest if Pet Sounds and Surfs Up don’t grab you then the rest of the catalogue is definitely going to be a hard sell but at least you gave it a go – which is is more than I’ve done with Springsteen I […]

Fair play but you obviously haven’t heard The Kinks ‘Village Green..’ and I can’t agree with The Beach Boys. There are countless ‘Best Ofs’ but none of them can be anything other than a sampler for their […]

Norton Folgate is excellent, a late period flourish but every home needs a Madness Best Of. There are lots of Madness comps out there but the most recent ‘Full House’ has all that incredible run of hits from The […]

I do miss the tribes, it was dying out 30 years ago though. The yoof round our way basically girls with eyebrows like Denis Healey and inflated lips, and lads just wear black padded hoodies and put their hands […]

Does seem odd they’re just chucking stuff out there for download to dodge the copyright issue- this would have made a nice little box set with the albums or just a couple of double disc sets like the ‘Sunshine […]

Cale for me. I saw him play in quite small venues a couple of times in the early 00s and he was excellent, very charismatic and engaging so maybe that makes a difference – but ultimately his solo stuff grabs me […]

It’s easy to scoff at a list like this, but The Quietus are a force for good – they’re not hipsters, they aren’t trying to reflect what’s ‘cool’ or help PR get a buzz going, or indeed what iTunes and Spotify have […]

Most of my ‘new’ this year has been live music – new bands and old bands. The rest has been crate digging weird shit from the 1970s and 1980s and the rest of the time I’ve been trying to get my head around […]

A bit more extreme – here’s The Cravats – was a great joy to see them live a couple of years ago and meet The Shend. They were fucking amazing live, go and see them if this racket floats yr boat

Beautiful. Thanks @Twang

Yeah I was waiting for them to rock out, or do some Hysteria style layered vocal thing. Quite faithful to the original. Actually they’re not that different in a way. Def Lep are basically an electronic rock band […]

Apparently Blue Peter is still quite a thing, a mate of mine’s kid was over the moon to get a Blue Peter Badge recently. Do they still have dogs?

I saw The Cure at Hyde Park this year. It was a blisteringly hot day but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Great supporting line up, the Cure were excellent and the Hyde Park lot run a good show – great staging, no big […]

Always an interesting time. The shops and websites have a very specific idea of ‘Perfect Gifts for Her’ which is on another planet to the one we live on.

There is usually a list of books Ms.V wants but other […]

As you say, bands I’ve never heard of frequently seem to headline the local enormodome or the Apollo. I’m not sure how they get there but I think Social Media largely means bands who wouldn’t have got past critics […]