March 2018 – T P A

Richard Wileman – Veil

Released in late summer last year, the Ghost EP was the briefest of calling cards to mark the start of Richard Wileman’s musical career outside the Karda Estra brand, within which he has worked for the last 20 years. This…

Camembert – Negative Toe

The excellent cheese-rock that is not cheesy in the slightest of French troubadours Camembert returns with a delightfully skewiff trip along the blue lines and down into the holes entitled Negative Toe. Not as immediate as their debut Schnörgl Attahk,…

Yes 50th Anniversary Tour

City Hall, Sheffield Wednesday, 14th March 2018 As the opening strains of Stravinski’s Firebird Suite filtered through Sheffield’s City Hall, the years just fell away and transported the predominantly ageing audience back to their youth, back to the classic Yes of the…

Kino – Radio Voltaire

Kino’s Picture was my favourite album of 2005. In fact, I would easily say, without looking, that it was one of my favourite albums of the first decade of the 2000s. Despite wanting to hear a follow up… none came,…

Curved Air – Air Cut [Reissue]

By the early 1970s Curved Air had achieved success with the release of their first three studio albums (Air Conditioning, Second Album, and Phantasmagoria). This was further supported by touring with artists such as Black Sabbath, B.B. King, Deep Purple,…

Curved Air – Air Conditioning (Expanded Edition)

It is now 48 years since the formation of Curved Air, their debut album, Air Conditioning, being originally released on the Warner Brothers label in November 1970. This year Esoteric Recordings have put together a great 2-CD reissue Taking their…

Vantomme – Vegir

When I spotted this album for review I must confess that it was seeing Tony Levin’s name that intrigued me, however this thought does a disservice to the other very talented musicians on this release, a project that belongs to…

Rick Springfield – The Snake King

Australian born, but American raised, Rick Springfield – yes, he of Jessie’s Girl (General Hospital) fame – has gone back to his blues roots on this his latest album, successfully fusing his pop sensibilities with traditional blues stylings, and all…

Colin Tench (20/12/1954 – 27/12/2017)

I’ve probably been a Facebook friend of Colin Tench for about one and a half years. Never met him. But through the music he produced and the funny, witty, and intelligent rapport I had with him on FB pages and…

Sonar with David Torn – Vortex

Sonar, Swiss masters of multi-rhythm tritone minimalism, continue their career-long quest for a state of grace with Vortex, an album made with American impressionist guitar slinger David Torn, a combination of opposites that compliments one another marvellously on a scintillating…