If you’ve ever been bitten by the record collecting bug then you’ll know that certain records on your wants list remain elusive. In my case one such was Death May Be Your Santa Claus by the very underground and rather…
View More Second Hand – Death May Be Your Santa Claus
Having sailed H.M.S. Prog as far out from the shore as it could go, the only options were to either turn amidships and repeat himself forever and a day… hmmm, sounds familiar… or abandon the fast sinking lumbering hulk and…
View More Steven Wilson – To The Bone
Another release from rock’s lesser known back pages by Esoteric Recordings, and another raid on my Vertigo spiral collection gives me a chance to wax lyrical over the self-titled album by Clear Blue Sky, which was another of those cut…
View More Clear Blue Sky – Clear Blue Sky
Beamed in from the outer reaches of known space, or Sheffield to be more precise, is the third instalment from Martin Archer’s Kraut/jazz/experimental space rock troupe Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere. Theta Three finds the band continuing on from the…
View More Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere – θ3
Miriodor were formed in 1980 in Quebec City by François Émond and Pascal Goblensky, and had the internet been around back then, would have instantly become part of the Rock In Opposition movement that was striking out on the other…
View More Miriodor – Signal 9
You know that thing where Henry Cow gatecrash a Randy Newman song? No? Well it happens on the opening track to Putting Off Death, the 18th(!) album from redoubtable Chicagoan avant rockers CHEER-ACCIDENT, and their third for Cuneiform Records. They…
View More CHEER-ACCIDENT – Putting Off Death
Toby Driver is an integral cog in one of the few truly progressive rock bands on the planet, the ever-morphing Kayo Dot. More than a decade on from his first, here Toby makes his second solo album, as he ironically…
View More Toby Driver – Madonnawhore
Patto – Roll ’em Smoke ’em Put Another Line Out Judging by the chaotic, unfocused but nonetheless glorious mess that this album is, it would seem its title was instructional rather than allegorical. Weirdly described by Rolling Stone at the…
View More Patto – Roll ’em Smoke ’em Put Another Line Out / Monkey’s Bum
Four years on from their tumultuous self-titled debut album, multi-national combo Mumpbeak reappear with this album of shifting moods and confounded expectations. Unlike on that first album, there is no impressive list of guest players this time round, as the…
View More Mumpbeak – Tooth
Starting with a bizarre spoken word last will and testament where Mr Ramsay leaves his appreciation of art, sanity, and competence to the Government, because “by God they need it”, and ending with a fractured recitation of a script from…
View More Robert Ramsay – Confound And Disturb