Playlist: TV On The Radio ATP, May 11 2013

Lucky me got to play records, one after another, at the TV On The Radio-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties weekender of May 10-12.

I kept it pretty ‘party’ focused. What with it being midnight ’til 2am, and the day having seen acts like Spank Rock (and Amanda Blank) and El-P bring the rhymes with no little success, it was essentially a pop(ish)-minded Dive Slow set. (Speaking of which, the next Dive Slow is June 21 at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, Brighton.)

The set was as follows. Plenty of people danced. Some people fell over.

De La Soul – A Rolling Skating Jam…
Jungle Brothers – Doin Our Own Dang
Busta Rhymes – Whoo Ha (Jey Dee remix)
Masta Ace – Sittin On Chrome (Ummah remix)
J Dilla – Baby
9th Wonder – Now I’m Being Cool
Dr Octagon – Blue Flowers
Company Flow – 8 Steps To Perfection
Wu-Tang Clan – CREAM
Nas – It Ain’t Hard To Tell
Beastie Boys – Intergalactic (KMD blend)
M.I.A. – Bad Girls (remix w/ Missy Elliott and Rye Rye)
Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On
Angel Haze – Werkin’ Girls
Nikki D – Daddy’s Little Girl
Jay-Z – Hard Knock Life
Jay-Z/Kanye West – N In Paris
Kanye West – Gold Digger
EPMD – Gold Digger
Eric B and Rakim – I Know You Got Soul
Run-DMC – It’s Tricky
LL Cool J – Mama Said Knock You Out
A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It?
Biz Markie – Just A Friend
Pharoahe Monch – Simon Says
Notorious BIG – Juicy
Dr Dre – Still DRE
Snoop Dogg – Who Am I?
Warren G/Nate Dogg – Regulate
Luniz – I Got Five On It
R Kelly – Ignition (remix)

Thanks for dancing. (If you want a set similar to this, for whatever reason, I’m on Twitter.)

Playlist: Dive Slow (No Requests Special), 19 April 2013

No fuss. No picture. No links. Here’s what’s being played (or what was played, depending on when you see it) at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, Brighton on 19 April. Free entry from 9pm. Please ignore my notes in the brackets – I’d delete them, but it’s so late, and this six-hour set will keep me up ’til gone 3am tomorrow… the day after… you know what I mean.

Now: sleep.

Lapalux – Iamsys (Tape Intro) (2.53, DS 30)
AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It (Lapalux Bass Ballad remix) (3.42, DS 29)
Grimes – Genesis (Ryan Hemsworth remix) (4.16, 4/4 4)
Clams Casino – Motivation (4.28, June 1)
A$AP Rocky – LVL (3.40, DS 27)
Flatbush Zombies – Thug Waffle (3.25, DS 29)
The Underachievers – Gold Soul Theory (3.04, DS 30)
Bishop Nehru – Misruled Order (5.00, DS 31)
Heems – Tell Me (2.59, DS 28)
Oddisee – Another’s Grind (4.20, DS 12)
Chucky Balboa/Quakers – Silverust (2.50, DS 8)
Action Bronson/Alchemist – The Symbol (3.34, DS 24)
42ghosts/Death Grips – Lord of the Game (3.07, DS 29)
Jeremiah Jae/Beastie Boys – On N On (2.49, DS 31)
MED feat Hodgy Beats – Outta Control (3.19, DS 14)
Hodgy Beats – Cookie Coma (2.22, DS 21)
Flying Lotus feat Earl Sweatshirt/Capt Murphy – Between Friends (3.14, DS 20)
Paul White feat Marv Won – Run Shit (3.27, Hope 3 – ends early)
9th Wonder w/ Blu + Sundown – Piranhas (3.19, Hope 1)
Blu & Exile – Maybe One Day (3.57, DS 29)
Big K.R.I.T. – Somedayz (2.25, DS 31)
Elzhi – Life’s a Bitch (5.54, Lexington 2)
Fiend – Just Groovin (3.13, DS 31)
Dyme-a-Duzin – Swank Sinatra (3.45, DS 29)
Joey Bada$$ – Hardknock (5.18, DS 22)
Mobb Deep – Shook Ones II (5.26, RAP SPRING 5)
Notorious B.I.G. – Big Poppa (4.10, RAP SPRING 6)
Wu-Tang Clan – Da Mystery of Chessboxin (4.47, RAP SPRING 7)
GZA – I Gotcha Back (5.01, RAP SPRING 3 – ends early)
Company Flow – 8 Steps to Perfection (4.42, RAP SPRING 1)
El-P – Drones Over Brooklyn (5.50, DS 12)
Killer Mike – Southern Fried (4.38, DS 14)
Big Boi – In the A (5.20, DS 25 – ends early)
OutKast feat Raekwon – Skew It On The Bar-B (3.15, RAP SPRING 6)
Dangerdoom/Talib Kweli – Old School Rules (2.40, RAP SPRING 1)
JJ DOOM – Guv’nor (3.04, DS 8)
DOOM – Lightworks (1.53, RAP SPRING 2)
J Dilla – Baby (3.28, RAP SPRING 3)
Masta Ace – Sitting on Chrome (Ummah remix) (3.18, DS 18)
Busta Rhymes – Whoo Ha (Jay Dee remix) (4.45, dilla disc loose at back)
Lucy Pearl – Without You (J Dilla remix) (4.18, Hope 2)
D’Angelo – Devil’s Pie (5.22, RAP SPRING 1)
Mos Def – Hip Hop (3.17, Hip Hop etc disc 4, small folder)
Nottz – You Need This Music (3.58 but mix out w/ 50 secs left, DS 19)
Homeboy Sandman – Cops Get Scared of Me (4.25, DS 10)
Shabazz Palaces – An Echo… (3.15, DS 14)
THEESatisfaction – QueenS (3.06, DS 5)
Angel Haze – New York (3.29, DS 15)
Azealia Banks – Jumanji (2.55, DS 27)
M.I.A/Missy/Rye Rye – Bad Girls (3.23, DS 23)
TNGHT – Bugg’n (3.29, DS 19)
Two Fingers – Bad Girl (The Bug remix) (3.37, DS 20)
Two Fingers – Fool’s Rhythm (3.55, 4/4 7)
Ghostpoet – Msi Musmid (4.10, 4/4 3)
DELS – Not Today (3.59, DS 21)
Bonobo feat DELS – Eyesdown (5.29, DS 1)
The xx – Basic Space (Pariah remix) (4.44 – bring in early – SEPT 2010)
Gil Scott-Heron + Jamie xx – NY Is Killing Me (5.44, April Vol 3)
James Blake – CMYK (3.38, Hope 4)
Big K.R.I.T. – REM (2.52, DS 31)
Schoolboy Q – Raymond 1969 (4.51, DS 25)
Kendrick Lamar – Backstreet Freestyle (3.33, DS 23)
Kayne West + Jay-Z – N in Paris (3.39, Hope 5)
Schoolboy Q – Nightmare on Figg St (3.36, 25)
El-P/Wings/Bieber – Baby Death (4.12, DS 26)
Rage Against the Machine/Beastie Boys – Check the Testimony (4.19 w/ intro, DS 29)
Beastie Boys – Intergalactic (KMD blend) (3.42, DS 20)
The Pharcyde – Runnin’ (Philippians remix) (5.31, DS 17)
Souls of Mischief – 93 til Infinity (4.46, Lexington 4)
A Tribe Called Quest – Jazz (We’ve Got) (4/19, RAP SPRING 7)
Black Star – Respiration (6.05, RAP SPRING 1 note the intro)
Jay-Z – Dead Presidents II (4.26, RAP SPRING 3)
Nas – It Ain’t Hard to Tell (3.23, RAP SPRING 5)
Nas – The Don (3.02, DS 15)
Children of the Night – Kids from Queens (3.36, DS 22)
Dyme-a-Duzin – New Brooklyn (remix) (5.41, DS 31)
Le1f feat Kitty Pryde – Tha Whip (2.06, DS 28)
Kilo Kish – Ghost (2.37, DS 29)
Childish Gambino feat Danny Brown – Toxic (2.48, DS 16)
Danny Brown – Die Like a Rockstar (2.26, DS 17)
Dahlia Black – Fuck a Rap Song (3.26, DS 27)
Young Fathers – Rumbling (2.13, DS 25)
42ghosts/Death Grips – Spread Eagle Across the Block (3.22, DS 29)
Pandr Eyez – Eyes on You (3.56, Hope 3)
Lapalux – Without You (5.27, DS 30)
Drake – Marvin’s Room (Shlohmo’s Through the Floor remix) (5.21, DS 31)
Shlohmo feat How to Dress Well – Don’t Say No (5.19, DS 30)
Frank Ocean – Pyramids (9.54, DS 22)
R Kelly – Ignition Remix (2.59, DS RnB)
Montell Jordan – This Is How We Do It (3.54, Hip hop etc 4 – small folder)
Warren G & Nate Dogg – Regulate (4.09, hip hop 5 – small folder)
The Family Stand – Ghetto Heaven (4.48, DS RnB)
The Pharcyde – Passin Me By (Hot Chip remix) (5.57, DS 17)

Playlist: 4/4 ISH, April 11, 2013

So! A new night began yesterday, into the early hours of this morning. 4/4 ISH is what we (that’s Daniel Copeman and I) are calling it: focusing on what he might call “bangers”. And, he does. And, generally, it went well.

Room was a bit quiet, but the set was more a feeler than a floor-filler – next time, in June, back at Brighton’s Green Door Store, everything will be angled for more immediate impact, and a little pre-event advertising should ensure some extra punters in attendance (right?). Keep an eye out for local promotion, and on my Twitter account for further information.

Here’s what was played…

- – -

Bonobo – Emkay

Gold Panda (pictured) – You

Gold Panda – You (Dam Mantle remix)

FaltyDL – Straight + Arrow (Gold Panda remix)

FaltyDL – Bells

Lusine – Without a Plan

Tomas Barfod – Til We Die

Moderat – Rusty Nails

Walls – Hang Four (Allez-Allez remix)

Africa Hi-Tech – Out in the Streets

Machinedrum – U Don’t Survive

Lone feat Machinedrum – As a Child

Benjamin Damage – 010x

Benjamin Damage + Doc Daneeka – Creeper

Double Helix – No Worries

Mala – Curfew

Addison Groove – Dance of the Women

Four Tet – Love Cry (Joy Orbison remix)

Four Tet + Burial – Moth

Blanck Mass – Icke’s Struggle

GSH + Jamie xx – NY Is Killing Me

The xx – Shelter (John Talabot’s Feel It Too remix)

John Talabot – Destiny

Pantha du Prince – Stick to My Side

Pantha du Prince – Welt Am Draht (Moritz Von Oswald remix)

Letherette – After Dawn

Classixx – Stranger Love

Kavinsky – Roadgame

Sebastian – Embody

L-Vis 1990 – Lost in Love

Lindstrøm + Christabelle – Music in my Mind

Ford & Lopatin – World of Regret

The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar

The Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up (Noisia remix)

Two Fingers – Stripe Rhythm

Two Fingers – Bad Girl (The Bug remix)

The Bug – Warning

Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill (The Bug remix)

Radiohead – Right Place (SBTRKT remix)

Radiohead – Lotus Flower (SBTRKT remix)

Portico Quartet – Line (SBTRKT “More Hang” remix)

SBTRKT feat Jessie Ware – Right Thing to Do

Katy B – Aaliyah

Grimes – Genesis (Ryan Hemsworth remix)

Tim Hecker – No Drums

- – -

S’alright. Book me to DJ for you.

Playlist: Talking Heads Night @ The Green Door Store, Brighton 5/4/13

Last week I played a brief set at The Green Door Store‘s special Talking Heads night. And this is what got played, so it did:

Talking Heads – I Zimbra
Talking Heads – Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
Talking Heads – Seen and Not Seen
Talking Heads – Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town
Brian Eno + David Byrne – Strange Overtones
Gang of Four – Return the Gift
Magazine – A Song From Under the Floorboards
The Velvet Underground – I’m Waiting for the Man
Ramones – I Wanna Be Sedated
Talking Heads – Take Me to the River
Talking Heads – Who Is It?
Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime
X-Press 2 + David Byrne – Lazy
Talking Heads – Psycho Killer

Certainly a theme evident, there.

I’m back at The Green Door Store this Thursday night (April 11), for a taster of a new night I’m starting alongside Daniel he-of-Esben-and-the-Witch Copeman. Called 4/4(ish), or 4/4ISH – I guess we should settle on a style – it’ll see records played that you can Probably Dance To.

Pop along, why not.

A new night what I am playing records at – it’ll probably be OK.

Brighton pals. I’m starting – with Daniel Copeman – a new night. 4/4ish is what it’s called. Basically it’s taking the fun end of electro that gets played at my Dive Slow* nights in the Sticky Mike’s bar, and transplanting them into a dancefloor-friendly set to echo around the Green Door Store.

Dan’s in America right now, but I’ll be sort of previewing the ‘vibe’ of the night at the Green Door on April 11 – just in the bar. Free entry, so if yr at a loose end on a Thursday night, come have a gander. Probably gonna run about 11pm-2am ish. ISH is the term of note.

Expect: Modeselektor, LCD Soundsystem, Bonobo, Slugabed, Cosmin TRG, Zomby, Flying Lotus, Sigha, Errors, Starkey, Jamie xx, John Talabot, Lusine, Hot Chip, SBTRKT, Matthew Dear, Machinedrum, Caribou, Space Dimension Controller, Mala, Lone, Venetian Snares, Four Tet, Squarepusher, Fuck Buttons, Patten, remixes and that…

More info sometime in the FUTURE. We’ll start properly in June.

(* The next one of these being a DJ-only night on April 19th, then a live-bands-too, with Ghosting Season, Pandr Eyez and guest DJ Olugbenga, on May 10th. Both are free-entry events at Sticky Mike’s.)

BBC Album Reviews: Some of the Best, part two

Continuing on from yesterday’s first ten picks, here’s ten more standout examples of music reviewing on the BBC.

(Nb these are all from the period I edited the section – summer 2009 until the service’s cancellation this week. Prior to my arrival, the service was run by Somethin’ Else, under the guidance of a fine chap by the name of Chris Jones. A skilled writer – I’d have liked to have kept him amongst my contributors, but it didn’t work out – Chris has a number of BBC reviews to his name (568 to be precise). The quality control under SE was inconsistent, though, as evidenced by exploring the reviews archive. The company makes great radio – Now Playing, Gilles Peterson, Mayo and Kermode, Jazz on 3 – but running this service wasn’t quite its forte.)

Lovely reviews, below…

Fraser McAlpine reviews Elbow’s Build a Rocket Boys!…
“There isn’t even a palpable air of triumph to proceedings; no more so than usual, anyway. Elbow are a classier act that that. They do what they’ve always done: construct billowing repetitive structures out of tightly-controlled ideas – twisty guitars, razor-bass, clockwork piano, shakes and rattles and finger-clicks – and then invite a bearlike man with a helium roar to fill them with his scuffed and maudlin love letters.”

Greg Moffitt reviews Hawkwind’s Blood of the Earth…
“Occasional Hawkwind collaborator and all-round synth genius Tim Blake is the one weaving the electronic fabric which holds the album together, and his flourishes span from ethereal and entrancing to sinister and unsettling with masterful ease. It’s just a question of balance. There’s not a whole lotta rock. None of the three-chord warp drive needed to take this into orbit. Certainly the eerie atmospheres that the band once conjured like so many cosmic wizards are nowhere to be seen or heard…”

Hari Ashurst reviews Julia Holter’s Ekstasis…
“Holter balances her mostly zoned-out atmospheres with a couple of moments of ecstatic release. The biggest of these is In the Same Room – the most conventional and striking moment on the album. For the first three minutes the song unfurls just like a pop song. Electronic beats push a steady momentum while Holter playfully darts around two of the record’s strongest hooks. Small details gather and drive towards a climax that doesn’t quite happen – rather, the song ebbs and slips dreamily back into the pretty soundscapes that characterise the rest of Ekstasis.”

Andrew Mueller reviews Giant Sand’s Blurry Blue Mountain…
“Blurry Blue Mountain is a warm, unassuming album, the kind of record made by someone long past trying to impress anybody – which, as is the perverse way of these things, makes it all the more impressive. Gelb’s songs are, as ever, adroitly trimmed to the limitations of his voice, whether the Tom Waits-ish lament Chunk of Coal, the hungover duet with Lonna Kelley on Lucky Star Love, or the half-spoken Ride the Rail, a romp through the legend of the Molly Maguires, which recalls the modern historical narratives of Corb Lund and Patterson Hood.”

Everett True reviews The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream…
“Whereas before, The Black Angels’ albums – great as they were – were mostly centred around one incredible track (most noticeably The First Vietnamese War from the 2006 debut album Passover), Phosphene Dream stuns by its quality of depth. In Bad Vibrations, the balls-out River of Blood, Haunting at 1300 McKinley and several others, The Black Angels have written a series of rock anthems to match both the ghosts of the past and tribal-leaders of the present. The title is a reference to PH3, a toxic and explosive gas. It’s suitable, trust me.”

Laura Barton reviews Sharon Van Etten’s Epic…
“There is something special about Van Etten’s voice. It is neither the sort of fey, delicate wisp nor the sour, brittle twist we have come to expect from female folk singers; there is a weight and a gravel to it, evocative of She Keeps Bees or early Cat Power. It’s nice to hear a female artist singing so much from the belly, even, at times, with a stirring kind of anger – as in the rollicking Peace Signs. But even elsewhere, on the country lament of Save Yourself, for instance, or the free-floating haze of DsharpGg, there is always a sense of strength to Van Etten, something strong-boned and muscular, which marks her out from her contemporaries.”

Lloyd Bradley reviews Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of…
“The album is all about love in its many manifestations: joy (To Zion and Nothing Even Matters); pain (I Used to Love Him); disappointment (Doo Wop and Lost Ones); and optimism (Can’t Take My Eyes Off You). Sometimes it’s intensely personal (Ex-Factor), or takes a wider perspective (Everything Is Everything and Every Ghetto, Every City), or might even be an attack on her former bandmates (Superstar and Forgive Them Father). In every case, though, there’s an astuteness and sensitivity disproving the notion that hip hop audiences have only two speeds – radical or licentious. Hill’s poetry assumes a liberating intelligence among her listeners, to be repaid as they follow her unflinchingly into some of the more intimate aspects of her life.”

Ian Wade reviews The 2 Bears’ Be Strong…
“Touches of skastep (a genre I’ve just invented) on Heart of the Congos, and country on Time in Mind, guarantee proceedings are never monotonous; these tangents also provide the pair’s considerable songwriting chops with a nice stretch. The utopian existence of the disco is but a fleeting temporary state, and so beneath the optimistic ‘dance your cares away’ vibe there’s also an element of the real world outside the club: Work acknowledges that times are tough, and while you have big dreams you need to actually, er, work at them.”

John Doran reviews Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing…
“All of her covers are astutely chosen; Bill Withers’ Use Me and Flash and the Pan’s Walking in the Rain are canny reworkings and, as with all good covers, the style in which they are reworked becomes a statement in itself… The album’s undoubted centrepiece is an original composition and a work of cocksure funk disco genius. Pull Up to the Bumper remains a bona-fide dancefloor filler and one powered by a delicious irony at that. Jones’ fanbase at the time was mainly comprised of white gay men, who idolised this chiselled, masculine woman who sang unashamedly and quite obviously about the joys of an, ahem, alternative sexual practice for her, that wasn’t so alternative for them.”

Kev Kharas reviews The Fall’s Your Future Our Clutter…
“You don’t last as long as The Fall have without learning a few things. Things like how many times you have to play the same riff before it becomes invincible, and how long you have to spend barking at people before they start treating you like a hero. Mark E. Smith is 371 in dog years. He has been barking forever, and, as The Fall enter their 34th year with their 28th studio album, a hero many times over: looping in and out of critical approval as endlessly as the snarling, nagging guitars that have underpinned his scornful non-sequiturs for decades.”

More BBC album reviews, here.

BBC Album Reviews: Some of the Best, part one

So I figured, what with the service’s imminent closure, I’d post a few of my favourite reviews to have run on the BBC Album Reviews pages since the summer of 2009.

I say “part one” as it’s been a real treat to run so much high-quality content these past weeks, months and years that to not dive into the archive again for another selection would be doing myself a disservice, not to mention the team of contributors.

I haven’t thought long and hard about the below picks, either – I’ve just scanned the pages, little lights going off as I recall standout examples of critical thoughts (turned into compelling copy).

But if something piques your own interest from the below, click through and have a rummage yourself. I think you’ll agree that a bloody fine job’s been done.

Jude Rogers reviews Paul Weller’s Sonik Kicks…
“Thirty years ago, Paul Weller was number one. The Jam’s A Town Called Malice spent three weeks at the top of the charts, its Motown bassline bustling, its finger clicks rustling. Watch its video now, and the 23-year-old at the middle of it has hardly changed in some ways. His Woking vowels are still ‘ow’s-yer-father; the haircut’s still cockatoo-daft. But he sings a line in its first verse that’s practically become his motto: ‘Stop apologising for the things you’ve never done, because time is short and life is cruel, and it’s up to us to change.’”

Adam Kennedy reviews Aesop Rock’s Skelethon…
“It’s a difficult listen, no doubt. But just when Skelethon appears to be drifting towards a less-than-lapel-grabbing conclusion, closing confessional Gopher Guts pulls an astonishing passage from nowhere. It’s built on possibly the most affectingly honest lines Aesop has ever delivered: ‘I have been completely unable to maintain any semblance of relationship on any level / I have been a bastard to the people who have actively attempted to deliver me from peril.’”

Alex Deller reviews Goat’s World Music…
“Basslines hulk and lurk, goading you pushily towards the dancefloor while psychotropic guitar parts conjure impossible colours and chanted, voice-as-instrument ululations score a deep path through your subconscious despite only one word in 50 ever actually making sense. Dip in at any point and you’re bound to hit gold, whether you light upon the cartwheel riffing of opener Diarabi, the glorious, organ-dappled funk of Disco Fever or the primal rattle and grunt of the beautiful but far-too-short Run to Your Mama.”

Barney Hoskyns reviews Foreigner’s Can’t Slow Down…
“Like so many veteran rock bands, Foreigner is now little more than a trademark owned by its British founder Mick Jones. Fifteen years after their last album release, Jones has cobbled together a unit of proficient hacks to craft a ghastly collection of songs that might as well have been written by a computer programme. Pulsing rhythms, glistening guitar arpeggios, hideously clichéd lyrics and heroically angsty vocals: they’re all here in abundance, tailor-made for future X Factor contenders.”

Paul Lester reviews Drake’s Thank Me Later…
“Drake is the Vampire Weekend of rap – he ticks all the wrong boxes, especially for a milieu that privileges poverty and strife. He’s a handsome 23-year-old ex-actor from an affluent background who has effortlessly achieved even greater wealth via music that utterly refuses to flaunt its street-tough credentials. More heinous still, Thank Me Later is virtually a concept album about the loneliness and lovelessness of the successful celebrity, a sort of sequel to Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak, only more audaciously dolorous because he’s only just started. In fact, as morose meditations on the miseries of fame go, it comes across like a rap version of Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories or Deconstructing Harry.”

Spencer Grady reviews Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica…
“Replica sees Lopatin stray from his traditional templates, making occasional forays onto the dancefloor, shackling his amorphous ambient tides to the tyranny of the beat. Sleep Dealer and Nassau sound like The Field hitting hiccup hi-scores with the snooze function on, while Up forges a natural alliance between Muslimgauze’s souk-saturated rhythms and Cut Hands’ abrasive appropriation of Congolese percussion.”

Chris Roberts reviews Dexys’ One Day I’m Going to Soar…
“A quarter-century on from the last Dexys Midnight Runners album Don’t Stand Me Down (mocked upon release, now recognised as a work of genius), Dexys (so named because, says Kevin Rowland, ‘It’s the same, but also not the same’) return. Recent live shows induced collective rapture in audiences. Can the ‘comeback’ album possibly live up to expectations? It can. It certainly can… There is so much personality, poetry, vulnerability and resilience here that most other records sound like dry runs by comparison. Dexys are back with wisdom and wings. Some of us never doubted.”

David Quantick reviews Buzzcocks’ Another Music in a Different Kitchen…
“Upgrading and referencing the Spiral Scratch EP’s Boredom as bookends to the whole thing, Another Music… mixed Shelley’s remakes of Devoto lyrics (Fast Cars being a standout) with new brilliance like I Don’t Mind. Diggle added one of Buzzcocks’ greatest songs, the motorik genius of Autonomy. And the whole thing finales with punk’s greatest end-of-side-two track, the epic Moving Away From the Pulsebeat, which still sounds like nothing else ever recorded. It’s my favourite album ever; buy it and find out why.”

Daniel Ross reviews Rachel Zeffira’s The Deserters…
“Canadian Zeffira has a uniquely simplistic and powerful melodic knack which satisfies the head, but to massage the heart she has a real aptitude for arrangements. Oscillating strings, reeds and flutes are used with invention throughout, on the chug of Break the Spell and in the closing organ expanse of Goodbye Divine – all evidence that Zeffira is skipping wildly ahead of the pack. The Deserters is unequivocally demanding of your attention, as accomplished as it is tummy-meltingly wonderful to listen to.”

James Skinner reviews Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid…
“Monáe and her Wondaland collective span styles and epochs seamlessly over these 18 tracks, touching on everything from fantasia strings to psychedelic trad-folk, cabaret jazz to traditional R’n’B; heck, even goth and Eurotrance get a look in… Across the breadth of the record, songs and icons are recalled and reinvented, flickering like ghosts you recognise but can’t quite place; Monáe’s skill is to fashion them into something bordering indefinable. She is an easy, natural star, and The ArchAndroid is a kaleidoscopic, breathless run through the genres and eras that have inspired her.”

That’ll do, for now.