expect delay
Last year, I marked the 29th anniversary of Ride’s Going Blank Again with a “Twisterella” post so this year – the much rounder 30th birthday – here’s the record’s opening track. While understandable that the video uses the radio edit – it’s doubtful the full eight-plus minutes would have cracked the UK top 10 – […]
This year marks the 40th anniversary of XTC’s fifth album, English Settlement, a record that represents the inflection point in the band’s career between the frantic, high-energy post-punk they made their name with to the more orchestrated, pastoral sounds that defined the remainder of their active years. It also marked the final record that the […]
By the numbers – it’s telling that Gang Of Four in 2022 are clearly bookending themselves with the years 1977 and 1981. That was the period captured in last year’s deluxe box set 77-81, which comprised Entertainment! and Solid Gold and singles of the era. Two of the founding members – vocalist Jon King and […]
Ulrich Schnauss‘ take on the centrepiece of Slowdive’s Pygmalion was one of the standout tracks on the uniformly excellent Blue Skied an’ Clear, a 2002 tribute album assembled by German electronica label Morr Music. I’m of the belief that this comp in no small part helped elevate that record from its initial status as career-ending […]
Cold War anxiety permeates a lot of the original post-punk bands, but it seems more to the fore with The Sound. Case in point, one of the standout tracks from their debut album Jeopardy, presented here in live form from their appearance at the “No Nukes” concert in Utrecht, Netherlands in April 1982. They may […]
When I did this roundup of versions of Magazine’s “A Song From Under The Floorboards” back in November, I certainly didn’t think I’d be needing to make an addendum a few months later, but here we are. And that’s because none other than The Wedding Present have tackled the song as the b-side on their […]
As one whose real-time experience with The Cure started with Wish, I still have a number of blind spots with their discography and so coming across this article in Paste about the 35th anniversary of their 1987 concert film The Cure In Orange was quite an eye-opener, as I a) didn’t know it existed and […]
With news that Slowdive are back in the studio working on their fifth album, let’s go back five – FIVE?!? – years to July 2017 when Neil Halstead appeared on Song Exploder to dissect the band’s writing process, particularly as applied to my favourite song from the self-title record, “Sugar For The Pill”. And hearing […]
I’m a little ashamed it’s taken over a year for me to acknowledge one of the best purveyors of dreampop in the business hereabouts, but with Beach House releasing their eighth – and maybe best? – new record Once Twice Melody out today, here’s some Beach House love. “Alien” dates to the sessions for 2018’s […]
It’s been a minute or two since I’ve done one of these iterations posts – they do take some time do, you know – but I’ll ease back into it with one of the landmark songs of shoegaze and dreampop, arguably Ride’s signature song, “Vapour Trail”. Written and sung by Andy Bell, it was the […]
