Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever return with their first music for four years, Sunburned In London.

(more…)

There’s a thin line between homage and pastiche and you can make your own mind up about teenage siblings The Molotovs.

(more…)

Here’s another anti-ICE anthem, inspired by the murders in Minneaolis, this time from across the pond by our own Billy Bragg.

(more…)

Chase away the winter blues with my first playlist of 2026 – two and a half hours of eclectic pleasure to warm the cockles of your ears, kicking off with the S.O.S. Band’s and coming to a melancholy close with Mary Margaret O’Hara. In between there’s a few country numbers, a hefty dose of Krautrock deep cuts, some reggae and soul, a couple of protest songs against ICE and Trump, and tributes to those we lost, including two drummers – Sly Dunbar and Kenny Morris – and actress Catherine O’Hara.

Catherine O’Hara played some of the funniest characters on film and TV – and her sister Mary Margaret O’Hara made one of the best debut albums ever recorded.

(more…)

Scattered Purgatory come from Taiwan and make music that lies somewhere between doom metal and ambient electronica. (more…)

Bob Marley captured the concerning mood of the times with his warning of impending global catastrophe – as relevant today as when he sang it in 1979.

(more…)

TThe Apprentice is, I think, the only reality-adjacent TV show I’ve ever watched. I’m a big fan, largely because of the unrelenting idiocy of (some / most of) the contestants.

(more…)

Here’s a vocal version I’ve never heard of my all-time favourite reggae tune, the title track of Augustus Pablo’s album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown.

(more…)

Bruce Springsteen delivers his response to the unfolding disaster in Minneapolis – a powerful riposte to the murderous exploits of ICE.

(more…)