The Pheromoans are new to me and I’m willing to wager they’re new to you. Yet this peculiarly British band has been ploughing its lone furrow for 18 years.
Here is the MC5’s infamous hometown performance by a Detroit highway in July 1970. Thirty-four years later I finally got to see them play for myself.
One of my favourite Americana artists is Matthew Houck, a native of Athens, Georgia, who makes music under the nom-de-plume Phosphorescent.
This collab between two London rappers of West African origin is a hymn to their families’ mother continent… and the women they find there. But it’s the music as much as the sultry vocals that really catches my ear, with its shuffling rhythms, lazy swing and joyful, jazzy undertones.
This record, championed by my fellow music scribe Ged Babey, sounds so familiar, touching so many bases from my punk past, yet also sounds fresh. And that’s because, while it’s true that these musicians are no spring chickens, this is a new release.
Starring: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Hanna Schygulla
Writer: Tony McNamara (based on Alasdair Gray’s novel)
Poor Things is a filthy feminist comedy from Greek film-maker Yorgos Lanthimos, a hilarious twist on the Frankenstein story with Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe.
I wasn’t planning to watch Jools Holland’s Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve. And when I did switch over after the fireworks I certainly didn’t expect to witness an exciting new talent.
Grandaddy are a unique group whose characteristic blend of swirling synths and psychedelic guitars has been wrapping fans in a warm blanket of beauty for the ears for more than 30 years.
Here’s my last playlist of the year, for December 2023. It’s a vibrant mix of ’70s hard rock and ’80s kitsch’n’disco, vintage funk and soul and ambient house, old-skool blues and nu-soul, plus a bit of dub reggae and some festive themed numbers for Christmas recently past.
Obviously these are just the ones I have read, and I am a slow reader. But I enjoy a good novel, with good characters, and I try to alternate my novel-reading with the occasional non-fiction book.
Looking at the list, it’s only now I notice that while the first (The Bee Sting) is very much an Irish book about an Irish family, the next five all have themes of race.