Mary In The Junkyard are the latest in a recent tradition of highly original British bands whose influences are hard to detect.

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Death Valley Girls return after a hiatus caused by the California wildfires with a stripped-back sound on this taster of new album Welcome To Earth.

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Mary Gauthier keeps it real in a way few others have ever dared to do in her autobiographical coming-of-age song Drag Queens In Limousines. (more…)

The Teardrop Explodes were one of my favourite bands in the late Seventies. I bought all their records and saw them several times.

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Babybird, aka Stephen Jones, had been making home demos for five years without a record deal when You’re Gorgeous shot into the chart.

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John Douglas was a founder member of The Trashcan Sinatras, playing guitar and singing harmonies with the Glasgow band since 1986.

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Hey Joe is not just a classic, but a genuine rock standard, with at least a hundred versions. This is one of my favourites, by blues guitarist Roy Buchanan.

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British DJ Dave Clarke teamed up with German electroclash ensemble Chicks On Speed on this banger, with a Bauhaus sample to boot.

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Leon Bridges teams up with dance trio Jungle on a slice of uplifting summer soul infused with the sound of Afro jazz and funk.

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Sigue Sigue Sputnik arrived in an explosion of silly hair and sci-fi costumes as a postmodern pastiche of the ultimate Eighties band.

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