Lankum transform The Specials’ Ghost Town into an otherworldly Irish folk-drone-techno banger for a new generation. (more…)

In the second half of the Eighties, punk/New Wave misfits XTC briefly became another band dedicated to Sixties psychedelia, The Dukes Of Stratosphear.

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Siouxsie Sioux channels her inner Shirley Bassey to sing the best Bond theme never to appear in a Bond movie.

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I’ve always been a sucker for sad songs, and songs rarely sound sadder than The Way It Goes by bluegrass revivalist Gillian Welch.

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R.E.M. broke through to the big time in 1991 after a decade as indie darlings, with what would soon become their signature song.

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PragVEC were one of the first of the post-punk bands to emerge in London in 1978 and sounded unlike anyone else at the time – or since. (more…)

Dave Ball was one of the least starry rock stars I ever met. It’s probably why we became mates.

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Tom Misch’s jazzy house update on Roberta Flack’s 50-year-old chart topper Feel Like Makin’ Love is the kind of thing you might hear at a beach bar in Ibiza. 

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Still digging into early-Seventies soul, I have to admit I’d never heard of Brick and consequently I’d never heard of their disco and jazz hybrid that they called “dazz.”

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In 1977 I was listening to a solid diet of one-chord wonders, varied only with a weekly dose of Top of the Pops to find out what the rest of the country was listening to while I pogoed.

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