"Sweet Agnes" by Masayoshi Takanaka Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post a song that uses an instrument in an abnormal way This guy uses a surfboard shaped guitar. I took me a while to find a good picture of it. View Mandaris's Crucial Tracks profile Listen to my Apple Music playlist

Free Disco is one of many aliases used by a somewhat mysterious Japanese producer. While publicly keeping his true identity cloaked, Mr. FD, having relocated to London, was well connected within the world of the “nu disco” explosion of the late 2000s. His work appeared on labels such as Bearfunk, Electric Minds and Rong Music. Imprints that ran on the enthusiasm of folks, names, such as Stevie Kotey, Faze Action and Yam Who? The track, “You Are My Sculpture”, however, featured on one of two EPs…

This is the first of what may well be many offseason/preseason thoughts about the new-look Philadelphia 76ers. It's not a long one, either. It's really just a reminder that good players who are NBA starters tend to need the ball more than less good players who are not NBA starters. Below please the 2025-26 usage rates of the presumptive starting lineup for the 2026-27 Philadelphia 76ers: 🏀 Jaylen Brown: 36.2% 🏀 Joel Embiid 33.5% 🏀 Tyrese Maxey 29.4% 🏀 LeBron James 27.2% 🏀 VJ Edgecombe 20.1%…

One of my favourite recent YouTube discoveries is the Track Star* channel. While they also produce longer podcast episodes and showcase live performances, the videos I've been enjoying the most are the street interviews with celebrities.

The Toad of Maldoror (1932) by Valentine Hugo. • Old music: Thank You America (John Robie Dub Mix) by Cabaret Voltaire. Code, the group’s 1987 debut for the Parlophone label, receives an overdue reissue later this year with a substantial collection of remixes. • At Lesser-Known Writers: Douglas A. Anderson examines the career of Hal Garrott, a writer whose novels for children feature fine illustrations by Dugald Stewart Walker and Mary-Ponton Gardner. • The August catalogue of lots for the…

From the official R.E.M. video for “Crush With Eyeliner”, from their 1994 album Monster: (I love this song and would, in fact, marry it if I could.) The video:

Album of the Week, July 26, 2026 We’ve heard several albums by the great Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, featuring the hallmarks of the qawwali tradition: accompanied by harmonium and tabla plus a chorus, extended introductions, vocal improvisation, performances stretching anywhere from eight minutes to half an hour. We’ve also heard him in modern contexts collaborating with Peter Gabriel and others. But we haven’t heard his traditional work directly adapted for a wider Western…

Someone submitted my musical multitasking post to Hacker News, where Rochus Keller saw it and left some fascinating comments. He's developed a method of foot drumming, using midi organ pedals: youtube Here's another one: youtube Additional, audio-only, examples: 1, 2. I find this fascinating. The physical feel of organ pedals is very different from the kick drum pedals I play, much more keyboard-like, which means the technique is totally different. But it clearly works well, and Keller is able…

Always read Kevin Kelly

Stop press! I'm honoured to be part of a supporting cast for Caroline Trettine's album launch on the 12th of September. Terry Edwards will join me for a couple of songs.Look at the line-up!Further details here: www.carolinetrettine.com

Day 14 in Nagoya. News from the infirmary, Hoshoryu kyujo. He will finish the tournament with a 7-7-1 record. The posited Yokozuna Darwin Match will not happen. Kirishima will pick up an important win at a crucial time in the yusho race. Further news from the barber nextdoor to the infirmary, Daishomaru has retired. His … Continue reading Nagoya 2026: Day Fourteen

Advert in Record Retailer May 1969 Most famous for writing and recording the original version of “Harlem Shuffle”, Los Angeles soul duo Bob & Earl toured Britain in the spring of 1969. Guitarist Ged Peck, who previously played with Freddie Mack & The Mack Sound among many others, says his group Storm backed the duo on this British tour, although they are not listed on the dates below. Formed around November 1968, Storm comprised Ged Peck (lead guitar); Tony Dangerfield (bass); Peter Jennings…

Over the 40 years since their release I`ve played the A.R. Kane singles “When You’re Sad” and “Lollita” frequently. However, I’d rarely gone back to the album “i”, apart from the track, “A Love From Outer Space”, which I remain admittedly obsessed with. In preparation for interviewing Rudy Tambala, one half of the influential duo, I spent a very enjoyable hour with the long-player, listening and looking for clues. Speculating at sources of inspiration and listing possible points of reference,…

This second collection of jazz themed tracks is a mix of vintage, classic, contemporary, big band and modern swing. A treat for the ears and plenty to snap your fingers to.Track list:1 Baby I Need Your Lovin' - Lisa Stansfield (Swing) 2 Honeysuckle Rose - Jess Stacey (The Human Stain) 3 Chicago Shake - The Bruce Fowler Big Band (Public Enemies) 4 Flirtibird - Duke Ellington (Anatomy Of A Murder: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) 5 Paid For Loving - Love Jones (Swingers) 6 Woodchopper's Ball -…

Scribed by Sandre the Giant Released: 27th May 1996 An album that Bathory mastermind Quorthon shelved in 1989 for sounding too different from the band’s sound (he was probably right), 1996’s ‘Blood on Ice’ arrived just as the band’s ill advised old school thrash records confused everyone and yet perfectly as the folk metal scene was starting to rise from its formative roots in the previous few years. And yes, this is famously part of Bathory’s ‘Viking metal’ era but what is Viking metal if not…

Replied to Tadej Pogacar explodes the historic Alpe d'Huez record! (climbing-records.com) 1. 2026: 35:25 Tadej Pogacar 23.38 km/h. 2. 1995: 36:40 Marco Pantani 22.58 km/h. 3. 1997: 36:53 Marco Pantani 22.45 km/h. 4. 1994: 37:15 Marco Pantani 22.23 km/h. 5. 2004: 37:36 Lance Armstrong 22.02 km/h. I haven’t watched the Tour de France since 2016, mainly due to the fact I dropped cable and would need to subscribe to a streaming service that may or may not work with my all-Linux set-up. But I stay…

Icelandic chanteuse Guðrún Ýr Eyfjörð Jóhannesdóttir: Performing at Grund Senior home, Reykjavík, November 6, 2025

A hundred death metal albums not from the USA Where were you in 92? Well, I was being shepherded between various preschool childcare arrangements, blissfully unaware of the exploding death metal scene. Part I took us from the late 80s to 1991, and naturally Sweden dominated when you remove death metal’s other centre of gravity across the pond from the picture. By 1992, we get a more even spread geographically. Given the sheer density of material chucked out in this single year, I decided it…

Sonic Youth - Complex, Washington, DC, July 25, 1986What the world needs now, is EVOL, sweet EVOL. Right? Just about 40 years ago, Sonic Youth was touring all over in support of their classic third LP, which had been unleashed earlier that spring. A lotta good tapes from this era, some officially released, some unofficially circulated. This Washington, DC, show falls in the latter category — but with its high-fidelity recording and high-quality performance, it could easily be added to the…

[1973]In the great British tradition of singles not included on albums. Roxy Music's second single came out a month prior to their second LP For Your Pleasure but was not included on that record. It's crazy that such weirdness made the top 10 back in 73. It all floats along on a surreal electric marshmallow with a great intro, toppermost drum action, totally off kilter studio manipulated sax, unconventional arrangement of words for pop ie. no chorus, cool disorientating guitar shenanigans and…

I hadn’t listened to bluegrass in years until last weekend when I was frying green tomatoes. (You gotta have music to match the cooking.) I got the itch again today. Now playing: Ralph Stanley, “Clinch Mountain Gospel” 🎵 It’s so good.

I just heard that David Latchman has been made Vice-Chancellor of the University of London (until 2028). You can read about it here in the Times Higher. What the Times Higher doesn’t discuss (at all) is Latchman’s track-record of research misconduct. You can read a lengthy discussion of some of it in the following blog post. It is also discussed more briefly in Latchman’s Wikipedia page. If you want a symptom of the pathological state of the current higher education system, you need look no…

I ended up discovering a whole bunch of music that way. I downloaded a whole bunch of albums that I never had the opportunity to try because every album was an 18 dollar investment. That kind of radicalized me, and I became a fan of so much more music.” An absolutely fascinating read and extremely relatable.

"Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Share a song that feels like it has healing powers - Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye "Sexual Healing" works because the arrangement carries the argument: the drum machine's pulse against Gaye's voice creates tension between mechanical desire and genuine ache, which is the whole thesis of the song. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Let us dive right in to this weeks metal releases and see what treasure we can dig up. Hails! Decapitated Prophet - death - PolandSquelching - death - USAInto Darkness - death/doom - ItalyInventtor - death/doom - BrazilSallow Moth - death/prog - USARipper - death/thrash - ChileFrostbite Terror - melodeath - FinlandTyraels Ascension - melodeath/metalcore - USARamshack - melodeath/groove - FinlandCelestia - melodeath/gothic - GreeceKrishna’s Cult - tech death - CanadaLitosth - black/death -…

❤️ https://blog.koehntopp.info/2026/07/22/moores-law-und-die-ai-blase/ Sehr schön zusammen gefasst. Es gefällt mir natürlich überhaupt nicht doch kann ich das selbst aus dem privaten Anwender-Umfeld absolut nachvollziehen. Die Leute kaufen seit Jahren keine “richtigen” PCs mehr und spielen auch lieber auf dem Tablet oder eben auf einer Konsole. Selbst meine eigenen Kinder sitzen lieber mit dem Smartphone *neben* dem PC und spielen auf dem Smartphone. Und wozu auch? Auf Steam und Co finden sich…

Austin’s favorite justice and joy rock trio, Parker Woodland, is back with their new EP, Police On My Back: Singles Collection Vol. 1, available July 24, 2026 on Flak Records. The album is available as a digital download on Bandcamp with sales of the single “Police on My Back” benefiting the Texas Civil Rights Project. The EP is also available on cassette and can be picked up at the album release on July 24 at Waterloo Records. Read the full review at The Cosmic Clash.

Me and my mate Davey used to play records by A.R. Kane. In our teens, listening to them on cassette, driving around in his car. trying to escape the boredom of Croydon. “When You’re Sad” and “Lollita”, especially. Then I left London for uni, and money for anything other than booze and drugs became scarce. I lost touch with the duo until I returned, in 1989, at the tail end of the extended “Second Summer Of Love”. Christian, someone I’d met at a temp job, lent me a copy of a fanzine called…

The trumpet is an instrument of thresholds. Its voice arrives from beyond the visible world, bearing summons and warning within the same breath. It can illuminate a melody’s architecture, then dissolve it until only a gleam remains. This rare sampler, included with the April 2016 issue of Musica Jazz, gathers master trumpeters associated with ECM and reveals how differently each has negotiated the border between declaration and disappearance. Mathias Eick’s “Dakota,” from Midwest (ECM 2410),…

I have an irrational aversion towards The Cardigans' second album, Life. Or the copy I have of it, anyway. The Cardigans' debut album Emmerdale was released in 1994 by Trampolene Records, a tiny subsidiary of the then-independent Stockholm Records - in Sweden only (and Japan where it randomly took off). The album did decently in Sweden and encouraged the label to give the band a bigger push overseas. The follow-up Life was recorded quickly thereafter and released the following year under the…