There's a pattern to 1987's indie chart I've appreciated experiencing slowly, and in depth, as I've written this blog. It starts with business as usual and lots of abrasive indie guitar bands topping the listings, then slowly morphs as sample culture and hip-hop and House music take hold - firstly in subtle ways, such as through the various Grebo crossover artists, then eventually with "Pump Up The Volume" acting as the final bucketload of water which broke the dam. The list of new number ones…

I’m pretty confident that the majority of my fellow bloggers and readers – at least those few who even bother to read my posts – probably shake their heads at my music tastes and that’s okay, as each of us likes what we like at the end of the day. That said, my new #1 song this week is “Homewrecker” by sombr (born Shane Michael Boose), who turns 21 today. Over the past year he’s become one of my favorite artists, and “Homewrecker” is his fourth song to top my chart, following “back to friends”…

DMG – Live the Dream Skittering glitchy rave from Daniel McGurty, aka DMG, now based in Edinburgh but a native of Blackburn. McGurty is painting with a delicate brush here, sketching around an absence of overt dancefloor kick/bass spine, but these two tracks from his upcoming album Live the Dream nonetheless evoke plenty of nostalgia for UK hardcore and rave. Blackburn was the epicenter of illegal raving in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s. Kids making great use of all the abandoned mills…

A favorite album by one of my favorite musicians, Bill Frisell. With Don Byron, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet; Guy Klucevsek, Accordion; Kermit Driscoll, Bass; Joey Baron, Drums. Recorded in 1992, the album cover features a 4th of July photo of racing … Continue reading →

This afternoon we attended a musical event with a difference. Sigur Rós: Ára is billed as ‘a fully immersive listening experience, expanding the sonic universe of Sigur Rós to new sensory dimensions’. In a small black box theatre, an audience of around 35 people sit or lie on beanbags, surrounded by the kind of darkness absolute enough that sometimes I wasn’t sure whether my eyes were open or closed. The music seems to come from all around you. Occasionally a sweet scent floats into the room.…

The CaretakerEverywhere at the End of Time2019History Always Favours The Winners(part of Resident Advisor's 2000-2025 Best Albums) Memories are ghosts inside your mind; samples are ghosts extracted from records and trapped in forever loops. Starting from these premises, The Caretaker takes snippets of maudlin balladry from pre-World War II crooners like Al Bowlly and subjects them to escalating levels of erosion, simulating the stages of dementia. These nostalgic wisps of decaying music…

Camper Van Beethoven Telephone Free Landslide VictoryGet It At Discogs Camper Van Beethoven were one of the great, pioneering indie rock bands. When Spinart released the Cigarettes & Carrot Juice box in 2002, legions of Camper fans probably rushed out to pick up remastered versions of great albums that had been out of print for years. Two years later, when Spinart made the individual albums available again, this time augmented by bonus tracks (the box set contained just the original albums, as…

I’ve been listening to this album when lifting weights at the gym recently. The Justice bass pushes me so hard I find myself dancing on the bench. This is the first album of hers that I’ve listened to, but I didn’t expect to see that it’s actually her fourth. It plays to me like a first album: lots of reference sounds (the Justice electro, the Charli XCX lyrics), mixture of genres and tempos. Maybe that just her brand and it’s established and I’m just the one learning it. I’m excited to see her…

Them Sugar Hill Gang bangers got everywhere in the 80's didn't they? Here replacing Grandmaster Flash with erstwhile lead screecher from The Pop Group, Mark Stewart. No subtlety here from absent lovers rock producer Dennis Bovell, who dubbed up The Pop Group's debut LP "Y" six years earlier, not with Adrian Sherwood at the controls there ain't. It's all there,distorted max feedback tape echo, Keith LeBlanc's thudding and crashing electro-industrial style drum samples, William S. Burroughs…

For the ninth installment in its 1970s ECM Special series, Trio Records in Japan presented its second of three artist spotlights, this time devoted to Ralph Towner, whose guitars have long served as measuring instruments for ECM’s most elusive cartographic spaces. The compilation begins where many listeners would instinctively begin, with “Icarus,” his most enduring composition, presented here in the version from Matchbook, his duo album with Gary Burton. Its melodic intelligence never…

Once again, RAYE shined last night at Montreux Jazz Festival. She was the star of the opening of the 60th anniversary of the festival, and had carte blanche to organise the evening.

The eighth volume of the Japan-only ECM Special series marked a shift by dedicating itself to a single artist, a model it would follow for the remaining releases. This installment gathers the art of guitarist John Abercrombie under a single lamp, though the music itself keeps slipping beyond the circle of illumination. From the beginning, he was a musician who seemed to enter a piece from the side door of consciousness, carrying with him some private geometry of hesitation and nerve. The…

Review by Sandre the Giant Released: 9th January 2026 Stop the presses, the Killchain is reviewing Chilean death metal again? Well, it is an open secret around here that when we see a promo hit our emails that has Chile mentioned, we do perk up our battered ears but we’ve got a lot of reason to. Chile has become the country-de-jure for extreme metal in the past decade, pouring out a crazy amount of incredible bands and albums, and Oraculum are about to take centre stage with their debut full…

Yooooo, have you heard of Altın Gün?! It’s a Turkish psychedelic band from the Netherlands. Last month I heard their music playing at Rooster Coffee House (one of Toronto’s best cafes), and it was so fresh that I’ve been listening to their albums on a loop: Check out the track Cemalim, too. My only previous exposure to Turkish singing has been through the band She Past Away. If a secret little goth heart doth beat under your lace undershirt, then you should be listening to them. It sounds like……

Market Street and the Market Hall Indie's Attic Threesome Window Shopping Smoke Break

Believe it or not, one of the defining moments in my relationship with black metal came the first time I heard Nargaroth's Jahreszeiten, and specifically the repetitive riffing on the last track, "Winter". This was my introduction to this band, before I knew of their earlier, more notorious records, as well as before many of the genre's foundational names. This kind of monotonous melodic austerity captured what I found to be essential in black metal, and shaped how I continue to appreciate it…

You have to be strict with yourself when you record at home.One of the songs was 10 beats per minute too fast, and I gritted my teeth and re-recorded the guitar part. I made such a mess of it that I did three different versions to edit from- but they were all so different I had to give up and just play the whole song again.I closed the computer after that.Tomorrow, I'll listen to see if it's any good.Over the weekend I'll do repairs to other guitar parts, and some re-writing of clunky lyrics…

This new work from Gold Panda sounds like he spent the winter with Daphni and came out convinced of the power of the bop and the beat and the bass. I love this to start my summer. Some of it gets a bit repetitive - he hasn’t fully fleshed out a range of melodies to pull from - but the grooves are there and I love the mid-album piano riff tune that reminds you of Gold Panda’s gentler roots.

THE GROW YOUR Own Records label releases a new album by Icons of Filth today (3 July 2026).Time of the Signs brings together eighteen tracks by the band – and is available in streaming, limited edition CD and limited edition vinyl versions. The glass-mastered CD is presented in a card slip-cover and comes with a lyric-sheet poster. The vinyl version includes an A2 version of the poster, a postcard and a patch. Icons of Filth. 2026. Time of the Signs. Grow Your Own Records.…

Trust me #118Love You by Primal ScreamThe cover of Reverberations ( Travelling In Time)Way before the beats, groove, futuristic sounds and strobe lights of Screamadelica and the leather-clad rock n roll swagger, funky jams and blissed out ballads of Give Out But Don't Give Up, Primal Scream were a band (like many from Glasgow) influenced by the West Coast California sounds of bands like Love and The Byrds. The sun kissed music from America was filtered through the Glasgow rain, Southside…

You want some new metal releases? Of course you do. Let’s get in to it. Hails! Dichotomy - death - USACoprolith - death - CanadaMortem - death - NorwayMouflon - death/doom - NetherlandsPseudobiblion - death/doom - ItalyMylingen - death/black - SwedenAgarwaen - black - FinlandDragsholm - black - USAIn Throes - post black - AustraliaEutonazia Kordax - symphonic black - RussiaFrolic - thrash - USACrime Zone - thrash - NorwayHellionight - thrash/speed - BahrainTodoMal - doom - SpainWitchsorrow -…

Another “blast from the past” with The Explodo Boys, a Minnesota-based multi-genre band from 1979. The was original was an early James Brown release on the Federal label in 1960. It reached #72 on the Billboard charts before fading away into obscurity. When I made this recording the Explodo Boys band was on the verge of splitting apart. They had one last week booked at Bootlegger Sam’s and

"Rooster" by Alice In Chains Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. I'm testing this out. What a great idea. Here's a song I haven't listened to in a while. View JTR's Crucial Tracks profile

i bought a bunch of music in philadelphia. don't ask where i'll never blow up the spot. i also saw a world cup game. they love the song "bulletproof" at american sports stadiums. i wishthere had been more ghanaian fans because their section was really lit. its so hot today. sometimes i feel like if i dont make something immediately with my recordings ill never end up using them. heres this while its fresh on my mind.

Pascal Bideau is the musician / composer behind Akusmi. On his third album, “Terra Incognita”, he uses the alto-saxophone to lead the listener through 7 soundscapes that blur and blend the traditional musics of Africa, Latin America, South East Asia and Eastern Europe. Describing the instrument as “half narrator, half explorer”, the decision to take us on an “adventure without borders” can only be viewed as a political statement in these tragically increasingly divisive days. “A Waking Dream”…

<!-- end-chunk --> <!-- begin-chunk data-anchor="raidio-ga-ga" --> <h4>Ra.i.dio Ga Ga.</h4> <p><em>Vol. 6, No. 8</em></p> <img class="art" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dwwbmrctk/image/upload/v1783026162/Pop_Loser_V6N8_c4lbmb.png" alt="A stylized image of a vintage FM radio"> <p>While this brave new world of AI is also a hellscape of rapacious capitalism, the ability to bang out tiny pieces of hyper-specific software is pretty sweet. I dropped <a…

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Yes, it’s hot. No, I do not do well in the heat. I live in New England for a reason, I’d rather be too cold than too warm, so this 100+ garbage can eff right off. Apologies in advance for my mood. Also not helping my disposition is the ol’ day job, which is a […]

A Sailfin Tang showing why they have that name.

I was listening to Flat Duo Jets today and remembered all the testimonials from musicians about the frontman Dexter Romweber’s special musicality. Jack…