Because the song’s been rattling around my head for the last couple of days, particularly the Bryan Ferry cover version. So when I got home I thought I would give it a whirl. I hope you like it. — JS

Swiss gentleman Lexx returns to Ibiza’s International Feel with a fine 4-track EP. The music is varied but slots together as a sympathetic cohesive whole. The collection could even be described as a journey. The A-side contains a couple of tracks that seem to hark back to 90s chillout rooms. Acknowledging but updating that sound. For example, the beat and computerised sighs of Another Beach borrow from the ethereal pop of acts such as Enigma or Deep Forest. Guitars duelling, both delicate and…

# Now that I have the randomelements site up and running, the best way to keep up with music news is to follow the RSS feed over there. I don't think I'll focus on posting all new release details on the blog.

After listening again to Rufus Wainwright’s cover of the whole album at the weekend, this week, as I left the office, I put on Judy Garland’s concert at Carnegie Hall. By the time I’d made it to the train station I’d been moved to tears twice. It’s that amazing. Serendipitously, I just found out it was recorded 65 years ago today.

At last an Acid 12" with an actual sleeve, albeit in a strange sort of K-Tel trend cash in style,complete with smiley faces.It's the French pressing, licenced from Trax in Chicago,that's why. 'Tis also the reason why, out of dozens of re-releases and re-mixes, this one was the only one to feature the Original, and vastly superior 'Original' mix ,by Maurice himself.The K&T mix, is surprisingly a tad light on the Acid, despite the title. And very heavy on the House side of things.The S&T…

Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, The Wombats 🎧 Joy Next Door, The Maine 🎧 If That Makes Sense, Spacey Jane 🎧 Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie 🎧 Bittersweet 16, Mckenna Grace 🎧 Plans, Death Cab for Cutie 🎧 Beyond Mediocrity, 9m88 🎧 Radio, 9m88 🎧 The Suburbs, Arcade Fire 🎧 Spot the point at which Ethan came home and asked for something more in keeping with a birthday.

https://insitze.com/blog-posts/ Setting a new frame around some old songs. [Where to listen] In Retrospect: It’s been over a decade since posting my first track online: a loop cover of “Another Routine Day Breaks” by Brokeback, uploaded to Soundcloud in 2015. Over the following two years, five tracks were released with my friend Ian under B-Side 1-1, and in March 2020, I published my first original, “Halfway to Home.” This song marked the outset of a renewed confidence in my journey as an…

This is a complicated background to a mishearing posting that has itself turned out to be more complex than I first imagined — a mishearing of the title word in the song “Cardinal” as recorded in 2024 by Kacey Musgraves. This posting is about the song; the titular bird, the northern cardinal; KM the singer-songwriter; KM’s wonderful performance of the song; and the song’s moving background story, inspired by the late country / folk singer John Prine. The song. “Cardinal” is from KM’s 2024 album…

Lou Reed - Giardini Centro Allende, La Spezia, Italy, June 1, 2006My heroic attempt to get #Mistrial40 going last week has yet to deliver any meaningful results. Don’t worry, I’ll keep fighting the good fight — but I worry that not enough people care about what Lou Reed was up to in 1986. But do even less people care about what Lou Reed was up to in 2006?! Maybe! But that’s not going to stop me. Obviously. Twenty years ago, Lou was actually still playing Mistrial’s “Tell It To Your Heart” — and…

Well, I got the punchline for the song, but the song itself only lasts one minute and forty seconds. Is that OK, d'you think?

Thinking about Johnny Cash this morning brought to mind this from Over the Rhine: “Earthbound Love Song.” 🎵

Best Record of 2001: Day 24- Basement Jaxx vs. Sophie Ellis-Bextor Good morning! Today we’re taking a look at Rooty by Basement Jaxx as it faces off against Read My Lips from Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Note: As many of you saw, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 2001 challengeand noted that I’d be writing some of these up. The plan is to do quick hits on each first-round matchup and post them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences.…

"Get Back" by The Beatles A song with a memorable video or TV performance - Get Back by The Beatles The Fab Four played for 42 minutes on the roof of Apple Studio on January 26, 1969. It was their last performance together. Thank god, it was recorded for posterity. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

Johnny Cash, “Satisfied Mind” 🎵

In what should go down as an all-time classic edition of Pressing Concerns, we have new albums from The Blackburns, Doug Gillard, and My Wife’s an Angel, plus a mini-album from The Chop, for you below. Check them out, and if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Winston Hightower, Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death, The Clearwater Swimmers, and FakeYou), check that out too. If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If…

Last Sunday I went to a concert with my brother and his wife, starring a celebrity that everyone in Italy born in the 90s knows: Max Pezzali of 883 fame. My brother was a huge fan, and me being the little sister I was spoon fed all his major successes until the age of 18 (and at that point, both me and my brother stopped following recent releases). 883 songs are an incredibly telling product of their time, and while Max and Mauro Repetto (the other member of 883) were in their mid-twenties when…

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align. Tracks are added to…

(click on the image to see the full issue)

My first answer to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was film composer. I think that’s still my answer. That’s why, since the age of five, I would play music every single day. That’s why I would write songs and compose music at any opportunity. That’s why I learned to play as many different instruments as possible. That’s why I performed in orchestras, wind bands, jazz ensembles and folk bands and rock bands and choirs. That’s why, in 2004, I went to music college to study…

I would like to direct your attention, dear reader, to three excellent electronic drum pieces, the first of which you’ll know for sure. “Shout” by Tears for Fears, which is largely the Linn drum. You have really done something if you have a distinguished rhythmic opening to your song, which everyone can recognize, and everyone can recognize this instantly. It’s such at the heart of anyone who grew up in that time. I honestly could put it on a loop and mow the yard to it. I think I…

This paragraph appears in the Disquiet Junto email newsletter that will go out shortly after midnight, Pacific time, via juntoletter.disquiet.com The short version of this is that if you have subscribed to this email list for some time and have yet to do a Disquiet Junto project, then this one, the one starting on April 23, 2023, is one to consider doing. The gist is this: this week you record a solo piece of music, not a complete piece, but a piece that will be added to, potentially, by other…

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Bonnie Friedman’s novel Don’t Stop is a vividly told and moving debut. Booklist wrote of the book: “This coming-of-middle-age story explores a woman’s obsessive affair and the unraveling of her life… A…

Belfast-based label, Mystic Arts, continue their mission to champion the music of local electronic artists. While previous releases have focused on luminaries such as Black Bones and David Holmes, their latest 12 shines a light on the largely unsung Gary Irwin. Working for decades as an engineer, ably assisting everyone, including the aforementioned Mr. Holmes, Irwin stepped out of the studio shadows, assuming the alias The Vendetta Suite, in 2017. In the process cementing a successful…

I let my mind wander a little bit today, and it got me to thinking about my favorite songs of all time. Being a former radio and club DJ, you’d think I’d be into a bunch of bubbly gummy, four on the floor, beat bangers, but no, that’s not the case. I mean, four on the floor can be fun, but it’s been a long while since I’ve found something I played back in the day to be particularly moving. However, these three specific tracks bring a tear to my eye every time I hear them. Here’s my top three…

# In a post on Bluesky, I wrote: Sometimes, I overcomplicate things and lose the vibe. I've decided not to rerecord "After the tears" but use the live jam as the base and just make tweaks. I know a new version just won't sound the same. As with All raw sound and emotion, I want // need to get away from trying to get everything just so. What's the saying? Perfect is the enemy of good. So true. It's also the enemy of "done" or "finished". I was tidying the desktop on my Mac and saw it was…

It was sixty years ago today that The Troggs hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Wild Thing." The song would become the band's signature tune, and would have a lasting impact on rock music. It is a prime example of proto-punk and I think a good argument could be made that it is outright punk. It would be covered by artists from The Jimi Hendrix Experience to The Runaways to Cheap Trick to X. Given the song is the signature song of The Troggs, it may surprise many that it was not written…

And now, your irregularly-scheduled run-down of imminent Boston-area shows and recent notable announcements. Usually every Wednesday, but I make no guarantees… Greetings from scenic Burlington, Vermont, where I’m drowning in nostalgia while visiting the fam, and currently working from a coffee shop near the shores of Lake Champlain. Given where I’m at, I missed a […]

A couple of months ago, I received an email from longtime reader and sometime contributor to Jazz Collector, Stuart Levine. The email was as follows: “After decades of collecting Jazz vinyl, I made a decision to sell all my LPs with the exception of just a few. And having just moved back to Japan, I must now resist the temptation to buy over here. I’d like to write about the choices I made, which I think will be interesting to your readers. May I do so and send you my writing?” Of course. The…

Two days before his new album, The Great Divide, is released, Noah Kahan's recent performance on Tiny Desk Concert is out:The new songs here are wonderfully incisive and catchy, as they radiate empathy for loved ones and places from his past. And the older cut, "Orange Juice," showcases his skills as a tender balladeer whose songs have a way of literally and figuratively welcoming listeners inside.Direct link to the video"Empathy for loved ones and places from his past" is such a great…

I recently stumbled across an incredible video on Instagram. It was of JJ Bull in front of a synth/keyboard, shades on, wearing an old Scotland training/travel top and singing in the style of LCD Soundsystem. I became completely transfixed and must have watched it a dozen times in an hour and sent it round family and friends. Watch below, read my musings and then read on for an interview with JJ Bull.Every time I watch this, I need to watch it another 2-3 times! Bull is on fire, living out…