Both sides of the street

Songs can be many things. In written literature there are names for them, but songs, we seem to think, are … More

An unforgetting shout

I’m not very familiar with the music of Kevin Martin, also known as The Bug, despite his prolific output, and … More

Vanguard Street Art is an exhibition charting the development of street art in Bristol from the 1980s, when American hip-hop … More

Since the 1940s, when big bands were last big business, few of them have had any longevity. The orchestras of … More

Having taken a total break from playing music at the onset of the pandemic, I’ve been gradually coming back to … More

I spent a while back there in the early noughties thinking that all the fusions had been tried, and that … More

There are a few bands or musical artists of whom it’s possible to say that ‘their first album is the … More

I’ve been following the work of James Beaudreau since he sent me a trio of beautifully packaged CD albums for … More

Michael Woodman is a lover of words. On his most recent album in particular, his lyrics display an affinity for … More

Sampling became one of the most significant new techniques in record production during the 1980s, and although its influence on … More

Ordinary voices get so little time and exposure that we tend to forget what they sound like, despite the fact … More

On the last day of last year, the death was announced of one of the most enigmatic and under-recorded figures … More

Aladdin Sane was my first Bowie album. Not the first Bowie I heard, and not even the first of his … More

One of the leading South American festivals of electronic and experimental music, I gather, is Novas Frequências, held somewhere in … More