Mumbling in the pocket

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

Open worlds

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

Josienne Clarke has a vocal style. Some of its appurtenances, such as its precise diction, its half-rounded vowels, its purity … More

Neither One Of Us was the last album Gladys Knight & The Pips recorded for Motown, released after they’d left … More

When I was young, reggae was a central part of pop-music—everyone had heard it, and although it wasn’t the most … More

The Beastie Boys landed in the public consciousness with Licensed to Ill, an album of spoof hip-hop over cartoon metal … More

This album was a gift from a friend, who I imagine had it recommended to him for its prog connections, … More

It was the 1980s. We all had glossy hair, wore shoulder pads, and made music with the same three models … More

As a librarian, as a lover of history and the literature that constitutes it, as a custodian and celebrant of … More

Lots of regional music scenes have come and gone. Some we’ve heard of. We know that there were interesting things … More

Slayer’s fourth album, South of Heaven was released when their sound and status were well-established, and it was conceived as … More

People whose names appear on albums are often not ‘professional musicians’ in the sense of someone who has honed their … More

A rich, deep evocation of… Well, it’s something of a cliché to say ‘the movement of the earth’, or ‘geology’, … More