theartsdesk on Vinyl 91: Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Tropical Fuck Storm, Sparks, The Sisters of Mercy and more

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Frank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258 Interloper (The Workshop Sessions, Volume One) (Property of the Lost)

Hastings label Property of the Lost has grown into a potent force, its stable of artists impressive, usually attached to a US-indebted garage aesthetic. Local band Frank From Blue Velvet’s eponymous 2022 debut was a tasty amalgam of southern gothic country filtered through punk sensibilities, its stand-out song, “Church of Prosperity” a deathless hit at Theartsdesk on Vinyl Mansions. I Am Frank steps forward and sideways, offering a gnarlier Bookhouse Boys-meets-Grinderman musical twang alongside an elevation in retro musicality (“Empty” would fit the films of David Lynch, for whom the band is named). It’s richer, darker and more complex than its predecessor, emanating a lyrical undertow of end-of-the-world cowboys in narcotic wastelands. Suitable for these times, then. Comes on white vinyl with lyric booklet. Column258 are also a Hastings operation but, musically, inhabiting a new space for this label. As a live unit they put on events, parties, art happenings, combining rock stylings with something more mantric and kosmische. Their debut album has a motorik funk, laced with psychedelic dub tendencies, rolling percussive freak-outs, and the ability to still a muster sweet, forlorn violin-laced slowie like “Pimlico Mile”. Listening to them breeds excitement at possibility. In different ways, both albums showcase Property of the Lost as a label that’s come of age.

VINYL REVIEWS

Tropical Fuck Storm Fairyland Codex (Fire)

“It’s the golden age of arseholes and the triumph of disgrace,” sings Tropical Fuck Storm’s Gareth Liddiard on “Goon Show”. It certainly is. The song’s electro-glam stomp is a welcome entry in the pantheon of songs on the subject. More of that and less poor-me-and-my-mental-health would be welcome in popular music. Tropical Fuck Storm is an Aussie group made up of members of big-in-Oz bands The Drones, High Tension and Mod Con, but is no vanity project. Instead, it’s an appetizing gumbo of off-kilter songs with angular guitars and fuzzy effects that are also poppy, catchy, with meaty lyrics, sung by Liddiard and the three female members, Lauren Hammel, Fiona Kitschin and Erica Dunn. The mood of the album, on a personal and societal level, is that we’re all doomed because of idiots. Fair point. Comes in photo/lyric inner sleeve.

Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii (Columbia)

There are five stages of recorded Pink Floyd. There are the lauded Syd Barrett years for LSD-pop cultists (1966-68); there’s the next bit, 1968-72, which we’ll come to in a minute, there are the mega-selling records that lace the hippy-Sixties elegantly into the tech-prog Seventies (1973-76); there are Roger Waters’ morose therapy sessions (1978-84), and there’s David Gilmore’s not-as-good-as-the-old-stuff Floyd (1985-1994) (the eagle-eyed will have spotted missing bits that don’t fit this timeline, Animals in 1977, a peculiar beast, and 2014’s amiably stoned postscript noodle, The Endless River). The least-delved Floyd, then, is ’68-’72, the bit after Barrett left but before global fame. For the last 15 years, this is the Floyd I come back to most. The vinyl release of their performance in an empty Pompeii amphitheatre in late 1971, accompanying a relaunch of the 1972 film of the same, is a boon. Focusing away from the song-y side of the era, (“Fat Old Sun, etc), instead, it offers jammed-out takes on mostly instrumental songs from albums A Saucerful of Secrets and Meddle. Floyd’s jams aren’t really jams, though, but considered explorations of elevated psyche-rock. These live versions of “One of These Days”, “Echoes” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, for instance, are exemplary. Live at Pompeii foreshadows a billion bands and electronic noodlers pursuing rock’s outer spaces. In this spirit, it also contains whooshy ambient sections and percussive flights of fancy… as well as the incongruous “Mademoiselle Nobs”, a short blues “sung” (surprisingly effectively) by a dog (no, really). Although the film has been around for over 50 years, having it on record is a tasty addition to the Floyd canon. This music needs to be superbly deep-mastered, and it is, arriving on gatefold double with a large poster.

Cecilie Strange Beech (April)

The fifth album by Danish saxophonist Cecilie Strange will be filed under jazz, but pushes the genre into quiet new spaces. She says, in the extensive notes on the back cover, that the album is titled for the idea of wind blowing through spring leaves, when we might “slow down time… be immersed in silence and vibrate with whispers of nature”. Elsewhere there’s a piece based around being the only person on a small Norwegian island. These are useful references. Beech is minimalist exercise where Strange’s instrument is used sparingly, a low-blowing antithesis to jazz’s usual showy sax flights, and accompanied by her eccentric but fitting vocalising. Around these, an austere array of piano, drums, percussion and double bass provide a landscape within which to contemplate. It’s lovely, lonely, and original chill-out, but coming from a more interesting place than music usually associated with that term.

Sparks MAD! (Transgressive)

Sparks put out so much music that, if one is not a devotee, it’s easy to dismiss them – “Not ANOTHER blaahhdy Sparks album!”. This is to do them a disservice. They still often come up with the goods (and, after seeing them at Glastonbury in 2023, I can vouch that they still nail it live too). Happily, the two 2021 film projects they were involved in  – The Sparks Brothers documentary, and their own musical Annette, with French director Leos Carax – have reignited interest in the band. Their new album, their 28^th, showcases them on good form. Take, for example, “JanSport Backpack” – ironic cultural commentary dressed up as baroque synth pop with light operatic leanings. From the disco-rockin’ “Don’t Dog It” to the anthemic closer “Lord Have Mercy”, it’s a solid set, for Sparks fans and beyond. Arriving on gatefold on blue vinyl with lenticular cover art, MAD! demonstrates the septuagenarian Mael brothers very much still have it.

Sex Pistols Live in the USA: South East Music Hall, Atlanta, 1978 (Universal) + Sex Pistols Live in the USA: Longhorns Ballroom, Dallas, 1978 (Universal) + Sex Pistols Live in the USA: Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, 1978 (Universal)

Three sets, on red, white and blue vinyl, respectively, capture three gigs from Sex Pistols’ final notorious seven-date tour of the US in January 1978, after which they imploded. In terms of sound quality, the first date, January 5^th in Atlanta, is the best, followed by the final San Francisco concert (14^th January), with the fifth date, in Dallas (10^th January) by far the worst. Atlanta and San Fran are enjoyable bootleg quality, but Dallas sounds like it’s been recorded through a thick woollen walking sock. Then again, few will be buying these for their sonic integrity. They are crumpled postcards of the final days of a seminal band, and as enjoyable for the inter-song chat of Johnny Rotten and co. There are fine musical moments too, such as a snarlingly pissed-off version of “Problems” from Atlanta or a five-and-a-half minute drum-led take on “Holidays in the Sun” from San Francisco. Due to my own teenage obsession with the band, I’m embarrassingly pleased to have on vinyl the last song the Pistols played together in their ground-breaking initial incarnation, the seven-minute, boredom-as-threat “No Fun”, replete with Rotten’s savage final sneering salvo, “Ah-ha-ha, ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Choses Sauvages III (Audiogram)

From Montréal , French-speaking unit Choses Sauvages have slowly been growing better and more confident with each release. Their third album is a solid culmination of their sound, a welcome balance between post-punk skronk and actual funk. They’re never in George Clinton territory, that’s not the game; their rolling bubblers have more in common with Talking Heads, but Choses Sauvages, unlike that band, will suddenly wander off the groove they’re holding to descend for a brief foray unto discordant guitar undergrowth. III deserves to be their breakthrough record amongst indie sorts but, given the general success of Francophone pop in the UK, this seems unlikely. A shame as it deserves to earn them a wider listenership and a tour. Comes in lyric inner sleeve with an A4 sticker set featuring weirdy monsters.  

The Sisters of Mercy First and Last and Always (Elektra) + Soft Cell Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing (Mercury) + The Bluebells Sisters (London)

Three welcome reissues of albums from the early 1980s. First (and last and always), the long-awaited return of the album which put head Sister Andrew Eldritch and The Mission’s Wayne Hussey on the map. While goth as a post-punk phenomenon had existed for a few years before First and Last and Always, and was nailed into place by The Batcave club in 1982, it was this album, three years later, that fully codified what goth would come to mean; the hair, the mood, the theatre, etc. All that aside, it’s a set which deserves its reputation, every song a blinder, Eldritch’s gulp-voiced melodramatic poseur vocals playing off against Joy Division-ish basslines, moody guitar jangle, and the stern backbeats of drum machine Doktor Avalanche. To name but three, it contains “Black Planet”, No Time to Cry” and the slowie “Marian”. The album had a bad reputation for hideous trebly production. Unfortunately, I don’t have an original copy to compare but, while hardly dubby, this reissue on double in photo/info gatefold sounds fine. In Adrian Thrills’ extensive sleeve notes to the Expanded Edition reissue of Soft Cell’s Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing, singer Marc Almond dismisses the album as record company place-holder between their albums. It was, but it's also a lot more. Soft Cell had, famously, taken MDMA on New York’s club scene, hence the title, and the original mini-album can be seen as precursor to the remix craze that arrived with acid house, six years after its 1982 release date. On this edition, the original six tracks are here, including the fabulous, twisted “Sex Dwarf”, but there are also 12” versions of “Torch” “Insecure Me” and a couple more, alongside unlovely, more recent remixes by Jon Pleased Wimmin and Erasure. As with anything from Soft Cell’s imperial phase, it mostly reminds what a vibrant song-making unit they were. Back in the Eighties I didn’t have time for The Bluebells, likely because “Young at Heart” was everywhere for a while (then it was even more everywhere in the early Nineties when it topped the charts after use in a TV ad). My dislike was unfair. The reissue of their 1984 debut album reveals them as solid post-Aztec Camera Scottish pop, dipped in folk, acoustic guitar strum and indie jangle. Their way with a tune is clear and present. Sometimes the production has a tinniness typical of the decade, but the songwriting cuts through. Their other big hit, “I’m Falling” is here too. It was their only proper album (until they made another upon reforming in 2023), and the new reissue is a completists dream. On double on mauve vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeves and a gatefold full of Will Hodgkinson’s sleeve notes, the original album is accompanied by a wealth of well-chosen non-album singles, such as the 12” of debut “Forevermore”, as well as bonus cuts, alternate versions and so on. For anyone with an interest in the band it’s essential, but even those with a passing interest might enjoy a dip more than they imagined.

Francis Bebey Trésor Magnétique (Africa Seven)

Francis Bebey was a Cameroonian writer, academic and musician, who died in 2001. He did lots and travelled the world during a busy 71 year life but, perhaps, will be remembered as an early African adopter of synthesizers and electronics. Trésor Magnétique is a two-record set of unreleased tracks found on tapes located by his son. Combining primitive programmed drums, African pygmy flutes and acoustic guitars, and sung in English and French, it gives a welcome introduction, ranging across spoken word, Afro dancefloor, oddball pop and more. It comes with a 12” x 12” insert densely packed with a long, waffly essay by Brit-Nigerian DJ Dare Balogun.

Billie Holiday All or Nothing at All (Verve)

Released the year before her death, by the time Billie Holiday recorded All or Nothing at All, during sessions in 1956 and 1957, her life of taking a beating from men, the authorities (also men), and her own demons was finally doing her in. The album that followed it, Lady in Satin, is regarded as more of a comeback, but All or Nothing at All has its charms. By this time, her voice wasn’t what had been but, listened to decades later, we accept feeling as much as virtuosity, so this isn’t such an issue. The songs are all by class jazz composers – Gershwin, Wellington, Berlin, Weill and such – and Holiday is match for them. She’s accompanied by a band of seasoned pro’s, all with storied careers of their own, who carry her beautifully, enabling her to create a sad, sweet late night mood, Sinatra’s “wee small hours”. It’s not her finest work, but she’s Billie Holiday, and it sounds that way, which is more than enough. Comes fat-mastered from the original tapes, in tough card gatefold.

Tucker Zimmerman Music by River, Words by Ear (Big Potato)

Post-Dylan hippy singer Tucker Zimmerman, now 84-years-old, has been having a small but significant surge in profile these last few years, notably with last year’s comeback album Dance of Love with the band Big Thief on 4AD Records (and even a short accompanying tour). The Belgium-based American was briefly flavour of the month as the Sixties turned to the Seventies – Bowie liked his music – but the flame never caught. It should have. His heartfelt, poetic songs combine nostalgia for that old counterculture where people cared about things other than wealth, with a pithy, literate ability to tell a story. Music by River, Words by Ear is a previously unreleased set put together in 2002, with the band including his son Quanah. His voice and acoustic guitar are to the forefront on nine gentle, witty, campfire growers (“I saw my uncle standing on the corner/The other man had a gun in his hand/My uncle snapped his fingers, the gun disappeared/He said, ‘That’s no tool for a gentleman."). It’s not going to change the planet or achieve massive success but it’s full of love and humanity, therefore welcome in a world of greed, hate and foolishness. Comes with a 10” x 10” card insert with photos and background.

Various Space (Caroline True) + Various Chris Bangs presents The Playbox (BGP) + Various Totally Wired (Acid Jazz)

Three comps. In Jarvis Cocker’s sort-of-autobiog Good Pop, Bad Pop, told via the junk he’s kept in his attic, he explains how a childhood obsession with space travel, mingling the historical facts of NASA’s space program with TV shows such as Space 1999, fed into his early creative process. Writer Jon Savage may feel the same as he’s collected together a themed double set of music created between 1962 (Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan’s seminal electronic experimentalism on “Moon Maid”) and 2006 (Californian psyche-rockers’ Wooden Shjips’ “Space Clothes”, a found sound fuzz of phased backwards vocals). Along the way it touches on everything from Devo’s punky “Space Junk” to Atmosfear’s longform 1979 disco to original Eighties Chicago house to The Byrds. It’s an unlikely idea but it works. Comes on double with back-stories of the songs on the inner sleeves. Chris Bangs was there at the beginning of acid jazz and of Acid Jazz Records. He now releases a double set of tunes representing his DJ career. The common thread, unsurprisingly, is virtuosic jazz chops and hip-wiggling percussive work-outs. The tunes run the gamut from the Hispanic dancefloor of “Sentido en Seis” by Louie bellson & Walfredo de los Reyes to the slap-bass Seventies fusion of “No Matter What” by Portland soul-funkers Pleasure. There are lighter songs that wouldn’t get feet moving here at theartsdesk on Vinyl but the whole, nonetheless, is a lively, likeable selection with sleeves plastered in photos, records covers and background info. Acid Jazz are also in the frame, bringing back their well-liked Totally Wired compilation strand, giving us 10 songs, some old, some new, representing what they’re about. Thus, oldies such as Brand New Heavies’ version Aretha Franklin classic “Rocksteady” sit next to cuts such as the delightful album-length version of Romero Bros’ “Samba de Flora”, a piano-centric Latino dancefloor joy. The latter is very much for me, the former not, but the overall hit rate is good, from BDQ’s jolly Northern Soul-ish take on The Four Seasons’ “Beggin’” to the sunny reggae of “Coconut Rock” by Soul Revivers. All in all, a collection build for a summer heatwave.

DARGZ Friends and Family (DARGZ)

David “DARGZ” Dargahi is a working musician and sound engineer who’s cherrypicked his contacts book for a debut album featuring jazzer pals such as Blue Lab Beats, Oscar Jerome, Moses Boyd and Sudanese neo-soul singer Nadine El Roubi. The result is an unforced summery collection of jazz-hop-inflected pop. Head-nod stuff, there’s a couple of unpleasant Autotune horrors on board but, overall, it has the feel of a calling card album from a genre producer we’ll be hearing more of.

Various Beggars Arkive: BBC Radio Sessions Vol.2 Boxset (Beggars Banquet)

After the success of Volume 1, Beggars Banquet muster another 10 BBC sessions from artists on the imprint, as well as sub-labels Too Pure and Wiija. The boxset is a limited edition of 250 but all the records, on clear vinyl, are available on a monthly basis. The only bands carrying over from Volume 1 are, aptly, The Fall and Gary Numan, the former with a 1987 John Peel session, derived from The Fall's Brix Smith “pop” period, although the hammering “Australians in Europe” is hardly chart-friendly catnip. The Numan set, on the other hand, really is from a proper pop peak, containing a tasty take on “Cars” laid down two months before its chart-topping release in summer 1979. Of the rest, theartsdesk on Vinyl has already reviewed the Silverfish set here and, from a quick dip, is immediately drawn to a 1990 Peel set by Loop, on typically hypno-rock form, a nostalgia-inducing Peel set from The Charlatans in the same year, just as baggy fame encroaches (I’d forgotten what a lovely song “Then” is), and, to my surprise, second division punks The Lurkers' four tracks from 1978 have zing, including their almost-hit “Ain’t Got a Clue”. The Icicle Works are also caught at a moment in 1984 when it seemed they might follow fellow Liverpudlians Julian Cope and Echo & the Bunnymen into the big leagues (indeed, they sound like a fusion of the two). Laika were Nineties trip hop outliers who, in the current musical climate, should be disinterred by TikTok enthusiasts. Their Peel session from 2000 is dubby, spliffed head-nod with sonic aspirations beyond many of their peers (check out “Looking for the Jackalope”). London “riot grrrls” Voodoo Queens also sound surprisingly contemporary on a 1993 session, with their sneery Lambrini Girls-adjacent femme-punk. Brassy I don’t recall at all, but Wikipedia tells me they were a Mancunian hip hop-rock band fronted by Muffin Spencer, younger sister of Jon Spencer of Blues Explosion “fame”. Their 2000 Peel session has a grungy funk. They would dissolve a couple of years later but it’s a worthwhile snapshot. As is most of what’s here. The whole lot has been impressively mastered at Abbey Road.

Isaac Hayes The Best of Isaac Hayes (Stax)

Isaac Hayes is mostly remembered today for his ubiquitous “Theme from Shaft” but he had a commercial gold run of albums in the US during the first half of the 1970s. These mainly consisted of him adopting a preposterous sexy persona for lengthy orchestral funk and slowed-down sex-disco, often outrageous bedroom cover versions such as of “Walk On By”. This is not to dismiss his work; it’s arch but intentional and riven with genuine soul and luscious musicality – check out “Do Your Thing” for one of his own at full Hayes grooviness. Sure, there’s a lot of theatre, but this collection is a basically-presented snapshot of an original at the peak of his powers. It also acts as encouragement to check out out the original albums as some of his deep cuts are where it’s at (see also 1973’s Live at the Sahara Tahoe).

ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION

CWFEN Sorrows (New Heavy Sounds): First thing on the New Heavy Sounds label in a moment or three. If I won a million, I’d give New Heavy Sounds a chunk to increase their profile. They have the bands. CWFEN, pronounced “Coven”, hail from Glasgow and, like many of NHS’s acts, are female-fronted heavy rock, this time droney, gloomy, but packing a down-tuned grind to the ears. Their music veers between the almost Cocteau-ish jangle of “Reliks” and “Embers” to the goth-riffed throb of “Bodies”. It’s too morose for me, but I bet they’d be good live. Comes in photo gatefold on scarlet vinyl.

Holden & Zimpel The Universe Will Take Care of You (Border Community): I came across James Holden when he was but a lad and conversed with him about being sucked into the nefarious ways of the music biz. He very much has not, developing a career that bridges serious art music, electronic avant-garde-ism, and the bread’n’butter of playing techno bangers at raves. On this one he collaborates with Polish musical explorer Waclav Zimpel, who’s done tons of interesting weirdness, with a tendency towards folk-mantric hypnotics. The Universe Will Take Care of You is more joyous than might be expected, wobbling and tone-musicking, but also tinted with the jolliness of Seventies childrens’ TV themes. Kosmische-flavoured throughout, opener “You Are Gods” is the peach that should be sought out first. Comes on white vinyl.

NewDad Safe EP (Atlantic): Irish trio NewDad manage to sound both jaded with the world yet musically jubilant, albeit the latter only in a very indie-pop way. On their first EP since their debut album at the start of last year, their sound is rooted in moody Peter Hook-ish basslines but they don’t dominate. There’s space in the music, and singer Julie Dawson’s airily delicate vocals carry the four songs. There’s something of Lush here too. It’s possible to imagine them making it.

Various 54321 The Countdown Records Story 1985 to 1988 (Acid Jazz): Acid Jazz Records, as so often, help the mods to mod-manna and let them feed. This time they’ve gathered together singles from Acid Jazz head honcho Eddie Piller’s old label Countdown. The strange thing about it is the timeline. These choppy new wave guitar pop numbers sound very 1980-82 but bands such as The Prisoners, The Kicks, The Scene, and The Daggermen were making it in the latter half of the decade, when Modfather Weller was leading towards jazz’n’Curtis Mayfield-textured territories (think Big Sound Authority, Blow Moneys, Fine Young Cannibals and so on). Never mind that, though, this is 2025. I could do without Makin’ Time’s flaccid, unnecessary cover of Elvis Costello’s un-improvable “Pump It Up” but the rest is punchy, contagious, energetic power pop.

Herbert & Momoko Clay (Strut/Accidental): Matthew Herbert and Momoko Gill both have form in sound manipulation. The latter, a singer whose production and work around treated drums has popped up on all manner of London underground electronic bits (such as Alabaster de Plume and Tirzah); the former, has a heap of bizarre, fascinating projects under his belt, (an album based around recording food and another around recording moments from the life of a pig, to name but two). Herbert also has form in club cuts and Clay draws from this. It’s not a dance album but it does pulse, from time to time, with subterranean 4/4 grooves, the whole lifted by Momoko’s vocals. Ear-interesting back room sounds for advanced, arty European clubbing. Comes with 12” x 12” art insert.

Little Annie With (Cold Spring): Ahead-of-the-game punk Renaissance woman Little Annie – AKA Annie Anxiety (born Ann Bandes) – is probably best-known for her work with the Crass collective and with Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label releases. A vital, uncategorizable, anarchic character, she’s also collaborated with a wide range of others, as is collected on With. The album contains hook-ups with Marc Almond, Swans, Coil and Kid Congo, amongst others. Her distinct cabaret-esque voice is akin to a New York tangent on late-period Marlene Dietrich. It comes to the fore on songs such as she and Almond’s live-in-concert, piano-accompanied take on Charles Aznavour’s’ “Yesterday When I was Young”. Much of the material swims in the frowning tide of post-punk experimentalism, but there are also cuts such as the stately jazz of “Lefrak City Limits” with Italian band Larsen.

Mark Millington Picture This (Albert’s Favourites) + Vilhelm Bromander Unfolding Orchestra Jorden vi ärvde (Thanatosis) + Scandinavian Art Ensemble with Tomasz Stańko The Copenhagen Session Vol.1 (April) + The Action 45s The Action 45s (April): Four jazz platters, one English, three Scandinavian (I don’t think there’s been an edition of theartsdesk on Vinyl that didn’t contain Scandinavian jazz!). The UK contribution is from Coventry saxophonist Mark Millington, a seasoned player who’s worked with everyone from Misty in Roots to Hugh Masekela. Recorded in New York, it’s jazznik’s jazz, not crossover, with a solid and chunky ensemble (piano/guitar/double bass/flute/trumpet/drums/percussion). It’s approachable and settles to an unpretentious sunny afternoon mood. The unlikeliest aspect is there’s a (barely recognisable) version of Oliver Helden & Becky Hill’s decade-old UK chart-topping EDM banger “Gecko (Overdrive)”. Vilhelm Bromander is a Swedish bassist and the debut from his Unfolding Orchestra reflects his background in Stockholm’s experimental free jazz scene, albeit only one cut, “For Dewey”, in honour of the late Ornette Coleman/Keith Jarrett band-leader Dewey Reedman, wallows in the more cacophonous aspects. Slow and thoughtful (and featuring Scandy sax queen-pin Elin Forkelid) it’s a four-track set that’s downtempo in mood but contains sufficient offbeat interest. It’s not quite true to term our second Scandy album fully Scandy, despite it being by Scandinavian Art Ensemble, because its main feature is the Polish free jazz trumpet giant Tomasz Stańko. Copenhagen Session Vol.1 is the first half of a tranche of recently discovered recordings of Stańko, who died in 2018, performing at Denmark’s art-centric Vallekilde Folk High School’s summer sessions. His trumpet leads, for sure, but is set off by the typically off-piste surroundings of his Danish support players. Recorded lively and loud, it’s an apt showcase, and a second volume is in the pipeline. The most lively of these four is the eponymous debut by The Action 45s, a Danish quartet whose fusion sound doesn’t hark back to Jaco Pastorious and all that Seventies stuff, but continually tips its hat, instead, to rock, electronica, pop and global roots sounds. Never dull, sometimes cinematic, often danceable, the combination of bass, drums, synth, piano and chromatic harmonica is built into a variety of exciting shapes. Ones to watch.

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel The Best Years of Our Lives (Chrysalis): In retrospect, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel were a Bowie/Roxy-adjacent flash-in-the-pan who thrived briefly before punk cleaned the slate. They will be forever beloved for their fantastic single “Make Me Smile (Come and See Me)”. Its parent album, this album, is a light-hearted tuneful Seventies pop romp. Harley, who died of cancer last year aged 73, was really the band; Cockney Rebel became Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel when most of the members left, prior to this album, because Harley insisted only he write the songs. And he’s good it; check the single “Mr Raffles”, the funky “49^th Parallel” and the sprawling title track. The reissue sounds good, cut at half speed at Abbey Road, and comes in a die-cut sleeve that windows onto the cover image inner sleeve, which features previously unseen photos and an interview with co-producer Alan Parsons.

Surprise Chef Superb (Big Crown): Over four albums, including this one, Melbourne band Surprise Chef have gradually built a solid reputation. Where many who travel the hip hop-adjacent instrumental funk path end up creating likeable but anonymous library-style grooves, this four-piece have a deft, inventive way about them. They recently live-scored deranged Australian cinema classic Wake in Fright (a disturbing but brilliant film, not one for the easily triggered), and their latest album is a warm, quirky journey.

Slam Dark Channel (Soma): Back in another life, back in the 1990s, I was the techno correspondent for DJ Magazine, and had some great times with Glasgow techno duo Slam, notably around their tent at T in the Park Festival. 30 years later, their label Soma (who “discovered” Daft Punk) isn’t as active as it was, but the pair release a double album of juddering, crunching DJ-tool techno. While it’s not something I’d play end-to-end, it’s what I’d like to hear at 2.00 AM in a festival marquee or in a strobe-scaped European warehouse or when Dave Clarke’s DJing anywhere. Unlike certain Ibiza-style “techno”, which is basically Instagram house (ie,  it’s not too distracting), Slam’s version doesn’t attempt to soothe but insists you move while simultaneously tearing your head off.

The Cat Empire Bird in Paradise (BMG): For their latest album perennial festival-slaying Aussie funkateers turn up their Latin side. Over 20 years into their career, they’ve lost none of their verve on a bawdy, brassy collection designed for dancefloors, it’s percussive smash matched by catchy singalong tuneage. They tour the UK in the autumn. Until then, Bird of Paradise should keep feet moving. Comes on blue vinyl in lyric inner sleeve.

Martha Wainwright Martha Wainwright (Play It Again Sam) + The Wandering Hearts Déjà Vu (We Have All Been Here Before) (Chrysalis): A couple of folk outings that look backwards in different ways. On its 20^th anniversary, Martha Wainwright’s debut album, proper, receives its first outing on vinyl (there had been other sort-of-debuts before it but they had no commercial reach whatsoever). It’s rightly known for the way in which she, then regarded as “just” the daughter of singer-songwriters Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, injected a set of folky songs with edge, anger and attitude. The strummy stuff is good – songs such as “When the Day is Short” and her breakout number “Bloody Mother Fuckung Arsehole” (about her dad) are here – but theartsdesk on Vinyl’s thrill came on discovering the fierce, raging, wronged woman rock of “Ball & Chain”. What a tune! Comes on transparent vinyl in a gatefold with background from Wainwright. Easy listening country-folk trio The Wandering Hearts also dive into history, with their version of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1970 album Déjà Vu. The original catapulted its makers from stardom to superstardom. The remake has an appropriate hippy whimsy, although they rock up “Everybody I Love You” and turn “Almost Cut My Hair” into stadium blues-rock. Where the original was an epochal encapsulation of America’s youth trying to hold those Sixties values as the Nixon era bit, the remake is… sometimes quite a nice listen. Comes photo/info inner sleeve.

OK Go And the Adjacent Possible (Paracdute): OK Go are probably most famous for their imaginative videos but they’d not have their career without songs to back them up. Their sound is a kind of Los Angeles yacht rock equivalent to Kaiser Chiefs, particularly on their new album, which comes on two records in a boxy packaging which, when opened, reveals a rather marvellous pop-up orbital sculpture. OK Go use gimmicks but they do so with charm and imagination. Their music is not my cuppa but they have cheery guitar pop chops.

Ukandanz Evil Plan (Compagnie 4000): The most immediately striking aspect of the latest album by French-Ethiopian outfit Ukandanz is their cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. It combines singer Asnaké Gebreyes’ passionate Afro-soul vocals in the Amharic language with suitably heavy riffs but also the tiniest hint of funk. In its wake the rest of the album opens itself out. As the band says “We don’t want to make the folkloric fusion shit – Ethiopians play Ethiopian music better than we can.”  Instead they create a punk-infused, Afro sort-of-jazz, that’s neither fish nor foul but is unique and retains the interest.

Hozier Hozier (Rubyworks/Island)+ Imagine Dragons Reflections: From the Vault of Smoke + Mirrors (Interscope) + Hard-Fi Stars of CCTV (Atlantic): Three big 21^st century albums with anniversary reissues or tangential reversions. 10 years ago, Irish singer Hozier was just starting his monster ascent, which was only truly consolidated with his third album in 2023. Now he’s a star. “Take Me to Church” began it and is, of course, the album’s biggie, but the whole is mostly strong. He’s the particular style of singer-songwriter I don’t usually dig – and indeed, there are some horrors on board, such as “Someone New” – but his willingness to experiment with styles, his captivating way with a tune, and his balance of gospel-touched melancholy and pop are all persuasive. Side four of the 10th Anniversary Edition contains four songs that have only ever been available before on a CD bonus disc. Rather than simply releasing their chart-topping second album, Smoke + Mirrors, on its tenth anniversary (although I think they’re doing that as well), Las Vegas pop-rockers Imagine Dragons release Reflections from the Vault of Smoke + Mirrors. They must have been on fire back then as it’s a whole album of spare songs they didn’t use. And most of them hold their own against the original album. In fact, I prefer much of it as the production is less polished to a sheen. Check the loose piano funk of “Playin” Me” for evidence. Comes with 12” x 12” photo/info insert on vinyl that looks like surf on a foamy aquamarine sea. Finally, we go back a decade further to 2005 and the debut album from Hard-Fi, one of the Noughties indie explosion’s better bands. Stars of CCTV made the top of the album charts, and birthed five Top 20 singles, including “Living for the Weekend” and “Cash Machine”. Their sneering kitchen sink lyrics hold more appeal than their contemporaries and their music, in thrall to The Clash, carries its weight better too. The 20^th Anniversary Limited edition comes on double yellow vinyl with the second disc featuring extras such as three demos, a reggae-licked Radio 1 live version of The Stranglers’ “Peaches” and a photocopy of The Stooges “1969”.

Mark Springer, Neil Tennant and the Sacconi String Quartet Sleep of Reason (Exit/Sub Rosa): The story behind Sleep of Reason is a good one. Springer was once in Pop Group-ish post-punkers Rip, Rig + Panic (alongside Neneh Cherry) but has long, long since moved on to making his living as a composer for film, TV and the classical world. Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys came into his orbit via buying his music and eventually agreed to write and sing lyrics for Springer’s suite of pieces based around the disturbing art of Goya. Arriving on double, it’s a serious work, redolent on Side One of Weill/Brecht and Kander/Ebb, then the other three sides offer instrumental aspects on piano and strings. Theatrical in tone, it would, perhaps, be at its best seen in live performance. It’s not the kind of music I'd ever put on so, for once, even after listening through twice, I have little useful to say. Neil Tennant does, though (of course!). He speaks of looking back to Goya’s nightmares and reflecting them through his “experience of popular culture and media”. So let’s leave the last word to him: “It often feels like we’re living in an era dominated by monsters with their grotesque egos hollering through social media, unfiltered and untruthful, leaving a trail of wreckage behind them. Maybe it always felt like that.” Comes with a 12” x 12” four-page booklet giving background and lyrics

Leslie Jordan The Agonist (Leslie Jordan): American singer-songwriter Leslie Jordan takes a deep dive into her own family history on her latest album, which comes out on her eponymous label. Subtitled “Songs adapted from the life and works of Robert S. Gott”, it’s based on the poems and writing of Jordan’s late grandfather, who skipped out on his family in the Fifties to chase his wandering beatnik dreams, and was psychologically tormented by doing so (and by booze) forevermore. She turns this history into a softly lovely album of longing and long ago, Americana with emotional heft. The Agonist lives up to its back story.

The Blackbyrds City Life (Craft): One lively slice of funk. Arguably the best album by Donald Byrd’s outfit, The Blackbyrds, is 1975’s City Life. It appeared the same year as their biggest hit, “Walking in Rhythm”. That song came from their previous album but it makes no odds, City Life still flies, closer to the soulful funk or The Crusaders and Mandrill than the smoother jazz-funk of Lonnie Liston Smith or Roy Ayers. It contains inarguable brassy dancefloor flamers such “Happy Music”, “Hash and Eggs” and the proto-disco “Rock Creek Park”. Comes in a sturdy photo-info gatefold and, as ever with Craft Records, fat-pressed to plastic.

AND WHILE WE’RE HERE…

• Ellen Beth Abdi is a storied Manchester musician who, still in her 20s (though she looks younger), has worked with the likes of New Order and A Certain Ratio, as well as supporting The Stone Roses. Her self-titled debut album on Sweet Twenty-Three Records is inventive bedroom pop, part singer songwriter fare, part quirky electronic layering and bubbly low-funk backing tracks. It’s a lively and likable thing that comes in photo/info inner sleeve.
• London jazz seven-piece Kokoroko pull off the finely tuned act of balancing “proper” jazz chops with soulful Afro-pop songs, and a particular something that might hold a crowd on a sun-dappled festival afternoon. Their new album, their second, is Tuff Times Never Last on Brownsville Records, and it fuses an easy listening smoothness with arrangements and instrumentation that are sometimes deceptively approachable. Comes in photo/art/info inner sleeve.
• No-one is going to buy the new three record set representing all the music from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest  - Eurovision Song Contest Basel 2025 on Universal – to stroke their chins and assess the organic levels of the instrumentation. It’s a colourful hunk of ridiculousness that, it will surprise some to learn, contains the occasional nugget of superficial but sparkling pop. So, whether you want to hear Malta’s Miriana Conte outrageously, apparently “serving cunt” or Austrian winner JJJ’s preposterous techno-goes-to-the-opera “Wasted Love” or Estronia’s Tommy Cash campily eulogising coffee on “Expresso Macchiatto”, all that and much more is here.
• Manc alternative music royalty Daniel O’Sullivan has worked with everyone from Sunn O))) to This Is Not This Heat (as well as producing Tim Burgess). His own latest album is Eros on Be With Records and has a short description of each track on the back in English, German French and Italian, as well as informing us that the whole is “A suite if cyclical, hypnotic, experimental contemporary chamber music combining minimalism, syncopation and detailed acoustic textures”. Since he’s basically done my job for me, let’s leave it there, except to say that this set is detailed and approachable small ensemble modern classical that deserves attention.
• I don’t keep track of Turin Breaks, they’re not one of mine, but the last time I saw them at a festival somewhere I’m sure it was kind of folky. Their latest album, Spacehopper on Cooking Vinyl, on the other hand, is very much not. It’s full of vaguely Suede-ish rock, delivered with panache and big tunes, even hints of Electric Light Orchestra opulence. If you’re after big catchy retro-pop, look no further. Comes on transparent blue vinyl in lyric inner sleeve.
• I should probably have heard of The Amazons. They’ve been around for a decade and had three Top 10 UK albums. But I hadn’t. Until today. Their fourth album, 21^st Century Fiction on Nettwerk Records, is loaded with bullish ROCK songs that veer between grunge-pop stadium anthems and something indie-punkier, a bit Kasabian in places. Comes on “Bloody Mary” red vinyl in info inner sleeve.
• Sam Kelly is one of those folk musicians who can get a festival crowd going. He’s not precious – as a lad he reached the final of Britain’s Got Talent – but his take on folk bridges into indie-pop sufficiently that his latest album, Dreamers Dawn on Navigator Records, balances traditional sounds and purist-friendly musical proficiency with something approachably modern.
• Marc Ribot established himself as one of American alternative music’s most capable guitarists as sideman to Tom Wait in the prime of his career. He’s done tons of other stuff over the decades, from avant-garde-ism to Leonard Cohen-ish songwriting. His latest album, Map of a Blue City on New West Records, falls in the latter camp and is likeably dry, fatalistic, musically sparse yet lush.
• DRIFT is the latest project of successful French producer Renaud Letang, with an  album called At The Party on Animal63 Records. It comes on double with a 12” x 12” card info insert. Described in the press release as “music made for the end of a barbecue” when you can be “honest, goofy, even silent”, it is, indeed, a genial downtempo affair, boosted by guest appearances from Letang’s contacts book, such as Feist, Connan Mockasin, Chilly Gonzalez and Benny Sings. Riven with a casual, pared-back electro-funk, it contains bright things. A grower.
• Swedish singer Fredrika Ribbing goes by the handle Miynt and her third album, Rain Money Dogs, veers between cutesy smeared guitar-fuzz dream pop and something more garage rocky, her singing girl-ish, with occasional moments of Velvet Underground dryness. Indie-psyche for aficionados. Comes in scribbly lyric inner sleeve (and mine came in an album title tote bag).
• Dutch producer Goldkimono, AKA Tienus Konijnenburg, releases his third album, This One’s on the House on his own Camp Kimono Records. The cover illustration is a sweet cartoon of a musician clambering up a ladder from a housing estate to his own piano-roofed residence on a cloud. The music contained is a match, albsiet similar to much other warm, funky, jazzy bedroom production. Cheerful, easy to nod along to, and fatly produced, the title track is a sunshine funk cut with a lyrical edge, and the whole has a bedroom disco charm. Comes in cartoon/lyric inner sleeve..
• Arriving on transparent vinyl, Brazilian producer Felipe Puperi, AKA Tagua Tagua, releases his third album, RAIO, on Wonderwheel Records. Including a collaboration with US rockers White Denim, it’s mostly soaked in airy tropicalia flavour, sun-baked and serenely easy-going. Cocktail hour pleasantness.
• The latest album from bassist Shez Raja is called Spellbound on his eponymous label. It continues his flowing fusion of jazz and sounds from the Indian subcontinent. Generally mellow – albeit featuring a sudden attack of rock guitar on “Vishnu” – the sitar’n’tabla-laced set is head-nod chillout that one could imagine as a backdrop to a tasty evening of food and chat.
• London-based French singer Léa Sen has come to notice singing on others' work, notably Joy Orbison’s, but now releases her debut, Levels on Partisan Records. It’s a sonically characterful laidback set which combines glitchy-organic production with quietly soulful singing. Feels like something worthwhile may be brewing here. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve on vinyl described as “faded rose”, which is a pale violet.
• Perennial Italian dark-tronic experimentalists Sigillum S have been going for decades and their latest, ahem, Aborted Towns, the Deadly Silence Before Utopia on Subsound Records, is a suite of downtempo gloom-techno-lectro, well produced and filmic, albeit not something most will want to listen to whilst doing the washing up.
• Will Varley is a songwriter’s songwriter, well-liked by artists such as Frank Turner, Billy Bragg and The Proclaimers – indeed Bragg, Bastille’s Dan Smith and Eleni Drake all make guest appearances on his seventh album, Machines Will Never Learn to Make Mistakes Like Me on MNRK Records. The songs were written during a rootsy, budgetless US tour and tunefully ride a fine line between folky singer-songwriter fare and more anthemic indie (the latter, especially, in “Different Man”), Comes on spectacular vinyl that’s half orange, half scarlet, splattered with black.
• Das Koolies are Super Furry Animals without Gruff Rhys and their second album, Pando on Strangetown Records, sounds that way, a cheerful gumbo of indie tunery, psychedelic wibble and acid house squidge. While no single element makes it essential, it’s a fine sound and I bet they’d be a laugh to lose it to live at 2.30 AM in a field somewhere. If they do that sort of thing.
• Glaswegian jazzers Azamiah continue their journey into soul-jazz with their five-track Two Lands EP on Floating World Records. It’s a set designed to soothe rather than cause synaptic explosions. One for laidback lovers.
• Wind Takes Flight: Hildegard x Electronics is a special record. Hildegard of Bingen was a twelfth century German mystic and composer, a totem, also, of feminine power in the centuries of male dominance over “classical” composition. The Richard Thomas Foundation, a body able to raise money and interest for high level arts projects, commissioned a rendering of her works by London soprano Julia Sinclair accompanied by the spacing electronica of Dutch synth whizz Marjin Cinjee. The result is a set for listening to in a darkened room, contemplating. It is ethereal cosmic-classical ambience. Comes in lyric info inner sleeve with cover arts designed by Factory Records’ Peter Saville and Brett Wickens.
• The third album from US-born, Germany-based singer-producer Sophia Kennedy is Squeeze Me on City Slang Records. Her lyrics are observational, existential, everyday, matching the micro with the macro, and are tethered to a simple but effective electronic backing. It doesn’t jump out at you but there are worthwhile moments along the way. Comes in art/lyric inner sleeve.
• Most who know him, will know award-winning jazzer and keyboard-player Joe Armon-Jones as a member of Ezra Collective, but he’s also onto his latest solo album, which arrives on double with a 12” x 12” four-page art/info booklet in art inner sleeves. Entitled All the Quiet Part II, it features the likes of Greentea Peng and Hak Baker (the latter a highlight) and is a smooth, fluid, tinkling set that won’t ruffle feathers but will be enjoyed by seated members of the London jazzerati.
• By all accounts American band Model/Actriz are quite something live, renowned for the energy and bringing a queer twist to scratchy punkin’ sounds. Their second album, Pirouette on Dirty Hit Records, has a throbbing electro-rock energy and imagination, but, on a couple of listens, the songs aren’t convincingly memorable. Nonetheless, it’s possible to hear their gnarly appeal. The “Rusty” edition  comes on brown vinyl on gatefold in info inner sleeve.
• What is it with New Zealand and smooth, jazzy funk? They revel in the stuff. The debut from Wellington musician Arjuna Oaks, While I’m Distracted on Alberts Favourites Favourites, goes well beyond that description. It’s a suite of songs that offers a mingling of light jazz and soul, with an icing of old-fashioned Sixties/Seventies easy listening pop, all produced to the highest level. It’s supremely skilled in execution and its clean, pure, orchestrations, while not sweeping theartsdesk on Vinyl away, will appeal to many. Comes on double with 12” x 12” art/lyric insert.
• Kieran Leonard, AKA Saint Leonard, knows loads of cool people and has been everywhere. When such artists have no track record of commercial success and don’t tour relentlessly, I’m always intrigued how they afford what appears to be a decades-long career doing all manner of interesting, underground arty stuff. Anyway, that’s not relevant here. His third album, The Golden Hour on First Run Records, is deep-dipped in Bowie’s Berlin period and sounds that way, partly rcorded at Hansa Studios and even featuring a song with Brian Eno (as well as work with members of Fat White Family). Channelling the late great singer, the album his does well capturing that mood and place, as well as Leonard’s own emotional delivery, with songs to match. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• London husband and wife duo Ian de Silva and crystal-voiced Joanna Beck release their self-titled La Nouvelle Musique debut album on Fruits de Mer Records. That it contains a Sandy Denny cover gives a clue to their style, a likeable light psyche-folk, but also capable of sturdier pop-rock as on then catchy “Catalonia”. Comes in lyric inner sleeve.
• Critically applauded singer Shura, AKA Londoner Aleksandra Denton, returns a decade after she first appeared, with her third album I Got Too Sad For My Friends on Play It Again Sam Records. It’s a set of gentle thoughtfulness whose lyrical musings and small scale belies its miniature wall-of-sound construction and tunefulness. Comes in a black envelope sealed with Shura’s own orange wax seal
• Robin Trower had two runs of major success, first as a member of Procul Harum in the Sixties, then leading his own eponymous trio in the early Seventies. The latter unit gave one of the less lauded Brit rock guitar virtuosos generation a run of albums, a few of which did seriously well in the US. The third of these, For Earth Below, reappears on Chrysalis Records, well-mastered (half-speed) on a double set which features the original alongside a 2025 stereo mix. Trower’s fret-widdly Seventies blues-rockin’ is not theartsdesk on Vinyl’s thing but he carries it off with easy aplomb.
• There’s a folk element to This Material Moment, the fourth album from Newcastle creative Jayne Dent, AKA Me Lost Me, on Upset! The Rhythm Records. Mainly this folk aspect is down to part-song acapella moments, but elsewhere she indulges in a baroque art rock designed to highlight the emotion of her voice. Mournfully, it drifts towards occasional abstraction. Comes on bright red vinyl in lyric/art/info inner sleeve.
• Desert Window, the debut album by Bristol singer-producer Lucy Gooch, is a woozy dive into folk-ish ambience, laced with mournful strings and layers of wafting vocals. It’s a slow, serious set whose point is not to raise good cheer but it may yet be termed ethereal by its admirers. On Fire Records, it arrives on smokily transparent vinyl
• Manchester electro-indie outfit Sea Fever release their second album, Surface Sound on Cosmic Glue Records. At their best, they sound like Saint Etienne attempting a hi-NRG stomp but the album also contains less pleasant anthemic moments. Unfortunately, whichever style is on offer, their production lets them down.
• Panamanian duo Alphawhores aren’t my bag but their second album, You Can Come Out Now on Editoris Records, will appeal to those who went to Download Festival for the bits where metal collided with goth and poppy industrialism. Comes on murky dark green vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve.
• Ashaine White isn’t doing it at all for theartsdesk on Vinyl either – really not - but she was voted Ivor Novello Rising Star in 2022 and has drawn attention for her “grunge soul” sound so let’s give her latest EP a shout. It’s called Look What U Made Me Do on 5dB Records and is, to these ears, a cacophonous mess, albeit arguably attempting something different.

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