Albums of 2020

It’s time for the annual wrap of the best new albums added to your blogger’s collection this year. There’s been a few, but I’ll choose ten for this post, and then take a look at the best of the rest, compilations/reissues, and EPs in a series of separate posts as we enter the new year. This is not so much a “best of” 2020, because I’ve no doubt I’ve missed many of the actual best albums, but more of a personal “most-listened-to” list. As ever, the only prerequisite for inclusion is that I picked up a copy of the album during the year (in any format), which does, admittedly, rule out a good number of decent albums I merely preview-streamed via Spotify and failed to follow through with.

10. The Beths - Jump Rope Gazers

2020 saw Auckland indie-pop nerds The Beths consolidate their reputation as one of the best young bands in the country. A fact confirmed when they picked up three gongs at the annual Aotearoa Music Awards. Sophomore album Jump Rope Gazers wasn’t dramatically different from the band’s debut, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. My full review is here.

9. The Phoenix Foundation - Friend Ship

Five years on from the release of Give Up Your Dreams, which for me was something close to a career high watermark for The Phoenix Foundation (and an album rated number two on this blog’s year-end list for 2015), Wellington’s most eclectic pop collective returned with Friend Ship. And while it didn’t quite scale the lofty heights of GUYD, or earlier work like Horsepower, Pegasus, or Buffalo, it was another great set from a bunch of guys who continue to poke away at boundaries without compromising their core sound. On Friend Ship we got everything from elaborate orchestral stuff - see collaborations with the NZSO - to odd psychedelic moments, proggy flavours, and more snippets of humour than you can shake a funny cigarette at. But mostly we got crafty intelligent pop music dressed in a variety of threads, and the collaborations with Hollie Fullbrook (‘Decision Dollars’, ‘Tranquility’) and Nadia Reid (‘Hounds of Hell’) were outstanding. I also really loved the pomp and swagger of ‘Guru’, the scene-setting album opener. Oddly though, given that it was one of the more high profile album takeaways, and clearly loved elsewhere, I was less taken by the faux-disco of ‘Landline’, which for me veered beyond pastiche and into the realm of just plain cheesy. But then, I’ve always struggled with irony, and it wouldn’t be a proper Phoenix Foundation album if there wasn’t at least one track that left me scratching my head. Not reviewed on the blog.

8. Murmur Tooth - A Fault in This Machine

I was heavily invested in this one during our autumn lockdown period. In my original review (here), I called it the most uneasy listening “easy listening” album you’re likely to hear all year, and nothing happened to change that view. I loved it.

7. Alicia Keys - Alicia

I’m a fan of pure unadulterated pop music, and although Alicia Keys is not usually an artist I’d necessarily gravitate towards, Alicia was an album for the ages. Socially conscious, empowering, and life affirming. My review is here.

6. Nadia Reid - Out of My Province

How could any local not love an album that opens with the line “you took me to Levin”? ... for the uninitiated, Levin is a small soulless market town, about an hour’s drive north of Wellington in New Zealand’s lower North Island, and a million miles removed from any of the romance implied on Nadia Reid’s album opener ‘All of my Love’. And coincidently, a town not a million miles away from where your blogger resides. Anyway, it’s that sense of “us” that first attracted me to Reid’s work as long ago as her Preservation album (of 2017) after overlooking far too much of her early stuff. Out of my Province was probably the biggest “grower” of this year’s bunch. After the first couple of listens I concluded it was all a bit too beige and “generic folky”, but I stuck with it, and as time passed I became far better acquainted with all of its many hidden charms. In fact, although it is only number six on this list, Out of My Province was probably the album I listened to more than any other across the full year. It just wasn’t my ultimate favourite. It helped that it was so workplace (office) compliant and I was able to spend a lot of time with it. Best cuts: ‘Best Thing’, and the silver scroll-nominated ‘Get the Devil Out of Me’. Not reviewed on the blog, which is perhaps just as well, because I feel very differently about it today than I did when I first picked it up.

5. Matt Berninger - Serpentine Prison

Another genuine grower, after curiosity got the better of me. I mean, a Matt Berninger (The National) solo work in collaboration with the great Booker T. Jones, what could possibly go wrong? Not much, evidently. My review is here.

4. The Orb - Abolition of the Royal Familia

An all new intoxicating blend of disco, deep house, ambient electronica, and skanky dub. New Orb, just like old Orb, and if there was a track that summed up the post-apocalyptic nature of 2020 better than album closer ‘Slave Till U Die No Matter What U Buy’, which appropriates Jello Biafra’s ‘Message From Our Sponsor’ spoken-word narrative, then I didn’t hear it. My review is here.

3. The War on Drugs - Live Drugs

Given that I’m going to do a blog year-in-review write-up specifically on compilations and reissues, I was tempted to save this one for that piece. A live album is a compilation by default, right? Um, I guess, but Live Drugs was just too good to ignore and there were a few occasions late in the year when I had this on repeat, so it has to qualify on my most-listened-to list instead. Way more than the sum of its parts, the album is essentially a collection of live extracts from a bunch of different gigs played in support of the band’s two most recent - and most commercially successful - albums, Lost in the Dream (2014) and A Deeper Understanding (2017). Yet it plays like it could all have been recorded at the same gig. The flow, the feels, and sense that this was, or is, a band right at the top of its game. It’s a virtual live “greatest hits”, with eight of the ten tracks coming from those two albums, including seven singles, while there’s one very early TWOD offering, ‘Buenos Aires Beach’, and a fairly choice Warren Zevon cover ‘Accidentally Like A Martyr’. I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly what appeals most about The War on Drugs; all those classic rock touchstones - big keys, harmonica breaks, and lengthy guitar solos - and all that big Springsteen-esque Americana would usually be enough to have me reaching for the industrial-strength Nurofen, yet somehow it works. There’s some truly epic moments on Live Drugs, and highlights include wonderful versions of ‘Pain’, ‘Red Eyes’, ‘Thinking of a Place’, and ‘Under The Pressure’. No blog review.

2. Antipole - Perspectives II

If I’m going to break unwritten but notional blog rules by including live albums, then I simply have to throw in this remix album, which revisits tunes from Antipole’s 2019 album, Radial Glare. It’s a sister release for the Anglo-Norwegian dark-wavers to Perspectives (which topped this list in 2018), and it was another regular go-to album for me during the autumn lockdown period. My review is here.

1. Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death

I was very slow on the uptake when it came to Fontaines D.C., somehow missing all of the initial hype surrounding the band’s debut album Dogrel (2019), before being seduced into complete and utter submission by the sheer post-punk majesty of this year’s follow-up, A Hero’s Death. I had to chuckle when I read the band’s claim in the NME, upon completion of the album in late 2019, that it “was inspired by the Beach Boys”. Yeah, only if the Beach Boys had been raised on the rain-swept streets of Dublin, consumed Guinness for breakfast, dressed entirely in black, and listened to nothing but the Velvet Underground. This is post-punk 101, 2020-style. A state-of-the-art example of raw, gritty rock n roll, propelled by big basslines, weighty guitars, and a vocalist with a thick booming Irish accent to die for. Which is more than enough, but what really gives A Hero’s Death its next level heft is its clever and artful collection of lyrics. Songs packed full of urgency, insight, irony, and humour. There’s no filler here, and tracks like ‘Televised Mind’, ‘I Don’t Belong’, ‘A Lucid Dream’, and the title track itself, would all be fully legit contenders for any notional eveythingsgonegreen tune of the year.

If there was such a thing. For now, I’ll stick to album reckons. And I’ve got no valid excuse for not giving A Hero’s Death the full review treatment on the blog. Of the ten albums covered here, four are local releases, yet I could just as easily have included a couple more (not least Darren Watson’s Getting Sober release) and I thought it was a pretty good year for homegrown stuff. More on that in my next post.

The flip side to that of course is that it was a terrible year for the local live music scene. With Covid-19, closed borders, lockdowns, and social distancing in effect for large chunks of 2020, quality live gigs were hard to come by. I can’t even really present a decent case for a gig of the year, given I attended so few. I guess it has to be The Beths at Wellington’s San Fran in October, pretty much by default. And I suppose if there was one positive to emerge from a lack of overseas touring acts, it was that local artists got more opportunities to shine as headliners when our nightlife did finally spring back into life mid-year.

Anyway, I’ll have a few more reflections on an extraordinary year over the next few weeks when I take a look at the best of the rest (albums), the best compilations and reissues, and even a post on the remarkable number of great EPs I managed to pick up during the year. In the meantime, be gone 2020. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out …

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Avantdale Bowling Club - Money Is All That We Fight About

‘Money Is All That We Fight About’ is brand new, but given that I haven’t really written anything about the exceptional Avantdale Bowling Club debut album of a few years back, I figure this one deserves inclusion. Tom Scott can scarcely do anything wrong, and the music of Avantdale Bowling Club continues to set the high bar where all local hip hop is concerned. And Scott somehow makes it all look so effortless. I’m unable to source a YouTube clip for this, so here’s the Bandcamp link:

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Pitch Black - A Doubtful Sound (Adrian Sherwood Dub Mix)

There was no official new album release for Pitch Black in 2020, but as ever, there was a bunch of “new” stuff to keep fans satisfied. The duo celebrated the 20^th anniversary of their Electronomicon album with a remastering and a long overdue vinyl release. That reissue was accompanied by an album of live cuts from the era, released digitally on Bandcamp as Electronomicon Live (and as a name-your-price). And of course there was the now obligatory remix project, with last year’s album Third Light getting the makeover treatment to morph into The Light Within. That release contained remixes by the likes of International Observer, Dubsalon, SUBSET, and Bodie, amongst others, but I’m going to select Adrian Sherwood’s dub mix of ‘A Doubtful Sound’ as my choice Kiwi cut:

Reaching Out to the Media

NZ Musician magazine asked a number of local bloggers and music sites to offer some thoughts about new music and publicity submissions in order to compile a definitive list of what to do and what not to do if you’re the person tasked with reaching out on the artist’s behalf. I’m on the receiving end of at least a couple of these each week, and to be perfectly honest, my main starting point with any of them is quite simple: does this music fit the profile of the blog? … which as you probably know, is mostly retro-centric with a large side of Kiwi. When reading back the views I offered NZ Musician - in the link below - it’s fair to say I come across like a grumpy old man. Which is probably because that’s exactly what I am. But please, (ahem) do keep those submissions coming …

Reaching Out to the Media (here)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Marlin's Dreaming - Sink or Swim

Dunedin alt-pop band Marlin’s Dreaming have become firm blog favourites in recent times, with their polished pop hooks and wider cross-genre appeal providing the band with plenty of traction both here in Aotearoa and overseas. Lifted from the band’s second album, Quotidian, the single ‘Sink or Swim’ got a lot of ear-time on my pod through the middle part of the year.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: The Leers - Nightcall

I'm going to take the "cover" route for this one … but what a cover. A decade ago French retro/electro/synthwave dude Kavinsky - also see Daft Punk, Lovefoxxx - released a single that featured on the movie Drive called ‘Nightcall’. All vocoder and gleaming synthpop goodness, it quickly took on a life of its own and became firmly established as a post-millennium classic of its genre, much-loved and all but untouchable … so you’d think it would be something of a risk for a psych-pop band from Aotearoa to take it on and put their own spin on it, right? Step forward The Leers, who did exactly that, including it as the closer on the recent The Only Way Out Is In release. The band breathe new life into the tune, dressing it up in entirely new threads, and I think Matt Bidois’ emotive vocal take is exceptional. Strictly pop.

 

Album Review: Matt Berninger - Serpentine Prison (2020)

I’m pretty big fan of The National, so picking up a copy of Matt Berninger’s first full-length solo sojourn was always going to be a bit of a no brainer for me. Berninger’s baritone vocals have long been one of the most attractive features of The National’s work, so naturally I was curious to see how he would fare without the rest of the band …

The first thing to note is that Serpentine Prison is a genuine “solo album”, as opposed to being something additional from The National under another guise. Only bass player Scott Devendorf (from the band) contributes to Berninger’s project, and even then, he plays bass on just two of the album’s ten tracks.

That’s not to say there’s not some heavyweight help on hand in the form of Booker T. Jones (yes, *that* Booker T.) who produces, arranges, and offers a deft hand on Hammond organ and electric piano. There’s also Bowie-collaborator - amongst many other things - Gail Ann Dorsey, who assists with vocals (and bass), renowned multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird who plays violin on five tracks, and a subtle brass masterclass at various points from Kyle Resnick (trumpet) and Ben Lanz (trombone). The wider contributions of Walter Martin of The Walkmen (various) and Harrison Whitford (guitars, including slide and steel) should not be overlooked either.

Little wonder then, that purely from a musical perspective, in terms of instrumentation and execution, Serpentine Prison is something close to perfect. Everything is beautifully crafted, nothing is out of place, with exactly the right amount of musical weight applied to these (mostly) gentle introspective songs. Which naturally, thankfully, brings out the best in them.

Because if I was to assess the worth of this album on the strength of Berninger’s song writing or lyricism alone, I’m not sure it would stack up quite so well. Like much of The National’s work over the past decade or so, the main themes of Berninger’s writing centre around heartbreak, relationships, and the complexities of the human condition. Which is all fine and well, but it does, over the course of ten tracks and 40-odd minutes, start to feel somewhat maudlin, and it does perhaps veer towards self-flagellation at various points. But of course, his vocals are as pristine as ever, and his voice does, after all, lend itself well to that sort of material.

Mostly though, without wanting to get too picky about it, it is a superb album. Albeit the sort of work you need to be in exactly the right frame of mind for. The sort of contemplative or reflective mood I often find myself wallowing in … so it does work for me.

Oh, and Booker T. Jones, no less!

Highlights: ‘Distant Axis’, ‘One More Second’, the Dorsey-featuring ‘Silver Springs’, ‘Take Me Out of Town’, ‘All For Nothing’ and the title track, which closes the album. A fairly big chunk of it, in fact.

The Only Way Out Is In

It’s been a year or so since I last contributed anything tangible to NZ Musician magazine (new print issue in circulation this week or next, folks) but when the chance to talk to a couple of guys from Mount Maunganui/Auckland psych-pop band The Leers presented itself a few weeks back, I couldn’t resist. The band’s debut album (of 2016) was a firm favourite of mine and news of a follow-up, not to mention a run of upcoming summer festival shows, was all the angle I needed. It was an easy chat, with a fair bit of humour, but the truth is, The Leers are deadly serious about their craft.

Recorded in Los Angeles in late 2019, the latest release is called The Only Way Out Is In (Spotify playlist embedded within the link below) and although it’s a relatively lengthy eight tracks, they were pretty insistent on calling it an EP rather an album. It takes the band’s sound firmly into the “pop” realm, a move away from the psych-rock flavour of the debut, but it’s polished, very well produced, and I can see a lot of this new material going down a storm during the series of live shows the band are about to undertake. Also, make sure you check out the new-threads cover of the Kavinsky electro classic ‘Nightcall’ which closes the EP, and is already a firm favourite of mine. 

My feature on The Leers is here.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Mystery Waitress - Bedhead

Wellington songwriter/vocalist Tessa Dillon combined with Olivia Campion and James Morgan as Mystery Waitress to release an album called Nest back in September. Introspective, melodic pop of varying shades, there is a lot to love about the band’s sound, and the strangely beguiling ‘Bedhead’ was my pick of a pretty decent bunch.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Murmur Tooth - Memory

Right at the start of the year, the Berlin-based Kiwi artist Murmur Tooth (aka Leah Hinton) released a very special album called A Fault in This Machine. Equal portions weird and wonderful, it felt deeply personal and defied any attempt at genre classification. I could have selected any of its tracks for this choice cuts series, but I’ve opted for the first single lifted from it, ‘Memory’:

Classic Album Review: The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

So far as classic albums go, The Beatles’ 1966 effort, Revolver, has to rate right up there with the very best of them. Although often pushed hard by Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road, and the White Album when those ubiquitous “Beatles’ Best” lists are compiled, the general consensus is that Revolver is the one to have best stood the test of time. The one that still resonates most some 50-plus years on, and perhaps even one of the rare few that has improved with age.

Certainly, for my money, it is the most consistent studio set The Beatles ever released, and it does tend to showcase the band at its formidable peak. Rather than go into too much detail here - after all, if you’re reading this you’re unlikely to need an introduction to the band or what it sounds like - I’ll just list the key tracks to be found on Revolver:

‘Taxman’ (the opener), ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, and the feted closer ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Then of course there’s Ringo’s most famous composition, the throwaway studio sing-along, ‘Yellow Submarine’. A little bit of something for everyone there and some terrific stuff from one of the most important bands of all-time. 

Any serious music consumer ought to be ashamed (yep, ashamed!) if they don’t already own a copy of Revolver. Buy it, download it, steal it from your parents, do whatever you need to do, but make sure a copy in some format is never too far from your fingertips. That’s all you really need to know.

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: The Beths - I'm Not Getting Excited

Just quietly, I chuckled when I saw The Beths had claimed ‘best alternative act’ at the NZ Music Awards, because I’d placed them firmly in the straight-up “pop” realm. That award was one of three gongs the band won on the night. ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’ was the energetic opener to the band’s second album, Jump Rope Gazers.

Classic Album Review: Primal Scream - Primal Scream (1989)

Fresh from his last Primal Scream album review receiving more actual page hits (5,700+) than any of my own 2020 blogposts (bah humbug), Craig Stephen returns with a look at the self-titled follow-up to that debut release, offering a thoughtful and measured take ...  

Occasionally, a single track subsumes an entire album.

Primal Scream’s second album isn’t by any stretch of the imagination their finest 35 minutes, as they made the move away from the twee 60s pop of their debut, Sonic Flower Groove.

But it certainly contains some outstanding moments, chief among them the track which closes out the first side, ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’. It’s feted as being the progenitor of the band’s lauded ‘Loaded’ single, whereby producer Andrew Weatherall faithfully followed the band’s instructions to “just fucking destroy it”. And so he did, mangling it almost beyond recognition. All that was retained were elements of the lush orchestration and sinister beauty of the original.   

If its infamy lies in that phoenixisation, ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’ is a strong and masterful work in its own right, initially starting in a similar way to a pair of ballads included on the same side, before developing into a full-blown bitter love song, as the protagonist attempts to find redemption for his cheating.

“I betrayed you/ You trusted me and I betrayed you/ If I obeyed you/ I can't be me so I betrayed you/ I don't want nobody else/ I just want you to myself/ But I betrayed you/ I'm sorry I hurt you.”

At the end of it, Bobby Gillespie’s tale of self-pity is so heartfelt you can’t help but want him to succeed.

But otherwise, Primal Scream is a full-blown rock’n roll animal. It was the first time the group would shake off one style and adopt another on such a wholesale basis, but it wouldn’t be the last. The sole single to be released from it, ‘Ivy Ivy Ivy’ comes from the deep recesses of the early 1970s while not entirely shaking off the jangle tendencies of that aforementioned debut album. “My eggshell head is your to break I feel like dirt” sings Gillespie in another plea to be loved and forgiven.

‘Gimme Gimme Teenage Head’ is clearly a nod to The Stooges both in the title and how it uses and abuses the American proto punk pioneers’ modus operandi, with ‘Kill the King’ and ‘Lone Star Girl’ carrying on the 1972 blues’n’roll snot rock.

The reviews weren’t overly enthusiastic. The NME called it "confused and lacking in cohesion", imagining Gillespie "standing in the middle of the recording studio so dazzled by the pressures of what he's achieved so far (and not achieved) so far that he can't even find the exit door let alone the key to making A Good Record."

Rarely has a band ditched a style beloved by its fanbase by alienating much of that core support, and so Primal Scream was dismissed by the anorak-adoring bohemians that set them on the road in the first place. It didn’t exactly win them new fans but it was another step to where they would ultimately lift themselves up to during their magnificent and highly creative 1990s. 

(This blogpost is dedicated to the memory of long-time Primal Scream collaborator and superb vocalist Denise Johnson who died suddenly on 27 July 2020)

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Nadia Reid - Get the Devil Out of Me

Nadia Reid’s Out of my Province was another album that got multiple plays during my autumn lockdown. An album that needed time before revealing all of its hidden gems, one of which was the Silver Scroll-nominated ‘Get the Devil Out of Me’, which addressed mental health, self-harm, and other existential dilemmas ... 

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2020: Dead Little Penny - Honeycomb

Every year, around this time, as we hurtle towards the mayhem that is the December/New Year festive period, it is tradition for the blog to start taking stock of all of the musical bits and bobs that helped to define your blogger’s year. To reflect, to rate, to rank, and to celebrate. 

I’ll have a “best of 2020” (albums, EPs, gigs etc) blogpost for you sometime next month, but for the past couple of years I’ve always kicked the year-end process off by posting a series of clips from local (Aotearoa/New Zealand) artists which made the biggest impression on me throughout the year. Ten of them. See 2018 (here), and 2019 (here). 

To commence EGG’s countdown of this year’s Choice Kiwi Cuts, I’m going to start with a tune which initially surfaced as far back as 2018, but one that appeared on a late 2019 album I couldn’t stop listening to during the March to May lockdown period – Dead Little Penny’s Urge Surfing. Album opener ‘Honeycomb’ set the tone nicely for an album chock full of fuzzy shoegaze treats.

Classic Album Review: Bryan Ferry - Let’s Stick Together (1976)

Let’s Stick Together was released as Bryan Ferry’s third solo album back in 1976, but it isn’t so much an orthodox studio set, made in the usual way, rather it’s a compilation of previously released material – including singles, covers, b-sides, and even re-recordings of stuff that Roxy Music had earlier put its name to.

As such it all feels a little bit patchy and lacks flow. Taken as a whole, the album is basically a hybrid of different styles; part rock (as with the title track – a two-time hit single for Ferry), part easy listening cabaret, throw in some mellow jazzy interludes, and as always, much of it finds Ferry in classic crooner mode. 

Compiled at a time when Roxy Music was very much in recess, it’s interesting to note the alternative takes on the early Roxy material, with Brian Eno’s more experimental influence obviously purged to be replaced by Ferry’s own interpretation on several key tracks. This, despite the continued involvement of fellow Roxy Music members Paul Thompson (drums), Eddie Jobson (violin and synths), and Phil Manzanera on many of the recordings. 

Best bits: the title track and album opener, which has become something of a signature tune for Ferry, plus ‘Casanova’, ‘You Go To My Head’, the Lennon and McCartney cover ‘It’s Only Love’, the Everly Brothers’ ‘The Price Of Love’, and the Jimmy Reed track ‘Shame Shame Shame’. 

Something of a mixed bag, but still well worth checking out.

Album Review: Natacha Atlas - Strange Days (2019)

Craig Stephen steps beyond the blog’s comfort zone to share some thoughts on Natacha Atlas’s latest album …

Strange Days: now wasn’t that an album by The Doors?

Indeed it was, and you can but wonder if Atlas was referencing the title of Morrison et al’s second album when she set off on her latest musical journey. But these are far stranger times than the world was in 1967, where the summer of love was a sweet memory by the time The Doors’ second album came out, and the two words have almost become a byword for a world in which populism and environmental destruction are now part of the lexicon. 

Atlas has a fascinating background, where East meets West: British and Egyptian parents and being brought up in Belgium. She is multilingual, and crucially multi-talented, with stints in Transglobal Underground and Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart.

For her 15^th solo work - a double album - Atlas dips into jazz and maintains her background in Middle Eastern music.

 The first time I heard Atlas as a solo artist was on an EP covering the James Bond film theme ‘You Only Live Twice’, giving it a whole new dimension. So it seems appropriate that Atlas here returns to the 60s and another notable item from the era: James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World’. It’s fitting that such a song has a feminine voice to give it credence, and Atlas’s version supplies that first-party emphasis.

On an album sung in both English and Arabic, the opening track, ‘Out of Time’, mixes the two, breaking with the universal tongue but, after some jazz-style solo play, Atlas switches to her father’s vernacular to immense effect. As the song segues into ‘Maktoub’ Atlas now fully focuses on Arabic, which she has always made sound equivocal.

Soul star Joss Stone appears on ‘Words of a King’ - which was released as a single - and this is likely to attract diverging opinions for fans of both artists. From the point of view of this writer it lacks the poise of the album and is a humdrum exoteric duet in which the voices complement each other but don’t have the spark that’s required for a truly great team-up.

The man very much involved in this work is Samy Bishai, who as well as claiming co-composer credits for much of the material here, arranged all the music. Utilising a string quartet and a jazz quintet, Bishai creates a sound world in tune with Atlas’s unique delivery and delicate tonal inflections. This is obvious on ‘Lost Revolutions’ at the end of side three, a truly monumental atmospheric track with the singer at her most haunting as she laments the general failure of the Arab Spring, and in particular the one in Egypt where hope has now mutated into fear and repression.

As the title suggests, it’s an album that’s never quite what it appears and contains plenty of mystery. The music is gentle and intimate, yet highly charged with emotion, melding disparate musical elements from Western and Middle Eastern influences. It may not appeal to the jazz or world music purist but this is an album that essentially transcends labels and is a great example of fusion.

Classic Album Review: John Lennon - Rock N Roll (1975)

With a new John Lennon solo career retrospective released last week, and fresh consideration being given to his post-Beatles work, I thought I'd publish an album review I wrote years ago for another site ... 

Rock N Roll was John Lennon’s sixth post-Beatles “solo” offering - recorded prior to Walls And Bridges but released after it - and it finds the New York-based fabster returning to his earliest roots and influences with an entire album of covers from an even earlier prehistoric era. The iconic album cover photography, an early Sixties shot of John Lennon loitering in a Hamburg doorway, is probably more widely celebrated than any of the recorded material found on the album itself, but that’s not to suggest Rock N Roll is anything other than a fairly decent collection of songs. Given that it was essentially something of a contractual obligation release for the semi-comatose and soon to be semi-retired Lennon, some of it is surprisingly good.

The album was recorded and co-produced by Phil Spector during the second half of 1973, but due to a series of major legal wrangles and some initial mystery over the whereabouts of the master tapes (!), it wasn’t actually released until early 1975 - subsequently going on to make the top 10 in both the UK and the US album charts. Of course, Lennon was enduring his infamous “lost weekend” period and was separated from Yoko Ono (see the inlay production credit to May Pang … “production coordinator and mother superior”) at the time this work was produced, so we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised that its release was delayed to the extent that it was. 

From all accounts the recording sessions for Rock N Roll were a fairly debauched alcohol-infused process, with the reputedly bad atmosphere in the studio more than partly attributable to Lennon’s own aggression and prevailing sense of angst (all you needed was love, John). In saying that, the presence of Spector doubtlessly added further fuel to the flames if revelations about Spector’s own work habits have any element of truth to them. Let’s be honest - Lennon and Spector present a pretty explosive combination. In fact, after completing the similarly ordinary Walls And Bridges album in 1974, Lennon would return to the Rock N Roll master tapes (eventually secured off Spector) to touch up the less than impressive (read: drunken) vocals, fix some of Spector’s more obvious technical failings, and according to reports – Lennon even went so far as to record nine new tracks. 

Personally, I find the raw non-manufactured nature of classic Rock in general, and early Rock‘n’Roll specifically, completely contrary to the production excesses of Spector and his ilk, so he probably wouldn’t have been my choice to produce an album like this in the first place, and I’ve always felt it was an oddity that Spector is often associated with Rock’s most primitive era. For me, Lennon needed this album to embrace that stripped back, raw, almost-DIY-like ethic for it to have fulfilled its true potential. It is decent enough, just not all it could have been. What we get is something of a compromise. An in-betweener. Yet another great idea spoiled by flawed execution. It would be Lennon’s penultimate solo album - excepting the excellent compilation Shaved Fish (released later in 1975) - and we’d have to wait another five years for Double Fantasy to emerge following the birth of son Sean. 

My CD version is the Yoko-inspired 2004 reissue containing four bonus tracks, including Spector’s own ‘To Know Her Is To Love Her’, and Arthur Crudup’s ‘My Baby Left Me’. 

Best tracks: ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ (some classics are timeless regardless), ‘Stand By Me’ (a top 20 single), a compelling take on the controversial Chuck Berry gem ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ (previously ripped off by The Beatles as ‘Come Together’ and supposedly part of the reason for this album’s very existence), plus an especially fine version of Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That A Shame’.

Gig Review: The Beths, San Fran, Wellington, 9 October 2020

The Beths last Friday night at Wellington’s San Fran was either the third or fourth occasion I’ve managed to catch the band live on stage. But it was my own first live experience for a number of months (beyond DJ sets) thanks to the way Covid-19 has played havoc with the live music scene, both here in Aotearoa and overseas. It’s fair to say then, that this gig, the first of three successive sold out nights for the band at the same venue, was one I had long looked forward to. I was never likely to be disappointed.

One of the best things about a Beths live set in 2020 is the fact that the band now have two full albums worth of material to draw from, in addition to an earlier EP. Even better, is that virtually all of band’s tunes translate effortlessly in a live environment. In fact, it could be argued that loud and live is easily the best way to consume the music of The Beths. 

Before the gig was even 10 minutes old we’d already been treated to a punchy power pop masterclass with the band drawing one track from each of those three releases; opening with ‘I'm Not Getting Excited’ from Jump Rope Gazers, followed by ‘Great No One’ from Future Me Hates Me, before hitting an early peak with long-time crowd favourite, ‘Whatever’, which first appeared on that underrated debut EP. 

And for the next 70-odd minutes, as we traversed our way through the band’s catalogue, zig-zagging between releases, it was all about tight compact tunes, high energy levels, and charming pop hooks. Jonathan Pearce threw in the odd rock-god mini-solo, but as ever, it was the unassuming nerdy presence of Elizabeth Stokes nonchalantly guiding the band to new heights on tracks like ‘Jump Rope Gazers’, ‘Little Death’, and encore highlight ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’. 

As gigs go, this one was close to perfect. One minor, very minor, quibble: I realise it’s election time and there’s a cannabis referendum to tick ‘’yes’’ to, and a Green Party to help get across the line, or a women-in-rock initiative to promote, but each time the band stopped to share their “message” they flirted with the prospect of losing hard-earned momentum. It just felt a little contrived and it interrupted the flow just a bit. And given all the saturation electioneering happening elsewhere, it was probably unnecessary anyway (ok, boomer!). 

A shout out too, to support band Vera Ellen, a local six or seven-piece with some amount of attitude. There was a sense that they were all about seizing the moment, throwing everything at us, from psych-freak-outs to edgy punk, and discovering that a whole lot of it was able to stick. Definitely one to keep an eye on. 

As usual, in my semi-drunken state, I took a whole bunch of photos and filmed a few clips, but unsurprisingly none of them turned out to be blog-worthy quality. Even poor hobby-blog-worthy ...

Classic Album Review: Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)

Perhaps only Portishead’s 1994 album, Dummy, can rival Massive Attack’s Blue Lines for the accolade of the No.1 trip hop album of all-time. Partly because the genre appears to have died a slow and relatively obscure death (death by a thousand non-entities?), partly because it was a niche genre in the first place and provided us with just a few key exponents, but mostly because Blue Lines and Dummy are the sort of albums that, regardless of any genre classification, have demanded repeated listening long after the initial hype or fuss subsided.

Each album provided a landmark work for the Nineties “dance”/club scene, not to mention a whole raft of remixing opportunities for an ever-increasing number of DJs or producers eager to make their mark. Trip hop is basically a fusion of hip hop, low bpm techno, soul, funk, and jazz, with elements of dub, and Blue Lines is an album which encapsulates all of the above with such carefree nonchalance it becomes pointless trying to resist. It’s one of the few albums of any era that can safely lay claim to being both a Saturday night album and a Sunday morning poison of choice; there’s something for almost everyone on Blue Lines - a critical factor behind its mainstream success and longevity as an established “classic”. 

Massive Attack’s main protagonists at the time of making Blue Lines were Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, Grantley ‘Daddy G’ Marshall, and Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles (the group’s core), but it was the variety provided by vocalists Shara Nelson, Horace Andy, and Tricky, plus a cameo appearance by Neneh Cherry, that helped elevate Blue Lines to the acclaimed status it enjoys today. There simply isn’t a dull moment; from the monumental opener ‘Safe From Harm’ right through to the climactic closer ‘Hymn Of The Big Wheel’. At various points in the middle we get three other major highlights – ‘One Love’, the seminal ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, and one of my favourite slices of Seventies-flavoured soul ever, ‘Be Thankful For What You’ve Got’, which just oozes retro cool. 

The only potential fault with Blue Lines is its tendency to sound a little dated in parts - thirty or so years later, that’s hardly surprising - but if you can look beyond that, and one or two other minor issues with production, the album will prove a thoroughly rewarding listening experience.

Album Review: Alicia Keys - Alicia (2020)

As I get older I find I’m getting more entrenched in my listening habits, always reaching for the tried and trusted, and all too readily dismissing the musical styles or genres I have no real affinity for. In short, placing self-imposed boundaries on the stuff I’m willing to expose myself to.

There’s a multitude of reasons not to listen to modern R&B … not least autotune, commercial radio saturation, and a wider sense that today’s sounds bear little relation to those heard during the genre’s 1960s/1970s heyday - think of legendary artists like Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. 

Alicia Keys, however, is not one of those reasons. In fact, as things stand in 2020, she might just be the saviour of the genre. 

While I have no doubt many tunes from Keys’ latest album, Alicia, will have been subjected to that pesky commercial radio saturation thing - with seven singles lifted from it so far - I was hugely relieved, possibly even thrilled, to discover that there is very little autotune (a pet hate) on the album. If any at all. 

And it strikes this old greybeard that sure enough, much of it appeals as an authentic and genuine throwback to the aforementioned halcyon days of R&B and soul. One day in the not-too-distant future, we will surely rank Keys right up there with the likes of Gaye and Ross. If she’s not there already. It isn’t always the case that “things were way better in the old days”. 

Put simply, Alicia is a superb album. Full of quality tunes, powerful socially conscious lyrics, and even those radio-friendly hooks don’t grate too much. It’s full of life-affirming positivity, introspection, and self-empowerment. All good things. And a solid supporting cast, with names like Jill Scott, Sampha, Khalid, and Miguel all contributing at various points. 

It takes something quite special to bring a confirmed sceptic who sits well beyond Keys’ regular target demographic into the fold. But Alicia is *that* good. Universal and broad in appeal. Widescreen and inclusive. 

During a year full of (mostly extremely downbeat) surprises, this was one of the better ones. And the fact that your blogger is going on record to throw praise at an album that sits within a genre he usually avoids like the plague itself, only goes to show what a topsy-turvy world it is. 

Need further proof but don’t necessarily want to listen to the whole album? … try these tracks: ‘Underdog’, ‘Good Job’, ‘Time Machine’, ‘Jill Scott’, and ‘Wasted Energy’. But really, do listen to the whole thing. Even you might be surprised.

Terrorball's No Panzers No Peace

I’ve been following the work of Hamilton electro producer Terrorball (aka Gareth Pemberton) for a number of years. Over the past decade he’s been relatively prolific in releasing stuff on platforms like Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Not only his own original work but also edits and reworks of other material. Most of it issued as either a free download or as a name-your-price release. In 2016, he was even kind enough to help fill in a few gaps for us when completing a short Q & A for the blog (here).

The latest Terrorball work, No Panzers No Peace, was released online earlier this month and it’s one of his best efforts yet. It's mostly the tried and trusted hybrid of electro-funk and disco, but in the form of tracks like ‘Goblins’ and closer ‘Daydream’, there are perhaps a few surprises on offer for those familiar with past Terrorball output. Not least for the way they deviate into a far more reflective or melancholic guitar-pop realm. Check it out by streaming or downloading below:

Album Review: Darren Watson - Getting Sober For The End Of The World (2020)

I’m not sure I want to be sober for the end of the world. I’m not even sure I want to be sober. But that’s one hell of an album title, and given everything else that’s been going on around us in 2020, you might be surprised to learn that Wellington bluesman Darren Watson had locked in that title for his latest album long before we were lumbered with any of this pre-apocalyptic global Covid-19 saga. 

It’s probably fair to say this album has been one of the more difficult releases of Watson’s long career. It’s been a bit of a process. From the initial Pledge Me rallying cry in November 2019, which heralded an “early to mid-2020” release date for Getting Sober For The End Of The World, through a prolonged lockdown period as tracks were recorded and mastered, right up until this week’s release date, Watson has been hard at work, piecing it all together without any real certainty of outcome or timing. And yet, somehow, despite all of those very real challenges, it arrived perfectly formed, fastidiously crafted, and bearing all of Watson’s trademark attention to detail. And, let’s face it, you’d need to be sober to make any of that happen, surely. Fair play.

I’ve already seen a few early reviews from learned scribes suggesting that Getting Sober is Watson’s best work yet. With just a few listens under my belt before writing this, I’m less keen to go that far … for now. After all, the bar was set awfully high after 2018’s Too Many Millionaires. 

What I will say is that this album adopts a very similar approach to Millionaires, which was a far more stripped back variation on blues and soul than a lot of his earlier work. What worked there, works well again. Watson’s ever-maturing voice and gat-work again take centre stage, but a few of the same players are back to help out, most notably - without really wanting to single anyone out - Terry Casey, who adds an harmonica masterclass to several (of the nine) tracks. 

Album centrepiece ‘Ernie Abbott’ is a stand-out. One of Watson’s best ever tracks. More than just a story about an unsolved murder, it’s a heartfelt, if forlorn, plea for justice. A sobering reminder of one of this country’s worst and more gutless acts of domestic terrorism. A fitting tribute to the every-day working class ordinary bloke who goes about his daily business barely noticed. There but for the grace of God etc … 

Watson’s penchant for including local covers continues – this time we get ‘Love That I Had’, penned by fellow Wellington musician Matt Hay. There’s also Robert Johnson’s ‘Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)’, which acts as an ideal album closer. My own favourite track so far, just for the little bit of grime added to the vocal mix, is ‘Broken’, which simply oozes authenticity and stylish execution. 

I’m a little gutted I’m going to miss Watson’s album promo gig at San Fran this week. Wrong day, wrong part of the world for me. I was all set for another Paekakariki date with Watson before the most recent round of Covid-19 restrictions somewhat prematurely put paid to that idea. Another night then, but in the meantime, I can raise a sneaky glass to Getting Sober For The End Of The World. 

You can pick up a copy of the album here.

Classic Album Review: Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (1973/2009)

Although Mike Oldfield has released a copious amount of other work during his long career as an electronic music pioneer, it is the Tubular Bells album for which he will ultimately be remembered. 

What is really striking about listening to the 2009 remastered version of his 1973 classic album, aside from the obvious sense of fun and adventure that such a remastering project would offer in the wake of huge technological advances, is the range of extremes to be found in the music; some really dated and almost cringeworthy stuff (check out the horrible rock guitar) combined with the genuinely inspirational and futuristic electronic/synthetic sounds found at the very core of the twin pieces of work that make up the album (‘Part One’ and ‘Part Two’).

I’m probably at a disadvantage in that I’ve never listened to the original 1973 album in the raw and in full, but listening to the 2009 version you can easily imagine how revolutionary this album would have appeared upon its release. Oldfield was very much ahead of his time in many respects, and it is perhaps more than a little perplexing that he was unable to come up with a repeat dose of something similarly boundary pushing later in his career. 

I’m not sure I quite “get” what ‘Mike Oldfield’s Single’ or ‘Sailor’s Hornpipe’ are all about, or indeed why they’re here, but at least neither requires quite the same degree of patience and commitment that ‘Part One’ (at 26 minutes) or ‘Part Two’ (23+ minutes) demand of the listener. 

Tubular Bells has had multiple re-releases and has been reconfigured several times since the original landed on us back in 1973 - including Tubular Bells 2, 3, the Millennium Bell, Tubular Bells 2003, the Ultimate Bell, which includes a variety of formats including vinyl, DVD etc - and while it is rightfully considered a “classic” by those who know a thing or two about this stuff, a cynic might tend to become a little suspicious about Oldfield’s motives (or those of his label) over the course. Talk about overkill. 

Or maybe I need to up my chemical intake and just get with the programme.

Classic Album Review: Strawpeople - The Best Of 1990 > 2000 (2000)

I read something on social media very recently, possibly a post from Fiona McDonald, which suggested that local act Strawpeople were back in the groove. Back in the studio and on the verge of releasing new work. I really can’t be sure of the details, but it may be timely to reflect on Strawpeople’s musical legacy, in anticipation of more to come, and perhaps the best way to do that is to take a look at the collection which showcased their very best work.

Strawpeople - initially a partnership between Auckland-based DJ friends Paul Casserly and Mark Tierney - were one of New Zealand’s most commercially successful pop acts of the Nineties, and this compilation album features virtually all of the band’s biggest hits, albeit “hits” specific to the NZ charts. And when I say “band”, I really mean Casserly (mostly) and Tierney (up until 1996), along with vocalist Fiona McDonald (occasionally). Plus, whomever else they decided to work with on any given album; to say that studio line-up changes were frequent over the course of roughly half a dozen albums throughout the decade would be no exaggeration. 

Strawpeople did two things very well. The first was to produce a distinctly Kiwi blend of electronica and pop (which has dated just a little, admittedly) using an assortment of (primarily) women vocalists. The second was to take material from other artists and turn it into their own – see covers of The Church’s ‘Under The Milky Way’, John Hiatt’s ‘Have a Little Faith’, and to a less successful extent, The Cars’ ‘Drive’. And of course there was also ‘One Good Reason’, a lesser known track from local new wave stalwarts The Swingers, which provided the breakthrough hit for Strawpeople. All of those tracks feature on Best Of. 

The most well known Strawpeople album is probably 1994’s Broadcast, which spent a whole year on the NZ album charts - reaching No.3 - and it featured the aforementioned core trio of Casserly, Tierney, and McDonald. Broadcast therefore represents Strawpeople at something of a career peak, but in truth, the casual fan or the merely curious might be better served by picking up a copy of this compilation which basically gives you all you’ll need without any hint of filler. 

Best tracks: ‘Love Explodes’, ‘Dreamchild’, ‘Trick With A Knife’, ‘Sweet Disorder’, and ‘Taller Than God’.

Depeche Mode's Violator Box

Keen Depeche Mode fans will have been following the band’s very methodical and expansive 12-inch singles reissue series. I use the word “following”, because only the most cash-flush fans will be buying. There’s “keen” and then there’s “keen”. And then there’s another word beyond “keen” for those fans prepared to buy stuff they probably already own in one format or another. But you know … vinyl, nostalgia, collectors, and completists, there’s really no accounting for the lengths some fans will go to in order to scratch an itch.

Basically, each single from the band’s extensive archives forms part of a vinyl box set depending on which album the single originated from. So there’s a box set for Speak & Spell singles, a box set for A Broken Frame singles, and so on and so on. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have already recognised the need to be selective about what you buy, sans a lotto win or the desire to take out another mortgage. Which brings me nicely to the Violator box which arrived in July. 

Violator is without question the band’s finest moment. Depeche Mode’s masterpiece. I’d argue it all day. And have done so many times. The singles extracted from the album were ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Enjoy The Silence’, ‘Policy of Truth’, and ‘World In My Eyes’. But the box contains ten 12-inch singles, because you don’t just get the four 12-inch versions and the associated b-sides, you get a whole bunch of remixed material as well … in this case, a total of 29 tracks and a full three hours of Depeche Mode (across the ten singles). 

There’s four different versions of ‘Personal Jesus’, SEVEN different versions of ‘Enjoy The Silence’ – including the 15-and-a-half-minute ‘The Quad: Final Mix’, which features a number of producers including Adrian Sherwood and Tim Simenon – four versions of ‘Policy of Truth’, and four mixes of ‘World In My Eyes’. Plus of course, those b-sides: a couple of mixes of ‘Dangerous’, and three versions of (‘World’ flip) ‘Happiest Girl’, plus many others.

Those adding additional studio fairy dust include Mute Records boss Daniel Miller (naturally), Flood, and Francois Kevorkian, to name only the most prolific among the many involved.

It begs the question – how much Depeche Mode is too much Depeche Mode? … I can’t answer that either, but if you have to be selective and have enough cash to splurge on just one box in the ongoing series, I’m fairly certain this is the one to grab.

You can have a look at what is available in the series (so far) by scrolling down on this link (click here) ... if you dare.

Here’s the ‘Dangerous’ Sensual Mix … ‘Dangerous’ being the original b-side to ‘Personal Jesus’ and an instant Mode classic in its own right:

Electronomicon Live

20 years ago this week, local electro-dub duo Pitch Black released Electronomicon, a follow-up album to the landmark Futureproof release of a few years earlier. To celebrate the anniversary, Pitch Black have released live versions of six tracks featuring on the album, issuing the set as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Here’s the blurb:

Just under 20 years ago, on the 7th September 2000 to be precise, our second album "Electronomicon" was released by Kog Transmissions in New Zealand. 

To celebrate this milestone we dug deep into our archives to find recordings of our live shows from the time. After listening to hours and hours and hours and hours of DAT tapes, we've selected a live version of each of the tracks from the album and are happy to present "Electronomicon Live" for your listening pleasure. 

Very sadly we couldn't find anything from the release tour with Shapeshifter, Salmonella Dub Soundsystem and DJ Automatic, which is a shame as it was one of our most enjoyable live experiences, being the first time that we had full creative control of the whole look and feel of each show. 

As we think the audio quality of the recordings we did find doesn't quite match up to those we found for "Futureproof Live", we've decided to make this collection available on a pay as you want basis. 

Later this month we'll be releasing "Electronomicon" on vinyl for the first time. 

The Year That Was ... 1976

Craig Stephen steps back in time to present a Top 10 (plus one) of all things 1976 …

There’s something about 1976. Above all, it was a pivotal year in music: reggae was its peak and punk was an obscure art school sub-genre about to be turned into a commercial anti-art dogma. While punk flared up on the streets of London, Manchester, and New York, Jamaica’s capital Kingston was literally on fire, with uncontrolled violence and gang warfare. 1976 was also about many more things and while this article focuses mainly on the albums released in the 12 months, I have broadened it out, as you shall see. 

Max Romeo: War Ina Babylon 

Diatribes on poverty and inequality, corruption of the clergy and a call for politicians to take the road to righteousness litter the magnificent War Ina Babylon. The cover reflects the music: a distraught woman holding her head in her hands with a handkerchief to cry into. Roots reggae opener ‘One Step Forward’ urges politicians to take the “narrow” road to righteousness. Then we’re into ‘Chase the Devil’ with its famous opening “Lucifer son of the morning, I'm gonna chase you out of earth”, the frightening title track and ‘Uptown Babies’, a dissection of the class divide.

Ramones: Ramones 

Sounding a little dated now, perhaps, but incendiary then, Ramones was latched on to by anyone who mattered in 1976 and became THE must-have item of that long hot northern hemisphere summer. To many, it’s considered to be the first true punk rock album, and still inspires to this day. It’s 14 tracks, among them ‘Beat on the Brat’ and ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, last all of 29 minutes. Nowadays, T-shirt City is bustling with Ramones tops but do those snotty teens wearing them even have a copy of the album that set them to a career of trademark buzzsaw guitars and short songs?

David Bowie: Station to Station / Nic Roeg: The Man Who Fell To Earth 

Changing tack once more, the album’s opener, the 10-minute title track began with the sound of an approaching train, more than three full minutes pass on a slow, hypnotic instrumental march before Bowie finally sings. It then erupts into a celebratory groove, leading into a lengthy, wild outro. It’s almost two songs welded into one. Kraftwerk were also an influence for Bowie and he would continue the musical adventure on the so-called “Berlin trilogy”. The cover used a still from the film The Man Who Fell to Earth in which Bowie took the lead role as a stranded alien. Released months after the album, it is a monumental sci-fi flick that bemuses and bedazzles in equal measures. 

100 Club Punk Special 

You could pin punk’s rise to the very first Sex Pistols gig, to the Screen on the green Midnight Special in late August, or even the Pistols’ foul-mouthed tirade at Bill Grundy on prime-time television that sparked tabloid front-page headlines. But this mini festival was the moment that seemed to propel the burgeoning movement into something more tangible and publically-consumable. It featured the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Damned, and The Clash, as well as Siouxise and the Banshees which had only just formed and pretty much played on the hoof. Whatever happened to the Stinky Toys? 

Can: Flow Motion 

I had to force myself to like Can but it was worth the pain. They are very much an acquired taste. By 1976 the German avant-garde prog-jazz-punkers found themselves on Top of the Pops with the electro-beat heavy ‘I Want More’ which features here. Flow Motion might be more accessible and it plays with disco rhythms, but it remained very much a Can album with a ten-minute track to close that continues a fine tradition of freeform recording.

All the President’s Men 

The film of the book of the event. Watergate was still raw in America, and in journalism around the world. The revelations of reporters Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post (and by other reporters) were like a Molotov Cocktail thrown at the established political processes. This was Dirty Politics before it became part of the culture. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford play the said reporters braving obstacles at every turn to get the story. And there were many of them, but their doggedness culminates in the president resigning. A film can’t truly encapsulate years of chasing or a 336-page book but it covers whatever it is able to do with fantastic dramatic effect. 

Debris: Static Disposal 

From Chickasha, Oklahoma, Debris formed in 1975 and self-released this solitary LP. A Dada/punk/psych masterpiece recorded in just under seven hours. It was a mindblowing album coming with a provocative, bondage-themed sleeve. Like The Saints’ debut, they were a band oblivious to the coming punk explosion yet this also sounds like a punk masterpiece. Debris came from the same harvest as Captain Beefheart, the Stooges, early Roxy Music and other pre-punk mainstays of the time. After this, they disappeared.

Godzilla vs Megalon 

Nuclear testing unleashes mayhem on the undersea kingdom of Seatopia, causing a series of environmental disasters that nearly wipes out Rokuro, the schoolboy protagonist at the centre of this film. Then ... fighting … a flying robot … napalm bombs … the world in danger … Tokyo smashed. In other words, exactly what all the original Godzilla films do best. (Although the film was released in 1973 in Japan, it didn't receive a full theatrical release in the US, and more generally "the west", until the balmy summer of 1976 - Ed)

The Damned: New Rose 

It might be lauded as the first British punk single, but ‘New Rose’ was a classic three-minute pop song. The famous spoken intro – “Is she really going out with him?” – is from the Shangri-La’s ‘Leader of the Pack’ for fox sake. Fuelled by amphetamine sulphate and cider, ‘New Rose’ laid a marker for all other punk bands to follow. Only a few ever did. 

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry: Super Ape 

Genius at the controls. Take a breath, open your mind and listen to this masterpiece of roots music. A must have for all Perry lovers and for the new generations interested in reggae music. Super Ape might not be the best reggae album of the 70s nor even Perry’s finest but it set a trend; reggae and dub meets, well, all sorts of sounds and influences. Various reissues and re-shaping has occurred in the past 44 years but the original still stands strong. 

Scotland 2, England 1, Hampden Park, 15 May 

This game would become a skeleton in goalkeeper Ray Clemence's cupboard after allowing a saveable Kenny Dalglish shot to roll through his legs for Scotland's winning goal. Mick Channon had given England an early lead but there was only ever going to be one winner. Bruce Rioch equalised just six minutes later. Clemence would later say he had Dalglish’s shot covered, but it bobbled and the next thing he knew it went through his legs and into the net. Scots fans didn’t care, they’ve never let the keeper forget it to this day.