You’ll know the name of course and since his days with Public Image Ltd, Mr Wobble has put out over forty albums and taken part in a huge number of collaborations. Last year he released a six CD box set called Redux, but In Dub allows fans or those new to his music, an affordable collection of this particular style of music he’s output. More »
Everything these days is ‘post-something’, don’t you think? Post-rock, Post-punk, post-everything. That being the case, Julia Jacklin’s debut album ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’ should possibly take the mantle of ‘post-alt-country’, whatever that means. The album’s a lively mix of laid-back guitar-driven songs which lie somewhere between Laura Marling, Faith Over Reason, Eileen Rose and Patti Smith. She certainly has a voice that would melt butter – ‘Leadlight’ is one of those gorgeous summery anthems which you often hear when abroad, being both bittersweet in lyrical content and smooth as silk in the vocal department. More »
I’ve had this for a good few weeks now and it was released to the public on the 7th October…and, despite the bumph that came with the CD declaring it a “none concept album”, I’ve been frantically analysing and trying to work out what the concept is or what the hell Mr Haines is on. There does seem to be a thread running through the album; Is it about ritual magick, is it about radical Marxist groups or is it just a collection of random tunes that could only be the product of an absolute genius? More »
Every now and again I go out at night and see a band that reminds me exactly why I go out at night to see bands. The Stray Birds are one of those. More »
This month John Scott turns his attention to the UK singer songwriter Elvis Costello who rose to stardom in the first wave of punk rock and here looks at his album This Year’s Model recorded with his band The Attractions. More »
2016 marks the fiftieth year since Taste, the blues-rock trio, was formed by legendary guitarist Rory Gallagher. Taste’s story almost reads like a Ziggy-ish rock n’ roll film script: a youthful band that promised much, only to split after a short period in a rather dramatic and personalised fashion, when they were right on the verge of 1970s rockstardom, due to a troublesome relationship with management. Thankfully, there is a lot more to Taste than such rock n’ roll cliché might suggest. Taste had a goodly share of creative achievement, both in its MKII and lesser-known MKI line-ups, which mark the band as deserving of more than a mere foot-note in the in the annals of 60s rock. More »
I thought it was a joke when this landed on my desk earlier but as with all the albums that arrive here at Hifi Pig Towers I gave it a fair trial and popped it on in the car whilst we drove to our destination for lunch. More »
It is rare for me to go to a gig specifically to see the support act but I made an exception for Fraser Anderson. I had reviewed Fraser’s excellent album Under Cover Of Lightness earlier this year and has remained a regular listen. When I found out at the last minute that Fraser was gigging, I was determined to attend. More »
Female electro poppers Marsheaux took their name from a portmanteau of the first syllables of their first names: Marianthi and Sophie. Hailing from Thessaloniki, the girls moved to Athens to form the band. Steeped in electronic pop music from the likes of Depeche Mode, The Human League, OMD, Soft Cell, New Order and Sparks, the girls have worked to bring their own personality to their influences over the course of four previous studio albums and during this time Marianthi and Sophie have also carved out a parallel career as remixers, reworking tracks by Katy Perry, Gwen Stefani, Kylie Minogue, Depeche Mode and Moby. More »
Okay, I’m going to put this right out here. I’m guilty. I suspect I might be guilty of something that we may all be guilty of but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. I’m guilty and I’m going to make a full confession. So, here goes. More »
Roy Harper may well be rock’s least well-known legend. The only non-band member to have sung a lead vocal on a Pink Floyd song (Have A Cigar from Wish You Were Here), he is also the subject of a Led Zeppelin song (Hats Off To (Roy) Harper). David Gilmour, Paul And Linda McCartney and Kate Bush have guested on his albums and Bush, Peter Gabriel and This Mortal Coil have covered his songs. More »
This is bass player and composer Antoine Fafard’s fourth album and features Gary Husband on drums, lead synth and piano and Jerry De Villiers Jr on lead guitar. More »
This is actually from 1985 but is now available for the first time on CD along with eight bonus tracks included. When it first came out Kerrang said it was a “distinctive and attractive alternative to the mainstream flow of things” and that’s as true in 2016 as it was then. More »
You may not have heard of the Crescendo festival that takes place each August in the beautiful French tourist resort of Saint Palais sur Mer in the Poitou Charente area of France, but it’s possibly the best organised festival I’ve ever attended and is in an absolutely magnificent setting on the cliff tops looking out to sea. There are very good campsites within 600m of the festival site, great restaurants and bars and the festival itself is safe, clean and attracts brilliant bands under the broad umbrella that is progressive rock. We visited first a few years ago when Hawkwind were headlining the Saturday night and this was sadly the last gig that their keyboard player Jason Stuart would ever play before he died. More »
In March this year, Billy Bragg and Joe Henry carried their guitars on to the Texas Eagle train in Chicago bound for Los Angeles. During the journey, the pair recorded songs while the train stopped to pick up passengers. With one eye on the train, to make sure that it didn’t pull off without them, songs were recorded in station waiting rooms and trackside platforms. Four days and 2,728 miles later they disembarked at Union Station at 4.30am and recorded their final song accompanied by the first chirpings of the dawn chorus. More »
This month John Scott breaks out Richard and Linda Thompson’s timeless classic from 1974. More »
In a former existence, Edinburgh’s Summerhall art space was a veterinary college. Tonight’s gig is located in The Dissection Room and its tiled walls, linoleum floor and viewing gallery create a certain unsettling atmosphere that turns out to be quite appropriate. Normally a standing venue, we’ve been provided with extraordinarily uncomfortable plastic chairs to sit on. This is also apt as feeling uncomfortable is something of a theme for tonight’s entertainment. More »
Amtrak’s Texas Eagle train runs from Chicago to Los Angeles, covering 2,728 miles and taking just under 67 hours to complete its journey. Tonight Billy Bragg and Joe Henry are showcasing a set of songs that they recorded when they took that trip together in March this year. More »
I’m really not sure what to make of this album. That’s not to say that I’ve initially approached it only to then back away with a kind of “what the hell is this?!!” type of response, but moreover I’ve played this album some 20+ times and still really don’t have a clue what to make of it all. I’m not totally sure if it’s either a conscious body of work or possibly a case of throwing ideas into a blender only to see what happens.
I’ve been a fan of Hopkins’ work for a number of years. The eagle-eyed amongst you will already be aware that Hopkins has previously worked with Coldplay and his track “Light Through The Veins” was reworked into what became the introduction to opening track “Life In Technicolor” from Coldplay’s album ‘Viva la Vida Or Death And All His Friends’. More »
When Rickie Lee Jones toured her Pirates album in 1981, she comfortably filled Edinburgh’s 3,000 seat Playhouse Theatre. Tonight, The Queen’s Hall, at less than one third of the size, is somewhat less than half full. The lack of seat sales is undeniably disappointing but is perhaps unsurprising. Jones is an uncompromising musician who has followed her muse through a variety of musical journeys but has never gone out of her way to court the mainstream – her sole chart single hit, 1979’s Chuck E’s In Love, struck a chord with the record buying public without bending its LA boho jazz style to the fashions of the day.
More »
The sleeve notes for Eye’s Of Blue’s Crossroads Of Time opens with a bit of an odd one “Sometimes a band can anticipate history to their own detriment. There is such a thing of being too far ahead of the game and finding everyone else is still playing by the old school rules…The story of Welsh band Eyes of Blue is such a case in point”. More »
When I was a youth I had the door to my bedroom painted with all psychedelic patterns, dragons, mushrooms and the like. Somewhere on the door I also had a poem that started “I am Bufo bufo, not yet rested from the great work” and on the frame over the door I had “It’s an ill wind that blows no minds”. I’m sure my parents must have been very proud, if not a little concerned about my mental wellbeing. The year the tunes on this collection came out I was born, but I’ve always been drawn to the whole hippy vibe…man, and love the music of this era; mostly it has to be said the music that came out of the US scene. More »
The Tomcats were a British R&B/Mod band formed in Ealing in 1965 but it is in Spain they were most well known. The story goes that just before they were about to make it big on the R&B scene in London the band jumped in a van (bought by one of the band’s mum) and headed for Madrid. More »
This month, John Scott revisits the 1968 classic from Pink Floyd, Saucerful Of Secrets. More »
Copyright © Hifi Pig and Hifi Pig Magazine,
Big Pig Media LLP
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material (in part or in full) without express and written permission from this website’s author
and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Hifi Pig and Big Pig Media with appropriate and specific direction (link) to the original content.
Hifi Pig is part of the Big Pig Media LLP group
of companies.
Partnership No OC397825
