Ray Lamontagne first came to my attention with his 2004 Trouble album which was rooted in the Americana movement and was influenced by Tupelo Honey-era Van Morrison. It was a very enjoyable album as was its follow up Till The Sun Turns Black. After that though, Lamontagne disappeared from my radar and I failed to keep up with his music. More »
Way back in 1984 – was it really 31 years ago? – Los Lobos’ album How Will The Wolf Survive? quickly became one of my favourites and has remained so over the years. Despite that, although I have a smattering of other records by the band in my collection, I’m guilty of not having paid close attention to all of the band’s output over the years. More »
It is not unusual for a band to start off as one thing and end up being an entirely different beast. The Beatles went from lovable mop tops to hairy psychedelicists , and don’t we love them for it. When Steve Hackett left Genesis, it seemed unlikely that massive queues of people would line up to urinate in their direction should they spontaneously combust. They went on, however, to become world-straddling pop chart toppers. I’m pretty sure that happened although maybe it was just a bad dream I had after eating too much stilton. More »
Released in 2014 Syro is certainly not a new album and it came 11 years after the previous Aphex Twin record, which is a long time to wait for any die-hard fan or follower. I remember his previous album entitled ‘Druqks’ received mixed reviews, mainly due to the inconsistency of decent full length tracks. As a strange run-through concept album however, I thought the album was strong and that it felt like a glitchy-beat journey interspersed with fragments and recordings of his life. More »
Steven Wilson is an artist I only recently discovered about a year ago, mainly through his 4th album ‘Hand. Cannot. Erase’. This newest release entitled ‘4 1/2’ is named because it’s the mini album between his 4th and 5th, made up of a mixture of new material and tracks that didn’t make it onto his previous albums. More »
The Vinyl Collection brings together seven studio albums recorded by Deep Purple between 1972 and 1987, these albums being: Machine Head, Who Do We Think We Are, Burn, Stormbringer, Come Taste The Band, Perfect Strangers and The House Of Blue Light. More »
From my musical perspective, i’ve been noticing artists coming back into their music stride after many years of being quiet, or some new artists putting their musical twist on old classics. The internet has got a lot to do with this, as well as the close interaction we have between artist and fan. Twinned with the resurgence of vinyl, some artists seem to be borrowing musical styles or bringing ‘album etiquette’ from the past back into their work. Below i’ve reviewed 4 different artists who either bring something new to the table, or have re-packaged old songs/albums in an interesting way. More »
That’s correct, the band is actually called LNZNDRF. That’s kind of because it comprises of three members – Ben Lanz (from Beirut), Scott Devendorf and Bryan Devendorf (both from The National), i.e. Lanz ‘n’ Dorf, geddit? Okay, it’s not as snappy a title as, say, CHVRCHES or ALVVAYS – but at least they stood a good chance of registering an internet domain name! More »
It’s with a good degree of anticipation and trepidation that I pressed play when the promo for this new album by space rock stalwarts Hawkwind arrived on my desk this damp and miserable Friday afternoon. I’m a huge Hawkwind fan, seen them loads of times and have a shelf dedicated just to their CDs on the rack…and a good few of their albums on vinyl too… and I so didn’t want this to be a rehash or a remix of old tunes. I needn’t have worried as this is Hawkind as I like them best. More »
I first became aware of the film Whiplash when Mr and Mrs Pig both raved about it on Facebook so I was delighted when my son’s girlfriend arrived home one evening with the DVD. Whiplash is indeed a terrific film. I won’t give away too much about the story but basically a talented young jazz drummer is driven almost to breaking point by his music college teacher. It’s a bit like a jazz version of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Jazz Cat maybe. Or maybe not. More »
Pure Hell, very much a punk band in the original form, hail from Philadelphia and were active in New York from 74 to 78 along with the likes of New York Dolls. Their sound is inspired, as many bands of this time were, by The Stooges and The MC5.
Space Rock, I LOVE Space Rock and Spirit’s Burning are a bit of a who’s who of the genre. The albums are put together from a disparate group of over 45 musicians all overseen at a distance by American producer Don Falcone.
“A blackstar need not have an event horizon, and may or may not be a transitional phase between a collapsing star and a singularity.” More »
Wikipedia has this to say about the genre that is Shoegaze “Shoegaze is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and reached peak popularity in the early 1990s. The style is typified by significant use of distortion, feedback, obscured vocals and the blurring of component musical parts into indistinguishable “walls of sound”. More »
New Hifi Pig contributor Daniel Brown takes a look at some of the albums and EPs that he has discovered during the last year. Much of the stuff is very different to the usual audiophile fodder and there is some great stuff in here, so read on and you may well discover something new yourself! More »
Bittersweet, fragile, sad, angry, reflective – collectively these are all emotions which neatly lay the groundwork for Daughter’s sophomore album ‘Not To Disappear’. Though the band’s sound has developed since 2013’s highly successful debut ‘If You Leave’, it has not progressed so much that you would now struggle to recognise it. I guess the overriding initial message here is “if it isn’t broke then don’t fix it”. More »
Ok, the first album review of 2016 isn’t an album at all but we won’t let that get in the way of things shall we!
On the front of Arguments Yard there’s a picture of Attila wearing a black T Shirt that has a quote on it and the quote says “ Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people” It’s a quote by Adrian Mitchell and I like it. It pretty much hits the mark because when most folk think of poetry they think of poncey aristos writing guff that has about much relevance to them as something with no relevance whatsoever. For me at least this perspective of poetry shifted a little with the advent of the likes of John Cooper Clarke and Attila The Stockbroker. Gone was the stuffy old crap and to replace it came poetry with attitude that spoke directly to me and with wit and with humour. With the advent of punk, poetry, although still on the sidelines of interest, suddenly became much more pertinent and with a message I and many others could relate to. More »
John Scott throws a log on the fire, pours himself a wee dram and puts on his copy of Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn as part of his Classic Albums series of reviews. More »
Peter Eden produced twenty albums between 1968 and72, which were labelled “progressive British jazz”, fr labels such as Deram, Harvest, Argo and Island, but he also released three albums on his own Turtle Records imprint in 1970 and 71and ot is these three recordings we have here. More »
It’s that time of the month again when I eagerly open the padded envelope containing a CD from record label él. I say this every time I review one of their offerings, but it’s a great experience not really knowing what you are going to get. And so here we have Percy Faith “Malaguena: The Music Of The Cuba/Kismet: Music From The Broadway Production”… so two albums on one CD essentially. More »
Some readers will know the name Cymande (Sah Mahn Day) from their three albums (Cymande, Second Time Round and Promised Heights) released in the early to mid-seventies, whilst others will be aware of some of their tunes (The Message) via samples used by De La Soul, Gang Starr and others. More »
John Scott looks at the classic album The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks as part of the ongoing Classic Album series.
“The Kinks was chosen as a name by the band’s manager Larry Page because it was slightly outrageous in the pre-swinging Sixties.” More »
Music has power. The power to stir emotions and paint pictures in our imagination. When Pink Floyd released their high-concept double album The Wall in 1979 its listeners were left to flesh out the storyline that the music and lyrics provided with whatever visual concepts their own brains provided. Like no album before it though, The Wall called out for visual interpretation. Pink Floyd’s live performances of the album mixed music and visuals in a way that no band had done before – building a physical wall between the band and audience and then projecting Gerald Scarfe’s animated interpretations of the story onto it, accompanied by huge, grotesque marionettes. Alan Parker’s 1982 film adaptations of the story provided a fully realised visual framework for the storyline, the music being somewhat relegated to a supporting narrative role. More »
Geoff Downes and Chris Braide released “ Pictures Of You”, their debut album as The Downes Braide Association, in 2012 after meeting at a Buggles reunion show in 2010. Downes was already familiar to me from his work with The Buggles – I’m a big fan of their Age Of Plastic album – Yes and Asia. Chris Braide was a new name to me but he has written and produced songs for Beyoncé, Lana del Ray, Paloma Faith, Christina Aguilera and Marc Almond amongst others so his pop pedigree is beyond doubt. More »
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