Gathered in a studio simply as a functional exercise is the first plus here. Muzik Tarian Malaysia are bunch of borderline nomads of whom no-one expects to spend 8 months under the thumb of some metrosexual hot-shot with two million dollars as collateral, so in keeping with their uber secretive muse, a tune like Johore Sports Club serves […]
What really grabs attention in this belated companion piece to The Jam’s penultimate single The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow), is just how little they have in common. In late 1982 as The Jam’s closing chapter saw them feted as real deal pop stars for the only time, an acrid sarcastic dirge was license for […]
A dual sequence of events had already etched the autumn of 1982 into the Irish psyche. Along a sultry Mediterranean roadside, the demise of Monaco’s Princess Grace was viewed from stunned television screens, mourned by the heartbroken Diaspora. At 52, she was crystallised into the same national trophy cabinet as Jack Kennedy, an iconic pair […]
From a vast melting pot, its intensity so bewildering Fritz Lang may just be forced to gasp, a proud nightingale tired of the “Oh she’s Stevie Wonder’s lyricist isn’t she?” rhetoric rises, arms thurst wide, eyes glowing, messianic to the frickin’ hilt. This sleek slender Sappho like spectre hovers above sardine tin Northern Soul dancefloors, […]
Short sharp shock is the primary philosophy Brooklyn’s Radio 4 unleash on their 2002 album Gotham. Appropriately titled, the post punk Noo Yoik angst transmits aesthetics as dour as a Monday bank holiday stuck in a bedsit with Stephen Gerrard and Damien Duff as company, with the mildly unfair Gang Of Four label sitting just […]
As I write, September 25th seems like it’s going to be a long long day. Far too much of what makes the “average” shrink tick occupies my own allotment of infinity, where laboured breathing buffs up a damp silvery fog incumbent of what should be Thursday. Not for the first time, and most certainly not for the last, […]
Wearing your heart on your sleeve is a cagey endevour, something which New Zealand’s indie deities The Clean go for broke with on Stars. For this cat it’s the most remarkable musical success of 2001, a year when indie took an ice cold shower and cured the jaded malady of the scurrying Brit Pop hangover. On […]
One of the pleasures of being a hypocrite is that Pete Townshend empathises completely. Not that one should go on any particular *ahem*, “nostalgia” trip, circa 2003. Instead, cast your attention upon “Quadrophenia”, Townshend’s emotional, sexual, primal, whatever you want to call it mindfuck from some 30 years previously. Laying down a sequence of particular character foibles […]
Harry Palmer has a lot to contend with. Unlike the suave and aesthetically pre-programmed 007, he tends to shed blood, and even if he does compete reasonably successfully with M15’s blue eyed boy in matters of a carnal persuasion, the chances of his hush puppies getting submerged in one of London’s overflowing drains tends to downgrade his face […]
It’s a run of the mill Saturday evening in May. I aint got a penny to scratch my itch, and the raging sobriety makes it impossible to appease the two choices that dominate my Palookaville bound night. The alternatives are becoming worryingly clear. Will the planet’s most unlikeliest Limerick man, this time in his annual […]
