Hifi Pig

Hawkwind have a loyal following and you only need to look at the bust up between Nik Turner and Dave Brock and the camps fans have aligned themselves to understand that passions’ run high when it comes to this iconic space rock band.

Love In Space was originally recorded in 1995 whilst the band were on tour promoting the Alien 4 Album and was then released a year later. The line-up is Ron Tree on vocals, Dave Brock, Alan Davey and Richard Chadwick and to be fair to Ron Tree he does a great job in bringing a good deal of the feel of the original Bob Calvert to proceedings. Alan Davey is without a doubt my most favorite of bass players and he doesn’t disappoint here. More »

As the daughter of The Band’s Levon Helm, Amy Helm has spent her life surrounded by music.  The Band took a mix of rock and roll and traditional American music and invented the Americana genre, decades before the term became popular.  A particularly impressive feat considering that 4 out of the 5 members were Canadian, with Arkansas native Levon being the sole American.   More »

I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this CD when it landed on my doormat.  The band’s name together with the cover art – kind of a cross between The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and Pink Floyd’s Relics – made me wonder if this was some sort of arch parody in the manner of XTC’s Dukes Of Stratosphere albums.  More »

Producer/Engineers Jared Sacks and Daan van Aalst have pooled their expertise in music production and recording in very high resolution audio. Their goal is to put together the best system for recording and reproducing music at the highest quality with recordings in the new DSD 256fs (quad rate DSD) format, although 8 Ensembles is available in DSD 256, 128 and 64. It’s the 128 format we’re playing with here. More »

In 2014 Andy Bell, for it is he of Erasure fame, made an unexpected, and some would say brave career move when he launched his electro-acoustic cabaret show ‘Torsten The Bareback Saint’.

Before Bell started to write the next installation of his cabaret (Torsten The Beautiful Libertine) he and songwriters Barney Ashton-Bullock and Christopher Frost and producer Michael J Allison started remixing, resinging and rewriting some of their tracks and this is where Variance was born. More »

Punkers of a certain age will be well aware of Penetration (for it is they) and their classic debut single “Don’t Dictate”. The band hail from the North East of England and played with most of the big names of the heyday of punk and so it is with a good deal of relish that this album of new material, their first studio album in 36 years, was greeted when it landed on my desk. It’s released this Friday 9^th October on Polestar and was instigated in early 2015 with crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic.   More »

Having recorded his first solo album Fish Rising while still a member of Gong, Steve Hillage wasted little time in recording a follow up after his departure from the band in 1976.  Decamping with partner Miquette Giraudy to Todd Rundgren’s studio near Woodstock in New York State, the resulting album, L, was something of a masterpiece, showcasing Hillage’s soaring, melodic guitar with sympathetic backing from Rundgren’s band Utopia and a cameo from jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. Hillage then formed a touring band comprising former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker, aptly-named bassist, Colin Bass, Phil Hodge and Miquette on keyboards, Basil Brooks on additional keyboards and flute,and Christian Boule on rhythm and glissando guitars. More »

I remember the 2 Tone explosion well and The Bodysnatchers’ Let’s Do Rocksteady is very much a part of that memory.

Rhoda Dakar joined The Bodysnatchers in 1979 after Shane McGowan introduced her to bassist Nicky Summers and after their second gig the band signed to UK record label 2 Tone. Gigs alongside Madness, The Selecter, The Specials, The Go-Gos and Toots & The Maytals followed, as did the hits; Let’s Do Rocksteady b/w Ruder Than You in March 1980 and Easy Life b/w Too Experienced in July of the same year. These were The Bodysnatchers only commercial releases. More »

OK, hands up, cards on the table….I’m a huge Neil Young fan and genuinely can’t think of a record he’s made that I don’t love, even the much maligned Trans really does it for me and I reckon Daft Punk et al may well have been taking a listen to that particular record…then again perhaps not.

The Monsanto Years is Young as I like him best – electrified, rocking, belligerent and rallying against all that he sees wrong in the world. More »

Hands up, this is the first time I’ve come across this sixty six year old “stalwart” of the rock-blues industry, but apparently he’s responsible for founding New Zealand’s La De Das and Australia’s The Party Boys. Missing Borich out of my music may well have been a bit of a mistake!! More »

New Born City is the follow up to McCullagh’s 2013 North South Divide record and has been out in the UK since early May. The record is produced by John Power (Cast) and includes the singles Towerland Lullaby, Box Of Tricks and She’s Calling.

McCullagh says he influences include Donovan, Bolan, Weller and Johnny Cash and he has been playing guitar and harmonica since he was twelve…he’s still a youngen. More »

I first came across Jens-Uwe Beyer with one of his tracks on the excellent Pop Ambient series on Kompakt and The Emissary marks the artists first full length outing under his own name. More »

Released in June “Before This World” is Taylor’s seventeenth studio album and represents the artist’s first album of original material since “October Road” of 2002 – for that reason alone it represents something quite interesting and I imagine partly why it was a Billboard number one album in the States.

Broadly speaking the tracks herein could be labelled as being “country”…but it’s a bit more grown up than that and I’d prefer “singer-songwriter-country-Americana” …much more easy to get a grasp of! More »

Jazz funk is not a genre I’ve explored a great deal but this album suggests it may well be having a bit of a deeper delve…

Idris Muhammad was born Leo Morris in New Orleans in 1939 and says that he’s a “natural drummer” whose gift came from the “Creator”. He made his recording debut aged sixteen on Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill and so his credentials are certainly impressive. More »

It seems that nearly all the new music I’ve been listening to lately has had a distinctly retro feel.  None more so than Coming Home by Leon Bridges. Twenty six year old Bridges from Fort Worth, Texas had been working as a dishwasher but due to chance meeting with Austin Jenkins from psych-rock band White Denim – they struck up a conversation about clothes- he soon found himself in the band’s studio with Jenkins and his bandmate Joshua Block. More »

A nice release, this, from the ever-reliable 4AD label.  Pixx is a new signing – and it’s immediately obvious why she’s piqued 4AD’s interest.  The music will please both 4AD purists and listeners new to the label.  Pixx is a pseudonym for 19 year old Hannah Rodgers from London.  I’ve been intrigued by comments which I’ve read comparing Pixx to fellow 4AD band Cocteau Twins and the likes.  For me, they’re not the greatest comparison, though there’s a faint whisper of the Cocteaus’ sound here.  Moreover, there’s a Mick Karn-esque bass on lead track ‘Fall In’, but the vocals have more in common with Dido than Elizabeth Fraser.  Musically, the instrumentation is more similar to Dif Juz. More »