THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 1 TRACK 2
XTC – “Beating Of Hearts” (from the album Mummer)
XTC’s early 80s albums are thick, soupy affairs, full of knotty post-punk songwriting and an obsessive concern for England past and present. 19[…]

THE ENGLISH TAPE, SIDE 1 TRACK 1
THE KINKS – “Village Green Preservation Society” (from the album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society)
The Kinks are where pop “Englishness” starts, as a definable &#8211[…]

An explanatory word: as part of every themed issue, Freaky Trigger catalogues an imaginary mixtape. This month (The English Tape) I’m going to blog it first before collating it into an archivable article. So expect more reviews than normal![…]

ANDY PARTRIDGE – Candymine (Demo)
ANDY PARTRIDGE – Prince Of Orange (Demo)
One reason XTC took their business from Virgin to Cooking Vinyl was Virgin’s rejection of a bubblegum-pop concept album Partridge had cooked up. The label &#[…]

steal this blog!: steal this idea, more like! as erstwhile nylpm contributor Fred Solinger launches into his 20 best songs of all time. I have it on good authority that he is part of a shadowy organisation that has pop in its iron grip, so you should[…]

Some Excursions into Sonic Fiction: from Mediamatic magazine, a long interview/discussion with Kodwo Eshun, author of ’98’s firestorming More Brilliant Than The Sun – check the bits on the new R&B, Hype Williams, etc – ex[…]

Metallica, how could you?: romantic nonsense c/o Salon, a hymn to the good ‘ol days of tape trading. While I treasure my mixtapes I’m far more enlivened by MP3 swapping and the instant-discussion options opened up by e-mail, and what&#821[…]

Lee Hazlewood: Cowboy in Sweden – Fred’s been pushing tracks from this excellent country-baroque album my way, and now Pitchfork review it. There’s also a review of it at motion —+, and you can read up on “THE REAL CREAT[…]

I was probably one of the last kids to grow up with parents who reckoned, unequivocally, that pop music was trash. Being liberal types they never stopped me listening to it, but there was a clear and unbreakable aesthetic line between pop music and &[…]