FEAR (And Loathing) OF MUSIC
In TV or comic book parlance, “talking heads” refers to that bit where the action stops and the characters stand around explaining things: sometimes a vital part of a narrative’s structure it’s mor[…]

ISAAC HAYES – The Theme From Shaft
Wicky Wicky Wicky.
How far did Isaac Hayes’ balls drop? Was there some terrible sound of a couple of pool balls being let go from about three feet when it occurred. Because when Isaac sings, the deep bas[…]

CREED — ‘My Sacrifice’
P.O.D. — ‘Alive’
Oh, these dastardly bastards, trying to poison the airwaves with their Christian values and their holier-than-thou righteousness. Listen to that Scott Stapp, singing about a […]

It’s inescapable. Anytime some music documentary takes a look back on the 1990s, there’s bound to be THAT SEGMENT. You know, that point where some rock musician or rock journalist extols the unending virtues of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. […]

Piano Magic’s Seasonally Affective
Memory: winter, 1986. I am eight years old. Snow has been falling since six p.m.; I wake – compelled awake, no less – sometime after midnight, peering with squinty eyes through a slatted blind. The[…]

Jan Jelinek, Bjork and the Evolution of Glitch
These past two weeks I’ve been listening fairly constantly to Jan Jelinek’s loop-finding-jazz-records, and thinking about beauty. Beauty in IDM and glitch techno is something I’ve been […]

This is a very difficult album to review. This is usually quite a good thing since initially difficult records are usually the most enduring. But Pulp were Laura’s favourite band. In the final stages of her illness one of my stock catchphrases […]

Careless Talk Costs Lives is a new music magazine that most emphatically believes pop writing is not dead. It’s run by Everett True, Steve Gullick, and Stevie Chick and contributors include several quite familiar names – Freaky Trigger&#8[…]