The fourth instalment of my project to listen to a new (to me) album every day for a year: one track from each of the LPs I listened to in April. I’m pleased with this one – though this is a playlist of two halves, and those wishing to av[…]

The Sound Barrier podcast is back with an episode about women up against the patriarchy, the odds and some mighty gusting wind. And we look at two actresses, one at the height of her powers and popularity, in Lillian Gish, and one virtual unknown who[…]

Last year’s Seattle Pop Conference, on Voice, was an epiphanic experience for me, reviving a part of me that had become burnt out since I stopped writing regularly about current music. Like most epiphanies it was almost traumatic – I staggered ar[…]

The (much delayed) third playlist for this project, covering the 31 records I listened to for the first time in March. Delayed partly because it was a lot harder to get some of these songs to play well with others! Full list under the cut.

(more&he[…]

The second episode of our fortnightly silent sound film comparison podcast. This week our topic is political poets, or poets who have been exiled for their politics (though in one case possibly for his terrible poetry too). Our poets are Pablo Naruda[…]

So for a while myself and Pamela Hutchinson, of Silent London fame have been talking about doing a more regular podcast. And while we love talking about silent films, we also like new films too. And so The Sound Barrier was born over a Campari Spritz[…]

Thanks to the Unheard Album Project (March mix on its way!) I am finally in a position where I can ACTUALLY DO a list of the records I’ve enjoyed most in “Q1”. (Note that at no point in my career as a ‘music journalist’ […]

This is part of a series of critical essays on the Pokémon games. This one is about Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the fourth “main series” games, and inevitably contains LOTS of spoilers for anyone who hasn’t played them.
WHAT A WELL[…]

Ed Sheeran’s absurd dominance of the singles chart is great news for him, his fans, Asylum records, and Paul Gambaccini’s agent, but it’s hard to argue it’s good news for the chart itself. It demonstrates the utter weakness of the post-stream[…]

These are 27 of the 28 albums I listened to for the first time in February as part of this project. (The 28th, Joanna Newsom’s Divers, is not on Spotify: it would have been represented by “Time, As A Symptom”). The pleasure for me i[…]