SOCA Gold 2003
I’ve been in a record-buying drought, I think it’s been about six months. I was never a routine music buyer anyway, someone for whom the new “Weird War” was to be gotten with the day’s shopping, like milk.[…]

Listening to the first volume (The Youthful Hero Turned to Fall Like Blossom) of Momus’s creation years comp “Forbidden Time Machine” while driving to Ikea in a 1979 Firebird with my new room mate Bryan:
Bryan(B): Is Momus Queer ?[…]

KEVIN SHIELDS — “Are You Awake?” and “City Girl”
It’s part of a slightly cartoonish self-image I create, I admit, but my mania for the work of Mr. Shields and My Bloody Valentine isn’t feigned, really —[…]

Birth Of A Hit: lengthy and quite interesting article exploring how one of the UK’s best-selling singles of recent years was produced. (Thanks to Alan for the link!)[…]

We are featured in this month’s The Wire so hello if you came from there. It’s a flattering write-up which credits Freaky Trigger with being one of the originators’ of music blogging online and also has some well-deserved praise for[…]

You will no doubt be astonished to learn that in my search for pop perfection I download a lot of tat. None of it deserves a separate review, most of it is dribbly and half-arsed, but writing a round-up at least forces me to give it a second listen.
[…]

Bubba Sparxxx’s earlier stuff wasn’t much to my ears, it was a case where a trademark Timbaland production didn’t work and the MCing was…well, was. But a song like this is already meta-swamp music, the type of thing that Nick[…]

For me, it’s enough that this track rescues the main melody from Musiq’s lackluster ‘halfcrazy’ and implements it beautifully in the pre-chorus bridge. Hell, I’ll even let the obvious vocal Pro-Tooling slide. Ever sinc[…]

A cover so humble that it’s almost just a mix, but glued to my playlist anyway. I don’t know what people were expecting from this – self-reference? snare rushes? sex? – but what they’re getting is a faithful version, with a litt[…]

The Neptunes Present… Clones
Let’s get the bad bit out of the way immediately. What is this Spymob/High Speed Scene pair of tracks in the middle of the album? Tedious rock tracks that are utterly out of keeping and not obviously linked in[…]