Outsideleft Week in Music Hearing it Like You Hear It

Peter Murphy & Boy George have collaborated on a single, produced by Youth, with an eye on the Christmas market no doubt.  Is this every bit as bad as it sounds?   It is.

Chicago industrial metal band Derison Cult have persuaded Reeves Gabrel, who has previously twanged guitar for The Cure and Bowie apparently (but then who hasn't? as there seem to be an endless stream of session musician types popping up  these days), to add his strums to this. Not that it lifts it particularly, as, to be frank, its pretty dull stuff overall. I get that they are trying to be introspective and all that, but ...Zzzzzzzzz.....!

I interviewed Damon recently and we talked about his writing process and collaboration with producer Steve Baker who helps bring his ideas to life, this track is a good example as the intro riffs and melodies act as the hook lines of the track. Damon's vocal style works well for this genre, sitting up perfectly with width in the mix and a warm delivery, it all works nicely with the song. His work is based around melodic grooves, good chord structures and productions, well worth a listen. The interview is on my New Music Review site, here

Paul Armfield has unsurprising a lot on his mind. This new single I'm Here recorded to benefit the charity Man Up, precisely appealing to men to explicity not feel obligated to man up, to in fact seek support. Good. I get it. I am crap at manning up in the traditional sense, but have plenty, plenty of other trad male foibles. Putting a problem in front of me and I am going to try to solve it!  Anyway. Let's not talk about me for once. Paul's voice is rich and plaintive and these two tracks would do well on on any gentle introspective acoustic compilation. I'll say too, the recording is understately controlled and beautiful and somehow that add too to the entertainment value. It's a relief that you aren't aware of the studio technology groaning to shoehorn this into shape because it's not doing it. All in all good. For something worth thinking about.

Well, since i love Lauryn's music so much, I am going to say, sure, appearing on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis'  'Warriors' the concept album inspired by the 1979 action movie of the same name, is a good thing. Purportedly took Miranda and year of weekly texts to get her to work... Fab. By the time it builds you hear it all, everything facet of her greatness, you want to belong in Lauryn's neighbourhood.

Its not often these days that you come across something in the Goth genre that genuinely impresses. I have been surprised a couple of times of late, firstly by Ghost Painted Sky, and now this, which despite having a strong Sisters of Mercy influence (don't they all?) does it very well indeed, and has a superb video to accompany it. Hailing from the dark heart of Birmingham, "Jessica" is Black Rose Moves third single, tagged as "a mesmerising dive into a love unravelled." That, it most certainly is.  Black Rose Moves are ones to watch out for.

Award for daft name of the week goes to Two Inch Astronaut from Maryland. Or at least it would if the band hadn't split up in 2018, leaving a number of songs written but unrecorded. An oversight which has finally persuaded them to get back together to record them, without actually formally getting back together. Or something. On the evidence of these two songs it might not be a bad idea if they did. Both are heavy on the power chords, albeit mellowed by  frequent changes of key and time signature, and hints of a whole range of influences from REM to (Paul McCartney's) Wings and even Queen. It's an oddly enticing mix with "Check Please" just shading it for this listener who now feels obliged to check out the four albums they released when they admitted to still being together.

Indie electronica instrumental vibes from solo artists The Sleeping Cliffs, a combination of synth, percussion, guitar, seemingly all doing their own thing but oddly working together to form a coherent arrangement... A bit weird, but somewhat interesting in as much as you don't know what's coming next. The writer Todd Glidewell likes to experiment with all manner of sounds and this is evidence of that for sure, it has a rhythm and bass track to hold it all together. The mix and production work really well and I have to say, all in all I like it! (More on The Sleeping Cliffs on my New Music Review site, here)

Who'd have thought that Homer would have had the time alongside his gig in the Simpsons to record this sort of lazy Sunday morning Soul tinged Jazz?  "Some girl named Golden" was apparently involved too.  Marge will be pissed about that. But why not just say '"..featuring Golden"?  Do we now have to say "..featuring some bloke called George" and so on for every collaboration?  Heaven forbid. Having said that, the female personage known to her friends as Golden does a pretty decent job of crooning along here, and it all bowls along pleasantly enough in an aural wallpapery way until it stops.

Drugs, Oil and Guns... so many vices in one song, such naughty boys. There are some lovely components on here. Great bassline from someone who's hips certainly don't swing. Their mashing of rock with other elements. I can go for that, yes can do! The whole laboured effected vocal. Maybe I am too old for that? Or the way they do it. Imagine if Thank You For Not Smoking had been written as a splastick comedy instead of being so dry your throat burns. Consider the impact? 

No sooner than Halloween is out of the way, and a few fireworks are blasted into the sky to celebrate a religious extremist terrorist being foiled in his attempt to bomb parliament quite a few years ago, we are catapaulted full tilt into the downward slide into criminal bad taste that is Christmas (or 'Holiday' if you prefer).  To state that any Christmas record is bound to be a pile of steaming faeces is to state the obvious, and we are bracing ourselves here at the reviewing rooms at Outsideleft for the coming onslaught of aural tat, having installed some anti crap defence systems that may protect us from the worst, but you know some festive turd missiles will still get through.  This one is a little better than most (hence the one heart), having the kudos of a Sonic Boom association, but is still syrupy crap of course.  Hey, it's a Christmas record.  What do you expect?

Rawkus... It's does exactly what it threatens to do on the tin. Density Black Cat have a new EP imminent which I'm looking forward to hearing. Meanwhile this... they're said to sound like Johnny Thunders, but the one time I saw Johnny Thunders, he was so reluctant to play that basically who knows. It's rocks in that dirtbag way. Not the glossy stadium way. 

Andrew Ferguson is a prolific Scottish folk rock singer who has released 16 albums of what he labels as SIASA - Songs In A Scottish Accent. His last but one album - Home at Last, was nominated for Scottish Album of the Year 2023. His "singing accent" is certainly Scottish, albeit without the demotic vocal dexterity or punning lyrics of the Proclaimers. The music though straddles the gulf between the true American folk of acoustic guitar and harmonica troubadours like Woody Guthrie, early Bob Dylan and their UK based copyists. He's clearly an accomplished songwriter and performer but the mood of the five tunes on this EP is firmly down, morose and mournful. Almost to the extent of Mike Hart's "Almost Liverpool 8" - dubbed by John Peel, with good reason, as the saddest song ever written. Even the final track - Cut and Run, which benefits from some electric input, and is described by his publicist as " a psychedelic blues undercut with atmospheric cross-harp and dark lyrics" would be enough finish any party. Perhaps listening to the EP on the day Donald Trump was re-elected US president wasn't the best timing. It certainly leaves this listener yearning for something a bit more uplifting and forward looking. Which is not to say it's bad as such, just you'd definitely have to be in the right mood and nowhere near any high bridges… gas ovens.. etc.

Turkish producer Ozoyo's debut album 'Worm' is an interesting concept.  An instrumental , nature themed ambient album, where each track is based on a different worm, resulting in the sound wiggling and squiggling its way through with mix of spiky, deconstructed club-type beats, expansive sonic landscapes, and airy/watery ripples.  That delivers a pretty rich tapestry of evocative sounds, with each track taking on the character of it's title worm . He has recruited collaborators Simo Cell and Foodman to add in variety to the already intricate sound, drawing from electronic, ambient, & experimental beats so each track has a different quality. It's a rich mix, well worth exploring and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Ear Worm"! 

Download from Bandcamp here

Not one but two records from Julian Cope get the once over from Richard John Walker this week. Right over here...

Penetration were a relatively leading light among the  latterday first second generationpunks. You can see what Alan RIder thinks of that, over here.

From their 1982 debut album, 'Filth Hounds Of Hades', Tank were formed by former Damned bassist, the late Algy Ward, and the Motorhead influence is written all over this.  That is hardly surprising, given the close friendship between The Damned and Motorhead  at the time, and the fact that Motorhead guitarist 'Fast Eddie' Clarke produced the album this is taken from.  I saw both bands (The Damned and Motorhead, that is) perform together on a double bill at the time and even then, Algy was visibly aping the moves of Lemmy.  Although the various iterations of Tank may well just be apostrophes in the history of Heavy Metal, never innovators, and with the look and sound here of a school HM band playing the local Musicians Union contest, this early single, when they still had a little something going for them, is nevertheless an enjoyable bit of sub-Motorhead fun.

Infectiously good.  Give it a listen and you won't be able to stop.

Baia from the Cults of Percussion Ensemble is simply one of the greatest pop of all time no?  And yet we spend so little time talking about it. The average age of the musicians here is 14, and it was of course Evelyn Glennie's debut on vinyl. Sure some of the tracks have that all I want for Christmas, in July vibe, but that is sort of the nature of the vibes. I think what I am hearing is mastered from the vinyle because I can hear the noise between the beats. In moments some of the very percussive jazz you will ever hear. Put together by Ron Forbes in the 70s. Wow! Still astonishing.