Seasick Steve – Roy's Gang

August 18, 2017 Peter Kimpton

Seasick Steve with his hub cap and broomstick guitar

Song of the Day: Riffs don't get much more infectious than this. A crowd-pleasing positive opener from the bearded bluesman's 2015 album Sonic Soul Surfer, and he really does mean to play his very best show

Modest Mouse – Dashboard

April 10, 2017 Peter Kimpton

Modest Mouse with Johnny Marr (second from left, standing)

Song of the Day: From yesterday's Talking Heads, we connect to another Johnny Marr collaboration, from the intelligent US indie band messing about in fishing boats, but really singing about music

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COKE (1970s era)

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Trucker's Bacon Cheeseburger

New Albums …

Featured

Mar 23, 2025

YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds

Mar 23, 2025

New album: A rite of passage to the senses, this short, sharp, experimental debut noise rock LP by the New York quartet feels like being dropped into a growling, stop-start pinball machine, but the experience is weirdly rewarding

Mar 23, 2025

Annie & The Caldwells: Can't Lose My (Soul)

Mar 23, 2025

New album: A fabulously uplifting soul, gospel and funk release the the family band who release their first LP four decades into their career, fronted by the supreme voice of West Point, Mississippi’s Annie Caldwell, alongside her daughters, husband and god-daughter

Mar 23, 2025

Brian D'Addario: Till The Morning

Mar 23, 2025

New album: A solo album by one half of the Long Island brothers band The Lemon Twigs, here channelling his many 60s and 70s influences, from The Beatles to The Hollies, Beach Boys to Byrds to Dave Clark Five, bringing balladic beauty and melancholy, and old-school vocal harmony pop

Mar 23, 2025

Greentea Peng: Tell Dem It's Sunny

Mar 23, 2025

New album: South-east London’s Aria Wells returns her second album after 2021’s Man Made with a stylish, dark, smoky fusion of trip-hop, hip-hop, reggae, neo-soul, R’n’B, and indie rock, with a variety of timbres and themes, but overall one of self-renewal and change

Mar 23, 2025

Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes.jpeg

Mar 22, 2025

Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

Mar 22, 2025

New album: Rapturously crafted, literary, smart, dream pop by the Philadelphia band fronted by singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner, this fourth LP also has a darker, more melancholic, introverted hue than her previous Jubilee, here inspired by myths, poetry and fiction on thematic cycles of temptation, transgression and retribution

Mar 22, 2025

Mar 19, 2025

Courting: Lust For Life, Or ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story'

Mar 19, 2025

New album: A lengthy title for a short, snappy, cleverly interwoven eclectic indie-dancefloor-postpunk experimental third LP by the Liverpool band with a theme of duality, a cyclical intro and outro, and each song paired with a balanced counterpart, sharing specific sonic elements.

Mar 19, 2025

Jason Isbell: Foxes In The Snow

Mar 19, 2025

New album: Following four straight albums with his band the 400 Unit, the Nashville-based Grammy-winning Alabama singer-songwriter’s latest LP is a stripped back, heartfelt, candid, beautiful set of new Americana folk with just him and his 1940 Martin acoustic guitar

Mar 19, 2025

The Tubs: Cotton Crown

Mar 19, 2025

New album: With a Sonic Youth-referencing title, the London-based Welsh indie quartet’s second LP, following 2023’s Dead Meat, is a short, sharp, punchy release of nine jangly, Johnny Marr-influenced guitar tracks, reflecting on love but also with a gut-wrenching, tragic finale

Mar 19, 2025

Throwing Muses - Midnight Concessions.jpeg

Mar 18, 2025

Throwing Muses: Moonlight Concessions

Mar 18, 2025

New album: The veteran Rhode Island alternative rock and post-punk band fronted by Kristin Hersh return with an 11th studio album with a strikingly different sound - a stripped back, almost-unplugged acoustic release of restrained but haunting powe

Mar 18, 2025

Mar 17, 2025

Edwyn Collins: Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation

Mar 17, 2025

New album: A beautifully tender, reflective 10th indie pop solo album by the acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter and former Orange Juice frontman, with strong, resonant indie numbers on life’s circularity, love, home, health and belonging

Mar 17, 2025

Mar 15, 2025

Circuit des Yeux: Halo On The Inside

Mar 15, 2025

New album: Dark, vivid, pagan, hedonistic, carnal goth-dancefloor experimental electronica and more by the Chicago-based multi-disciplinary superbly alternative artist Haley Fohr and her otherworldly, mesmerically rich, four-octave voice

Mar 15, 2025

clipping.: Dead Channel Sky

Mar 15, 2025

New album: Breathlessly brilliant warp-speed hip-hop with a cyberpunk, electronica and house music soundtrack by the trio fronted by rapper and actor Daveed Diggs, set in a sci-fi dystopian universe of multiple characters and stories

Mar 15, 2025

Mar 11, 2025

Echolalia: Echolalia

Mar 11, 2025

New album: A Nashville ‘supergroup’ in the most free-flowing, relaxed form imaginable, Spencer Cullum, Andrew Combs, Jordan Lehning, Dominic Billett and others combine in a beautiful intertwining of pastoral folk, country, and dream-like, psychedelic Americana

Mar 11, 2025

Mar 10, 2025

Lady Gaga: MAYHEM

Mar 10, 2025

New album: Something of return to form and fun for the superstar singer and actress? Certainly this revisits something of her late 2000s Poker Face- and Bad Romance-era flamboyant, bombastic pop sound where excess and outsider oddness made her name

Mar 10, 2025

new songs …

Featured

Mar 23, 2025

Song of the Day: Billie Marten - Feeling

Mar 23, 2025

Song of the Day: A bright and sunny love song with a twist by the London-based British folk-pop singer-songwriter aka Isabella Sophie Tweddle, from Ripon North Yorkshire, heralding her forthcoming fifth studio album, Dog Eared, out on 18 July via Fiction Records

Mar 23, 2025

Mar 22, 2025

Song of the Day: Matt Berninger - Bonnet Of Pins

Mar 22, 2025

Song of the Day: The frontman of The National’s new solo single has his distinctive rich vocal tones, a warm, swelling indie sound and here some gently caustic, vivid lyrics about a tricky reunion. It heralds his second solo album Get Sunk out 30 May, on Concord Records

Mar 22, 2025

Mar 21, 2025

Song of the Day: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Glib Tongued (Feat: El-P)

Mar 21, 2025

Song of the Day: Turn it up to seven! The likeable Newcastle-upon-Tyne heavy rockers return with their elemental, meaty, thunderous sound fronted by raucous voice of Matthew Baty, also joined by one half of American hip-hop outfit Run The Jewels, aka rapper

Mar 21, 2025

Mar 20, 2025

Song of the Day: Deradoorian - Any Other World

Mar 20, 2025

Song of the Day: Enthralling, inspiring, imaginative electronica and and analogue percussion by the New York singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Angel Deradoorian, with this latest single heralding the forthcoming album, Ready For Heaven, out on Fire Records on 9 May

Mar 20, 2025

Mar 19, 2025

Song of the Day: Kae Tempest - Statue In The Square

Mar 19, 2025

Song of the Day: Striking and articulate as ever, this first single since 2022 by the south London rapper, lyricist, poet, playwright and author is a defiant, empowering shout-out to non-binary identity with an arresting video

Mar 19, 2025

Mar 18, 2025

Song of the Day: Billy Nomates - The Test

Mar 18, 2025

Song of the Day: Dealing with a turbulent 18 months including the death of her father, the innovative British artist Tor Maries returns with a powerful new track heralding her forthcoming third album Metalhorse, out on 16 May via Invada Records

Mar 18, 2025

Barry Can't Swim - The Person You'd Like to Be.jpeg

Mar 17, 2025

Song of the Day: Barry Can't Swim - The Person You'd Like To Be

Mar 17, 2025

Song of the Day: Following 2023’s popular and Mercury Prize-nominated LP When Will We Land?, Edinburgh DJ and producer Joshua Mainnie’s new single, co-written with Jamie Livingstone, is a dark, menacing, spoken-word number heralding his forthcoming second album Loner, out on 30 May on Ninja Tune

Mar 17, 2025

Mar 16, 2025

Song of the Day: Léa Sen - Video Games

Mar 16, 2025

Song of the Day: Deliciously fluid, smooth, relaxed, gentle, melancholy indie-pop by the Paris-born, French-Martiniquan London-based multi-instrumentalist and singer, heralding her forthcoming debut album, Levels, out on 30 May via Partisan Records

Mar 16, 2025

Mar 15, 2025

Song of the Day: Chappell Roan - The Giver

Mar 15, 2025

Song of the Day: After the huge success of 2023’s debut LP The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, the Missouri singer-songwriter and queen of catchy pop and the candid principled scourge of online trolls channels a different genre with a mischievously lesbian country number, with added ironic multi-role video

Mar 15, 2025

Mar 14, 2025

Song of the Day: Jacob Alon - Don't Fall Asleep

Mar 14, 2025

Song of the Day: A beautiful, poignant new number by the Edinburgh-based Scottish singer, centred around a cousin who tragically drowned in a freak accident before he was born, and heralding a debut album, In Limerence, out on 30 May via Island Records /EMI

Mar 14, 2025

Mar 13, 2025

Song of the Day: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke - This Conversation is Missing Your Voice

Mar 13, 2025

Song of the Day: From the upcoming album Tall Tales, the Radiohead/The Smile frontman joins the longstanding British electronic collaborative musician and lover of vintage synths in this innovative work with a video following a package through a delivery factory

Mar 13, 2025

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Mar 12, 2025

Song of the Day: Carmel Smickersgill - Build The Habit

Mar 12, 2025

Song of the Day: Weirdly and wonderfully inventive, oddball wonky work by the Manchester electronic artist with a number about habits and coping mechanisms through a repeating 5/4 rhythm and reverse saxophone sample, from her new EP Unsolicited Advice, out on 16 May on PRAH

Mar 12, 2025

Word of the week

Featured

Mar 12, 2025

Word of the week: ulotrichous

Mar 12, 2025

Word of the week: While it’s entirely natural in animals such as sheep as well as some humans, depending on an individual’s point of view it’s either a blessing or a curse. From Greek words oûlos (crisp, curly) and -trikhos (haired), this adjective means having curly or woolly hair

Mar 12, 2025

Feb 26, 2025

Word of the week: varsovienne

Feb 26, 2025

Word of the week: Our latest etymological move into obscurity originates in around 1850 in Warsaw, Poland, and also known as the varsouvienne or varsoviana – a slow, graceful dance in 3/4 waltz time, which also combines elements of the mazurka and polka

Feb 26, 2025

Feb 11, 2025

Word of the week: withershins / widdershins

Feb 11, 2025

Word of the week: Also variously spelled widershins and widderschynnes, this Lowland Scots dialect word term derived from German means counter-clockwise, literally “against the way”, not only on a clock face, but originally against the perceived motion of the sun in the northern hemisphere

Feb 11, 2025

Jan 29, 2025

Word of the week: xenodocheionology

Jan 29, 2025

Word of the week: It’s something in which many of us may indulge during the thick of winter, planning for holidays via booking websites, this noun meaning the study of hotels, extending also to researching their lore and history

Jan 29, 2025

Jan 16, 2025

Word of the week: yepsen

Jan 16, 2025

Word of the week: A timeless noun emanating from Middle English ȝespen and first used in around 1325, meaning a unit of measurement being the amount of that can be held in two hands cupped together

Jan 16, 2025