Your Custom Text Here
Cover of Wilma Archer’s album A Western Circular
Song of the Day: Taken from the British producer and multi-instrumentalist’s album, A Western Circular, this wonderfully eclectic fusion of classical and jazz intertwined and MF Doom’s unmistakable rapping, tells a tale of a New York drug dealer
Read more
Jocksrap’s Taylor Skye and Georgia Ellery
Cover of Anna Meredith’s new album, FIBS
Song of the Day: Two numbers from the Scottish composer who has a beguiling ability to mix multiple genres, from classical to pop, and here from her new album FIBS, creates an extraordinary world of beats, electronica and melodies
Read more
Scott Walker, 1943-2019
Song of the Day: A short musical tribute to the great and now sadly late American-born British singer and composer with that extraordinary baritone voice, from his Walker Brothers pop era to a solo career of great influence, innovation and experiment
Read more
Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis, 1955-2019
Song of the Day: A triple-song tribute the Mark Hollis, founder songwriter and frontman of the extraordinarily innovative and influential 80s band, whose death, at 64, was recently reported
Read more
Monstrous talent: Akira Ifukube and Godzilla
Song of the Day: Following on from Hikaru Hayashi, we dip into the next Japanese composer, a prolific writer of film scores best for the famous Godzilla monster movies, as well hundreds of other classical pieces
Read more
Nobuko Otowa as the mother in The Naked Island (1960)
Song of the Day: Following Joe Hisaichi, another distinguished Japanese composer who among his many works wrote the beautiful theme from a 1960 film without dialogue directed by Kaneto Shindo
Read more
A scene from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, with music by Joe Hisaishi
Song of the Day: Moving from Ryuichi Sakamoto to another great Japanese pianist and composer, the man behind the beautiful music to the animated Studio Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Read more
David Bowie and Ryuchi Sakamoto on the set for Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
Song of the Day: Linking our last entry with not only the recently deceased director Bernardo Bertolucci and also David Bowie, some exquisite music by the great Japanese composer, pianist and actor
Read more
Lest we forget …
Song of the Day: Simply a song, a piece of music and a poem to mark 100 years since Armistice Day 11 November 1918, the end of the First World War, in which there were 40 million casualties
Read more
Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Song of the Day: It is hardly a stab in the dark to pick out the great American composer’s film work as the next entry in film score music, but here is an artist surely among the greatest for matching image and sound
Read more
Sweet Smell of Success (1957), starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, with a equally sharp Bernstein score
Song of the Day: More outstanding film theme music, this time with three contrasting examples from the New Yorker with a huge, award-winning repertoire, reaching deep into the American and British psyche
Read more
Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown (1974)
Song of the Day: Moving on from Britain’s John Barry, two pieces of work from the highly versatile US composer and conductor here showing contrasting styles that equally express the dark and disturbing
Read more
Now listen to me … Michael Caine is accompanied by one of John Barry’s finest soundtracks
Song of the Day: Completing a Michael Caine leading role trio, the beautiful, haunting theme composed by one of film and TV’s all-time great composers who is best known for the James Bond films
Read more
Oscar Peterson and friends
Song of the Day: Continuing from yesterday’s jazz ode to freedom by Billy Taylor, with a version by Nina Simone, let’s move onto another piano great, and an instrumental number from 1963 that definitely echoes it
Read more
John Schroeder
Song of the Day: After three belters from Quincy Jones, today let’s move on to full fat funk TV and movie orchestra sounds from the 60s and early 70s, with tracks rarely recognised, but whose still hits home instantly
Read more
Bullitt (1968)
Song of the Day: Continuing the funk-orchestral movie-theme thread, another colossus of the genre, the Argentina-born American composer and conductor famous for so many outstanding film and TV soundtracks
Read more
Minnie Riperton in 1971
Song of the Day: After our previous Manchester late-80s dance tracks, when flower power returned with a new chemical twist, we hark back to another petal-infused and influential song by the vocalist linked to our previous Rotary Connection selection
Read more
Millicent Fawcett campaigns for the vote in London's Hyde Park
Song of the Day: Two very contrasting songs to celebrate the centenary of the first legal step into women's suffrage in Britain - the Representation of People Act 1918 - followed by the eventually ratification across the US in 1920.
Read more
Moondog in Manhattan
Song of the Day: After Captain Beefheart, could there be any musical figure more influential, eccentric, strange and innovative? Louis Thomas Hardin, aka the Viking figure who for years silently stalked New York's 6th Avenue, is a strong contender
Read more