Outsideleft Week in Music Psychedelic Weed Vision Week

Anton Newcombe returns to his day job with the release of the first BJM single in 3 years, though the vocals are sung by Aimee Nash of Australian BJM influenced band Black Ryders. It's a solid rather than spectacular return to the fray but,a s ever, it'll be interesting to hear what Newcombe comes up with next.

There's a lot of stretching and bending the form here and that is great and I kinda always hope for a bit of that from Vince Staples. Numerous NBA references too. If you know what's good, catch and shoot! Genius poetry really.

Oh well. Crystal Murray and Lava La Rue're doing like the William Gibson Neuromancer Waltz of pop'n'roll. It's the same enervating energy. Making records like you'd never known you needed to hear over and over. Never letting you know what happens next. It's a thrill. This is perfect pop right now, isn't it? Admittedly, I am thinking, I am obviously too old to know. 

This is fun. How do they do it? Millions of drooling fans seemingly unawares of how droll LCD Soundsystem consistently are, noses pressed up against the glass taking them oh so seriously. Good trick. Good fun. Love this. Can I add the earlier iteration of this passage of words was better, but I accidentally deleted that without saving it and I can't get it back. So you get this.

The shoegaze revival has hit the stage where bands who were completely overlooked at the time, like Vancouver's MOVIELAND, are getting archival release treatment. This is a good thing for people like me, as I am absolute sucker for dreamy melodies, ethereal guitar noise and anyone armed with a Breton shirt, curtain haircut and a battery of effects pedals. 'I Relate', released as a single to drum up interest for MOVIELAND's forthcoming reissue Then & Now, is the kind of thing that's absolute catnip to me. Hazy guitars wobble in and out of phase, tuneful vocals hover buried in the mix. It doesn't necessarily make a case for Then & Now being a great undiscovered classic of the genre, but if like me you're a fan you'll likely have a lovely time with this song.

Superior Electro-Pop from Belgium, Dresscode know how to craft a tune and make it stick. The theme of "Get Rid of Fears" is psychological and physical reconstruction. That's a heavy subject for anyone to compress into three minutes.  Do Dresscode manage it?  Not completely, as this is over almost as soon as it gets going, but they sure make a decent fist of it.

Oh what an atmosphere... It's pretty likely that when the LP ‘Thoughts Of You’ arrives on December 13th from the stellar Colemine Records label, Salvator Dragatto will have delivered one of the most importantly entertaining LPs of the year. The two tracks available so far have been slight and stupendous. I play them on repeat and that is not the only reason I can't get them out of my head. Library music, maybe. But so great it makes me want to buy the library. 

Richard Houghten defies me, you know I don't like the cut of his jib. He looks like  a character that doesn't do well in a Warren Oates film. And yet, and yet... Here comes Getting Somewhere and it's impossible to take off before the end, it's intrigue is massive and within it's few minutes there's so much lumpy and svelte musical business to enjoy.

As you know, there's a lot of work going on and part of that work is sometimes about reviewing two records at a time. This way above excellent Mulatu Astatke/Hoodna Orchestra Dung Gate piece is just superb, that's the review really as it drove along with it all going on in all of it's Lincoln Contintental-esque majesty. For some reason I could hear someone rhapsodising over dep within the mix, about the value CSS stylesheets, like it was doyen Eric Meyer back in his CSS Zen Garden, back in the day. It's inconceivable how you would be viewing this page now if it hadn't been for Eric and Mulatu. Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow.

This is a beautiful melancholy. An evocative song that stays with you long after it ends. A glorious return from Manchester's finest.

Holidays are Comin', Holidays are Comin' and with the holidays also comes Christmas music. I love Christmas and Christmas music, but my Christmas playlist is made up of Frank Sidebottom, El Vez, Charlie Brown and the wonderfully atmospheric  Ghosts of Christmas Past. (Various Artists from Les Disques du Crépuscule). This year Independent film maker and king of kitsch John Waters has released his own Christmas single on Sup-pop records called The Singing Dogs, Jingle Bells, and it is pretty much what you might expect. On the front cover it proudly states 'please don't listen to this record' and it is good advice, which means it will go straight on to my Christmas playlist. The A-side is dogs singing Jingle Bells and the B-Side is a typically strange monologue by the man himself called 'It's a Punk Rock Christmas' which is sadly full of anti-Christmas cliches.  Very disappointed with this, I love Waters' movies and really enjoy his books. Christmas music is not terrible, but there is definitely some Christmas music that the world can do without  

Wow! That is actual raging psychedelia. There is absolutely nothing not to love about this record from the beginning to the end.

Sounds like AC and his chums have been sitting around a campfire warming themselves, waiting for the sun to shine and charge up the batteries in his solar powered studio. Memories of hazy days of yore and raindrops running down the windows.

One of the tunes from when The National were really okay, dates back to 'Boxer' in 1972 or something. You'll know. When they offered something to feel miserable and hopeful about, all at once.  Recorded live in Rome and taken from the forthcoming live LP, 'Rome',  out on December 13th, Happy Christmo for your grandads. Here, thrall as you enjoy Romans keeping time, in case you ever wondered whether they could do it, clapping and stomping along with the bass drum. And The National, playing along too. Throwing their kitchen sinks at it for sure. And there's the thing. The never used to have to do that to be affecting. See how far they've come now? Sadly, a song so very, very pertinent for this very moment in time.

I have a difficult relationship with charity. If the wealthy paid their taxes, we wouldn't need it and every year tax avoiding celebrities ask us (via our TV screens) to give money so we can keep children' hospitals open and the NHS afloat. This doesn't mean I don't give money to charity, because sadly there are many people in our country and world who are in desperate need of help. My son was born 8 weeks early and spent his first month in the special care unit of our local hospital and whilst he was in there I was shocked to hear that practically the whole unit ran through charity donations from special care parents doing runs and walks and such like to buy incubators.  Anyway, rant over. The point I'm trying to make is, that I hate the need for charity singles, but completely understand when local Country music legend Hank Wangford writes and releases one after a complex five hour operation for atrial fibrillation at Hammersmith Hospital. I get it, I really do. We do what we can and Hank can write songs.  Wangford worked as a doctor in a past life and this reggae infused Americana single is a love song to the NHS rather than an angry rant. I'm a sucker for a  country song and the reggae influence gives it a laid-back and even happy vibe. The rest of the band are  Jose McGill – guitar, keyboards, bass, vocals // Noel Dashwood – dobro, harmonica, vocals // Mikey Shaw – drums. Mixed by Mark Tucker  //  Dub mixes – Mikey Shaw and it was produced in my home town of Norwich, so I have to champion it for that also.

Mum Does The Washing, the title track from the EP, has seared itself into public consciousness over the last few months, using humour to skewer ideology. Laundry as satire. And laundry is a concern, I don't have a mum to do it for me no more and I like line drying, but this isn't about that. It is about me and you and how 1 billion dollars worth of focus grouped explanations won't tell it as clearly as Joshua does here in two minutes.  However, today we're concerning ourselves with the sound of the future and not the past and not what might have been. Joshua, via London, via Nigeria, that's enough of your biographics. It's possibly ill-advised to take on one of the Talking Heads most famous and best-loved songs unless you're going to treat it the way Joshua Idehen has here.  Very beautiful. Tears of joy all over the house. We can have beautiful things. Once in a Lifetime things.

Prolific artist Sara Serpa's new LP Encounters and Collisions is review by Richard John Walker, right over here

Does the world need another reissue of an album from the '90s? I hear you groan.  In the case of Mercury Rev's hit fifth studio album, 'All is Dream,' we might just be able to make an exception.  Cinematic from the opening 'The Dark Is Rising', which could be a James Bond soundtrack, they have come a long way here since they formed as students at the University of Buffalo back in 89 to create scores for it's members student films.  Debut album, the psychedellically soundtrack-y 'Yerself Is Steam,' set the template, but the progressive  addition of more commercial elements resulted in the 1998 album 'Deserters Song', which gained them some chart success when that meant something, along with a bigger following in the UK, followed by this one in  2001. 'All is Dream'  is still their best I'd say, with founding member and band leader Jonathan Donahue's weirdly androgynous vocals very much to the fore, as showcased on the epic closer 'Hercules'.  It works pretty well as a complete album and probably benefitted from the involvement of Tony Visconti arranging the strings that are all over some tracks.  There are a lot of additional guest musicians involved here, giving it the feel of a grand concept, written on a large stage, and a bit of an ego fest for Donahue.  Mercury Rev are still around of course.  They never stopped and released a new album, 'Born Horses' in September this year (read DJ Fuzzyfelt's review here). The jury is out on whether this, or 'Deserters Song'  is the better album.  Its a toss up I think, but you decide.

Patterson Hood's impassioned soliloquy what else would you call it, about the police murdering his naked neighbour. Listen. It's tragic, sad and Hood anger is righteous.

When I saw the Kodo Drummers perform many years ago, that memory stayed with me.  Beating away at these huge drums with great chunks of wood for hours on end, dedicating their lives to it as only the Japanese can, with no leaders, no solo turns, no stars, no egos, just..Kodo.  The sound was incredible too.  Physical in a way that you never forget.  Youtube cannot possibly ever do it justice.