Outsideleft Week in Music. Slinging Our Thing.

I want some Tan Cologne – they valentine with restraint. They don’t over-apply their soft Mazzy dream haze. Maybe it's the rhythms of lives in Taos, New Mexico, where wild cats play out of sight of The Man. They sedate. They calm. So much so, I entered Infinity and missed my stop.

Fun and the greatest kind of groovy. What bass. To begin with. It's got the style. Then... well see Gina Birch somewhere else on this page. Little Simz continually tugs at the threads of expectation. It's the daring that makes her as a musician one of Britain's very greatest. It's reminder too, that we can be as irrepressible as we want ourselves to be.  

Explosive fun from Isle of Wight band Coach Party, a call to mosh your head off for a few minutes. As straightforward as you like, nu-metal sound-a-likes fronted by two ladies, the band has toured with Royal Blood and QOTSA. We're all their Girls is the message, but hardly a feminist sexually-politic statement, just an invitation to boogie violently. Does the bass line crib a bit from There's A Ghost in My House? I'm probably imagining things after all that headbanging.

Have you noticed the adverts? The British TV adverts? They are mirroring the new Gen Z sensibility of everything is so shit so it’s all just tragically funny. A sort of caring piss take. Very British. The down side being, in particular, the constant formation dancing that often accompanies them. The advert for the Coach Party single does have a small amount of derisory formation dancing, when the two female members of the band stand in front of some standard model/actors from Casting Calls FB group and, it seems try to inspire them into a better life (????) in a pastiche of those cult-like afternoons some firms require their staff to attend. Which is very appropriate for a tune that is straight off the festival rock band factory floor. In fact, it couldn’t be more of a product if it was wrapped in a can. Somehow, I think I even prefer a genuine, ersatz girl/boy band to this. At least they don’t pretend.

Cousin Koula is the kind of cousin you'd like but you'd keep an eye on them because things could get naughty out in the yard while you're peeling the potatoes. You wouldn't want to mind though.

Only identifiable as an Eno product in that there is more than a trace off his synth treatments from U2's The Joshua Tree giving a western sunset glow up to a plaintive tune by Wolfe. It is the kind of song that lingers in the background innocuously until you hear it and are spellbound. Nice to see he's still got it.

There's the first stereolab release in umpteen years. How have things changed, we might ask? Well now my dad dancing around the room is paced more harmoniously by the meandering sounds present.

Coil is one of those industrial era projects I could never say whether they were good or not, just that they were great.  Evokers of disposable sensuality and mystic presence, usually with one toe on the dancefloor and the rest of the foot in the  graveyard.  They always delivered. 

Hamish Hawk covering Madonna wasn't on my list of 'things that are likely to happen this year'. I'm wary of covers, but they've very much put their own twist on things and made it their own, without losing the essence of the original and therein lies the secret to doing a cover well. There is to be a whole EP of covers, and this has piqued my interest with months to pass until it's release.  Whether you're a fan of Madonna, or Hamish Hawk - let this be a gift to your ears, there's no shame in enjoying pop music, especially when it's done so very well.

The Lemonheads tease their new album in almost two decades with this excellent single. A-side 'Deep End' is classic Lemonheads, showing Evan Dando at his slacker-punk best. He even ropes in J Mascis for the guitar breaks. B-side 'Cinderella' is a different flavour of Lemonheads, a mournful country ballad with Dando sounding his most vulnerable. No one else quite scratches that itch like the Lemonheads, and these two new songs bode well for the forthcoming album Love Chant, due out this Fall. 

Taken from the eighth, now posthumous, solo album from Mark Stewart 'The Fateful Symmetry' which is coming on 11th July, 'Neon Girl' is a huge and bombastic single, even if it sounds like he ran out of words for the chorus ("nah,nah,nah, nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah,nah, Neon Girl").  If it wasn't Mark Stewart it might be less impressive, but there is a certain quality that rubs off.  This has the added bonus of featuring The Raincoat's Gina Birch.  She has done a lot better, mind you, but its a nice nod to her.

Fey faux 60's psychedelia, OL writer Alex V Cook didn't know whether to love or hate their last single.  I'm the same with this.  Its a pickled egg of a single.

Having been one quarter of Throbbing Gristle and one of only two surviving members, and having been through a level of abuse during that time as evidenced in her autobiography 'Art, Sex, Music', you'd think that Cosey Fanni Tutti was a tough cookie, but there has always been a vulnerability in her work, whether solo, or as a duo with partner and fellow TG survivor Chris Carter. She has had some very tough years lately, including dealing with personal bereavements, but has produced wonderfully intriguing work throughout those. They include an album based on her film soundtrack re-working of lost tapes by pioneering electronic composer Delia Derbyshire (she made a fleeting cameo appearance in the film itself also) and a book 'Re-Sisters', the story of three women consumed by a passion for life they expressed through their music, art and lifestyle; Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe (the 15th century mystic visionary) and Cosey herself.  Her latest work to appear is the upcoming album '2t2' from which 'Never The Same ' is lifted.   Cyclical, lush and with her signature sound of a processed trumpet, it is both instantly recognisable and a promise of more to come.  We will hopefully have a chance to ask her about all this and more for Outsideleft soon.  We have asked and she can only say no.  Lets hope she doesn't.

There's a new LP imminent and this is just a fab trailer for it. I mean, this is wildy superb rocknroll of the highest calibre. It's all you need in this department. Testy, irritable, kings of Zamrock. So cool.

Meditative dream-pop, an exhortation to forget who you were yesterday, from Norwegian Anna Bruland, whose recorded work is reminiscent of Broadcast, with shimmering melody and diverse instrumentation, in service of articulating the need to examine the self, an effective use of ostinato to emphasise the repeated mantra, to forget about her, to work on yourself positively. Just odd enough to engage without alienation, with the full album due in September.

The Numero Group is setting up one of their excellent museum diorama retrospectives on Boston's Karate, active practitioners of pensive dude music until the 2000s when emo took over. The endless lope of exquisite ratty guitar tone is the love song of my J. Alfred Proof Rock.

Causing Trouble Again is going to cause trouble firstly for the Joy Division purists who think the bands shit don't stink. Beyond that, there a couple of great exclamatory records that end with lists of would be cultural icons who were regarded in some instances as being of less significance at the time. I like Jamila Woods, BLK Girl Soldier, (expand) and of course Dexys... Dance Stance, all those great Irish writers you thought were English... 

Ever since Madonna got together with Shep Pettibone and created a smooth house vehicle for her fame with Vogue the process has become the template for many international artists, especially those, like Xin Liu who are already major stars in their own countries, correctly identifying the international nature of this kind of basic, aspirational house music. That the sounds, rhythms, vibe and, generally, what passes for lyrics have hardly changed in thirty-five years since Japan's Nokko broke this ground is a bit shocking. Xin is famous for being famous - she has, in the classic journey, won competitions and partnered with major fashion brands (Dior and... um... Crocs, amongst others) and it is telling that the PR celebrates this commercial diminishment of any possible artistry by making sure we know about it. As per normal there is an attempt at applying a thin layer of serious artistic credibility over what is, essentially, the modern version of a Louise Weber, star of the Moulin Rouge. Whether Xin Liu will ‘gobble your champagne’ as did Louise will remain a mystery because you are unlikely to get close enough for her to be able to do so. Coming soon to the O2 with a puzzlingly large (for the staff) audience of Chinese students.

Really, really, very dramatic, challenging and ultimately then, hugely exciting solo departure by the irascible and  irrepressive Matt. God love him.

Like a hootier Stereolab, Vanishing Twin burble and spark in the balmy summer night, getting weird with it by the pool, spiking the punch. Maybe take your clothes off? There's been worse suggestions.

This one, Museumgoer 25 so nearly got past us. The 25th stellar release from the ever experimental but never boring, Museumgoer. The opener embraces Museumgoer's hallmark quirks, 'Don't Get Caught (In A Blast Radius of Thought)', from a thought jotted in a sketchbook, "including the parenthesis." Museumgoer adds. Having just read the Diamond Sutra, where the Buddha ends each bit with "There is no such thing as (whatever they are discussing), just things that are called that." A new dimension in Museumgoer's trumpet, which was acquired from an uncle. Now that is a story. Read all about Museumgoer and here all 25 Ep's here

It's been a little while since Sacred Paws' 'Run Around The Sun' LP was embraced worldwide. Oh I love that whole record so much.  Rachel Aggs super afrobreat guitar lines and Eilidh Rogers super speedy drumming is a boisterous balm for their vocal dueling. It's a huge  and highly unique indiepop confection OMG! is it. I was fortunate enough in the meanwhile to see Rachel Aggs in Coventry library sharing the evening with Big Joanie. Jump Into Life is an entirely joyous record. The guitars drums and the vibraslap on the title tracks boosted by big horns. Oh this is such a big record in my house. Sacred Paws are the greatest there is.

Remarkable as it may seem there is a crossover point where heavy metal meets jazz, creating a hybrid genre where long, virtuoso guitar solos don't automatically invite the epithet 'cock rock'. It's at that point you'll find Norway's 'Hedvig Mollestadt Trio', and not just because Hedvig herself, is, well, herself. As an approach it's not entirely new and is reminiscent of now legendary Jazz drummer Billy Cobham's 1973 debut, Spectrum, which found him wildly improvising live in the studio with, soon to be Deep Purple guitarist, Tommy Bolin. BitB is the trio's eighth album in little over a decade and first in four years. Self produced, it features six tracks which combine complex structured arrangements that are clearly well rehearsed with more spontaneous, improvised sections - all, as with most jazz workouts, sans vocals. Production veers between the light touch evident on heavier tracks such as the crushing riff heavy opener 'See See Bop', to more prominent on the prog-rock tinged 'Itta' and the laid back free jazz of 'Lamament'. Arguably though it's the wilder less restrained numbers where the trio's melding of HM and Jazz works best, specifically the "puningly" titled titled "Bob's Your Giddy Aunt' and "'Apocalypse Slow'. Proof positive that shorn of the visual and lyrical clichés of the Spinal Tap world, heavy rock does have something refreshingly musical to offer.

Without John Robinson’s review, I wouldn’t have listened to Quietism. But playing it at the end of a holiday – bathing in Baby Blue Eyes – was perfect. A quiet resignation hung in the air. Free time was ending. Little to do but shrug and accept. Then Momus came on. You expect wit from him, but this time, the songs hit deeper. Trauma Bingo had me laughing out loud; Spoiler Alert blurred the line between fiction and life. He sings, “Happy endings may well be boring as hell.” Made me wonder if he’d been stirred by recent J films like Happyend and Super Happy Forever.

Experiencing a Survival Research Laboratories event was always a...well.. an event!  And one you would never forget. Self destroying robots, explosions, rockets, handheld flame throwers, noise, chaos and a very real sense of danger that as an audience member you may very well be decapitated by a flailing and out of control automaton made out of machine parts and dead animals and armed with metal claws and chainsaws.  Health and Safety?  Do me a favour!  Survival Research Laboratories instigator Mark Pauline himself blew all of the flesh off one hand when one of his pyrotechnic creations exploded as he was making it. His shows are banned in several cities, and even whole countries, including his home city of San Francisco.  He presses on anyway, undeterred and unrepentant, and has been doing so since 1978. A spark of danger and unpredictability in a cotton wool world. Fantastic.

Alan Rider’s insightful interview with Amélie Ravalec, published prior to the release of her documentary on the Japanese Avant-Garde of the '60s and '70s, whetted many an appetite – mine included. After watching Neo Sora’s Happyend, I returned to Happy End, the band whose LPs are said to have marked the beginning of Japanese-language rock. Avant-garde? Perhaps not, but certainly ground-breaking, within its time and context. 

Summer is around the corner. Big fluffy rainclouds will come. Let it come soon.