Outsideleft Week in Music... Tigerish Tales Foretold

Delightful summery ditty from The Spongetones, who formed in North Carolina the 70s and play chiming guitar pop influenced by the geekier end of the British Invasion. Stalwarts of the US power-pop scene, the harmonies and Beach Boys inspired middle-eight make this the perfect accompaniment to cycling along a canal path in the 60s, probably with David Hemmings photographing you from the bushes.

Craig Benedict Valentine Badynee has a supercool video and a nice line in layered multiple guitars and whipsery understated vocals. It's a class, classic formula for pop radio glory, moreover, thrilling for it. Lard on the horrible fake brass passage parts and this all adds up to a restrained very charming few minutes of my life. Like being restrained. 

From the July due LP, Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti remains singularly ambitious in his musical musings...  —he has the t-shirt probably, "I am a Poetic Jazz Rock Artist". And despite Fortunato's immense talent  and risible lack of self-awareness afforded to so many of the young, it's still fun from a man with an unappealing voice. When I say unappealing I mean truly not in an appealing way. I guess an inflection point might be Cohen if he wasn't a poet and  when he opened his mouth that sound didn't come out. But there's nothing here to stop you from enjoying this record for it's full five minutes. It haughtily serious fun.

Whoever Ceatrix was, and whatever she did to inspire this 1966 B side, neither Monk Higgings nor his wife Vee Pea who penned the tune, ever let on. Although a re-arranged, re-recorded version appeared renamed as "Straight Ahead" on his classic 1968 album 'Extra Soul Perception'. Both versions are achingly memorable slabs of down-the-line, bass, drums sax and keyboards soul jazz. So how come neither verison is more widely known? Maybe Ceatrix can answer that one. 

This taster for upcoming album 'Moisturizer' (spelt in the US way, despite their being from the Isle of Wight) 'CPR' shows just why Wet Leg are so popular.  This could be from a tick box Indie Hit Generator machine. Add a pinch of White Stripes, a dash of Strokes, and so on.  It does the job, but Zzzzzz! They all look completely knackered in the video, barely able to move.  Fortunately they don't really have to as they are being driven around and just have to sit there trying not to get too cold in the wind.  Talking of which, I don't get why the rest of them are all wrapped up warm whilst  singer Rhian Teasdale wears a pair of micro shorts.  Her choice of course, but it smacks of subconsciously pandering to industry stereotypes of female musicians. Sermon over.

Not really a single of course. Outsideleft people get with amending your nomenclature you've been asked before but you act like you are the only time poor people on earth. Meanwhile Skullcap have found time to create the brilliantly accessible and experimental drum driven  Journey To The Sunset from their Cuneiform records LP, Snakes of Albuquerque. Skullcap are a cello besotted power trio, I don't think in history you'll find too many of those so I can only insist as best I can that you do that here, now. It is punk? New wave? If John Lydon wailed over it you'd be calling this the Naz. Immensely great.

Although 'If We Try' is ultimately quite brilliant, and unerringly earnest, it does have the unfortunate opening impact of something like being hit in the ear by the theme from the Mike Yarwood Show or something. From the days of classic light entertainment. I love these soul sounds but sometimes I wish the band were a bit worse at making them. It can feel all ordinary, sub-satisfactory, hewing too close to an imagined classic to be it's own classic. Like no one in the band ever says, "you know what you did last time, do something entirely different here." I guess that's not the point.  The whistling on the b-side is particularly commendable. They've got a few UK shows in late May, Brighton, Manchester, London—those usual suspects.

Poor Robbie is desperate for some sort of belated musical credibility, as all long in the tooth mega pop acts are.  His new album is called 'Britpop',  sports him trying hard to look 'street' on the cover and is available on cassette, so keen is he to appear DIY indie and 'down with the kids'.  In the video poor Robbie dresses up as a cartoon punk with a tartan kilt , Motorhead T Shirt and a leather jacket adorned with 'punk' slogans and band names like Discharge and Crass (I have it on good authority that is all the work of the designer, poor Robbie hasn't a clue who they are). The song is awful and the video embarrassing, as trite and shallow an approximation of 'punk' and street culture as West Side Story is of NY gang culture, but then again, punk was absorbed into the mainstream with lightning speed so this actually looks very dated. Poor Robbie has obviously looked enviously across at Harry Styles and thought "I could do that, I could have a grungier rock image" and got onto his manager and stylist to order them to make it so, and this dogs breakfast is the result.  Poor Robbie simply hasn't a clue.

These demos precede the 10th anniversary of Stevens' devastating Carrie & Lowell, a record he's made some attempts to disavow in that it is disingenuous to make a record about a deceased mother you never really knew. I mean, the album is more about the emptiness in that outline of her and arch as you may feel him to be, he can make a stone heart like mine cry. These demos are implausibly more tender than the album tracks already are and word is there is a 14-minute version of "Fourth of July" which will likely reduce me to ash.  Enjoy! 

From the forthcoming EP 'My Sunny Oath!' out in mid-June. This is very very easy to like. Summer's Scorch really has me wanting to move back to California. In case Jahnah is there. This is so perfectly laaaazeeeee. Like the best you can do on a hot Los Angeles afternoon, meant for dropping into Masa for some respite from that concrete heat or maybe heading over to Fern Gulley... All that time the miasma of whomever you met last night, and can vaguely remember talking about driving and the farmer's market and what else that is so distracting and filling your head. It meanders like amazing relationship contemplation songs should. It lolls along, like it could get all distracted from itself at any time. It just feels so. Beautiful.

Beautiful ostensibly I suppose, title track from a new wonderful new collection, 'Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown, 1973-80'. 50s hitmaker and later producer of some very sophisticated soul infused reggae, Lloyd Chalmers sounds so gorgeously immense here on his intepretation of Curtis Mayfield's anthemic piece. The whole LP is so great though. That's what you need to get, the whole damn thing.

I should imaging the old asterix gets a good workout anytime they play a gig, or there is a review in more timid magazines than Outsideleft (and there are plenty of those).  Australian genre bending (not gender bending, though that's what they want you to read at first glance) act Tropical FUCK storm (my emphasis!) are jolly and tongue-in-cheek, if unremarkable, as many Aussie bands tend to be.  However, I want them to have a global smash hit ten times bigger than Ed Sh**ran just so I can see TV presenters and DJ's squirm when it comes to saying their name.

I came to Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets live version of Echoes with zero expectations—and with no idea about the Spandau Ballet connection (Gary Kemp). Had never listened to all 23 minutes before  —only fragments— despite once having a Floyd-fanatic friend. You really do hear multiple songs living within. And to my surprise, I enjoyed it more than expected. Maybe it was the Sunday mood—a time for rest and forgiveness. Respect to Old Nick.  

Orbital's second album, the 'Brown Album', may have had no title and a brown sleeve but was pure gold underneath according to Alan Rider.  Read why here. 

Abul Mogard's Quiet Pieces are the "definitive self-portrait of calm, contemplative, and discreet inner landscapes made audible." As such these Quiet Pieces make me concerned for myself, because well it made me think that perhaps, screaming aside, once accepted, this was what one felt while going down with the Titanic. It's quiet, but it's unsettling. Is this beautiful? Beautiful music for sleepless nights.

New York based jazz pianist, composer and teacher Julian Shore has worked extensively with Herbie Hancock, among others and appeared at major venuıes and festivals across the globe. Sub Rosa, only his sixth album finds him and his bare bones trio of bass and drums in scintilating form trading rippling piano improvisations cool stacatto bass lines, and skittering percussion. The ten numbers presented open with the effortlessly cool opemer 'Messenger' - Shore's homage to the jazz Messenger himself, Art Blakey, and one of seven reassuringly original compositions. Also included is  an edgy re-reading of Duke Ellington's  'Blues in Blueprint', and an even edgier deconstruction of the Jerome Kerne's standard 'All the Things You Are' - so edgy it edges into Cecil Taylor territory. There's even a decidedly unconventional take of the Beach Boys'  “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)' - from Pet Sounds. Proof positive of Shore's suggestion that; "There's something special about taking what could be seen as a simple song and then twisting it".. God only knows how true that is !

For the late nights, the early mornings, and all the in-between hours where you want the world to hush, just for a little while Surprise Chef's superb 'Superb' hit all the right notes for Ogglypoogly here.

What are we living for? For Léa Sen, it’s more than a two-room apartment on the second floor. She came to London chasing a dream, and Levels shows she’s well on her way. Backed by R&B-infused sounds that occasionally echo a soulful Prince, her debut has a subtle, left-of-centre pop sensibility. Her voice—smooth and steady—might not vary much across tracks, but it serves as a reliable guide through her liminal, dreamlike hotel.  We begin with “Home Alone” on the first floor and rise steadily. Reflections on the words of loved ones (“Aliens”, “Video Games”) give way to deliberations on distance and change (“More Than Happy”). But the story feels incomplete—there is no resolution. When she reaches the tenth floor, she asks the “Lobby Boy” if this is the end. Should she descend ten levels? Should she press play again?  I certainly will. 

It's been 21 years since Andy Falkous, singer/guitarist and chief song writer disbanded Mclusky after the trio's Steve Albini produced albums and explosive live shows tore a head off the influential few but not the masses. Falkous formed Future of the Left and carried on shouting at the world... However, Mclusky are back now with a trail of celebrity friends and admirers that's only grown over the last two decades... So what do we have here... Well you can tell where IDLES learnt a lot for starters. The World Is Still Here And So Are We is on Mike Patton of Faith No More/Mr Bungle infamy's, Ipecac Records, and, with the passing of the aforementioned Albini, it actually sounds better than their previous records because it's mixed by Albini's right hand man, bassist Bob Weston who gives their sound more low frequency ooompff... However, go and see Mclusky live while you can. It will be very loud, it will be sweaty, and you may feel like you're the cause of all the shouting emanating from the stage but you won't regret a second of it (though your ears might be shouting at you for a few days afterwards)

First new Stereolab album since 2009s Chemical Chords and it's offcuts album 2010s Not Music... Should we be excited? Not really. I am an avid collector of all things Stereolab and their related spin offs and this new album is a perfectly lovely piece of work containing many examples of Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier's happy knack of including lots of reminders of the best tunes on your playlists or in your record box, however, unlike 2004's Margarine Eclipse right back to their initial tunes from the start of the 90s, there's nothing here to really push things forwards. I actually fell asleep twice trying to review it... So maybe best listened to in 20 minute chunks-it's an hour long. That's not to say that Gane or Sadier aren't still pushing the sonic envelope but if you want that, listen to the excellent series of solo albums that Sadier has released over the last 15 years and likewise to Gane's truly wonderful Caverns of Anti-Matter records.

Maybe because a bandmate passed a lap steel on to me, or because of the shutdown on I-10 shutting down my mind, the Algorithm delivered this quizzical abstract/ambient/racket release by UK blues and slide guitar legend Mike Cooper. I had him pegged as a folkie given his resume, but this is deliriously avant-garde, alpha-waves-escaping-the-brain-stem stuff. Melts my butter right up.

Fran Lock is leading a fundraiser for the micropublishing company who took her book Hyena from a backyard shed to the cusp of the T.S. Elliot prize. t/k rest of the info about it here

February single Just Another Day showed that Nobuki Akiyama’s DYGL continue to deliver infectious, high-energy indie rock. Captured live at Shibuya's WWWX, this version hits with a rough, urgent edge. They’re pushing harder and staying honest — tapping into a universal restlessness that feels anything but ordinary, channeling the quiet frustrations of daily life. But they don’t drag us down — DYGL are too tight and punchy for that. Sunday marked the end of their short tour, but the coming months will see them play Fuji Rock, Rising Sun Rock, and GFB ’25 — plus a gig with Dutch band Tramhaus. With momentum building, an overseas tour feels inevitable. This is a good time to catch DYGL —  as something is starting to shift.

This is a song Abe wrote about a women called Arletta that he met at a truck stop. "What kind of name is that?" He asked. 

Its a funny looking thing, the Orchid.  Ultimately, it's a gimmicky toy, sold as an 'Ideas Machine' with a patronising video claiming this will unlock all that hidden creativity you couldn't find by yourself, rather than being a proper instrument, and is destined to sit gathering dust in the corner after a short time.  If they sent one in to Outsideleft for review I'd give it a spin just for the hell of it, but I know they won't do that.  They can sell more than enough to the magpies just because it is limited, then its on to the next shiny tech thing.  

There's a prince of ska and at the time a prince of prime time interviewin' in the UK. Imagine, Prince Buster on Whicker's World!

Rubbing my eyes, I realised that many thoughts that polluted then still do today.  Wake up. Get off the street—lest it be time to die. Listening to Echoes for 23 long minutes had a pacifying effect—then.  Now, other medicine is required. It arrives: a concoction by two men—one long checked out, the other in a brand new room.  A strictly-run room with No Cigs Smoked Here signs posted everywhere.  No beer. No gin. No whisky either. Times have changed.  Welcome to your UK 40s, 50s, 60s.   You can—and should—sustain.  Maybe even make the Glastonbury rain. Do it.   But cover Dollar Days—backwards, please.  I Wake Up may have been part of the Recovery Kit that brought the Real New Fall.