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Monthly Playlists

October 2025 Playlist

One thing that can derail my attempts to keep on top of new music releases at this time of year is the deluge of archive box set and deluxe editions that suddenly come out at roughly the same time. OK, you could argue that I do not have to listen to them, and it is true that many of these clearing out the archival cupboard sets only get played once. Something like The Beatles Anthology releases from thirty years ago, of which there will be remastered and expanded versions dropping before the end of the year, really contained very little in the way of essential additions to The Beatles body of work. It was all fascinating to hear but tracks that were still being learned or constructed in the studio, or different mixes halfway on their journey to full production, add nothing to your appreciation of The Beatles recorded output. It is like seeing a rough early development sketch of an esteemed artist’s famous masterpiece, interesting to get a glimpse of the creative process but you are never likely to return to it in preference to the completed work. The same applies to the Beatles Anthology, I regard myself as occupying the top tier of Beatles fanatics, but I can honestly say I have not listened to any of the Anthology this century; and I listen to The Beatles at some stage most weeks. This fact alone should ensure when the new Anthology arrives, regardless of whatever additional archival cherries have been dug up, it will feel like something fresh. This month I did check out the new remix of ‘Free As A Bird,’ which uses the same technology to enrich the lo-fi vocal recording of John Lennon as heard astonishingly on ‘Now And Then.’ My reaction was massively positive, not only did John’s voice seem a hundred times clearer, but the rest of the sound too, including the vocals recorded in 1994 by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, had far more body and texture to them. I would assume that on this occasion, the remix will become the standard version.

The problem is, at least in terms of time, that if the releases are from artists whose music you have had a relationship with for decades, you are going to want to make time for whatever comes out. Bob Dylan is as relevant to the music culture of our time as The Beatles and his long running archive releases,‘The Bootleg Series,’ is a shining example of how these kinds of projects should be curated. Still, it is absolutely mind blowing that there could be that much left to release, especially from his early years, but there obviously is because by the end of October the 18th volume of the series will arrive entitled ‘Through The Open Window 1956-1963’. Among the 8 CDs chronicling his early years in Greenwich Village we will hear rare and unheard home recordings, studio outtakes, coffeehouse, and nightclub shows all from brand new tape sources. The jewel in the archivist crown here will be an unreleased complete recording of Dylan’s landmark show at Carnegie Hall on October 26th, 1963, mixed from the original tapes. In terms of attracting the Dylanologist completists out there, with mouth watering contents such as these this release already sounds like the definitive early years of Dylan article. Most editions of the Bootleg Series feature Dylan recordings that can justify their place in the main canon of work thanks to his being a one off. Not many performers present themselves as they are feeling that very day quite like Bob does, his singular quest to capture spontaneous magic through exploration ensures any given concert recording might throw up something wonderful. That the opposite also applies is all part of the same fascination. In the studio he has never sought clinical perfection, more like real life reflecting soulful imperfection seems to be the aim. There are very few artists like this. Some might think they are, but Dylan trounces them all.

If ‘The Bootleg Series’ is the prime example on how to get this kind of thing right, then it should also be a measure to help siphon out the fool’s gold. I have written in the past on these pages about my love of the band Genesis, favoring the Peter Gabriel era but with an ever-growing acknowledgement that the Phil Collins years had some merit. Therefore, the recent appearance of Gabriel’s 1974 Genesis swansong album ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ as a 50th anniversary deluxe edition inevitably has sparked some interest in me. Much has been made in the prog press of Gabriel and Tony Banks being photographed in the studio earlier this year working on the remaster. However, I have just been listening to it and honestly, despite giving it my best shot on quality audio equipment, I am struggling to spot any real impact of this rather over-hyped remastering. If anything, they might have lessened the punch in Phil Collins drums but even there, I cannot really spot any difference. Then, to add to the farce of it all, the 1975 two-disc concert recording included as part of the package is the exact same concert that took up the first two discs of Genesis’s 1998 ‘Archive’ box. OK, so maybe Gabriel and Banks were focusing on the Blu-ray audio 96/24 stereo mix and there are also three download only unreleased tracks from the sessions, but it does all feel a little elitist and over-sold. Especially when you consider the year long, anniversary missing delay around its eventual appearance. I would argue that the new box set I have enjoyed most this month, David Bowie’s ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016)’, sets a standard for how these releases can exquisitely compliment an artist’s catalogue. It is the sixth and final installment in a career spanning series of box sets that could be all you will ever need as an extensive Bowie career appreciation. Each focus on his career chronologically, includes all the original albums and singles from the period, all the live albums and relevant additional live recordings from the era and then devotes at least one disc to mopping up additional rare recordings, B-sides, and off cuts from that time as well. On top of it they have appropriate, well selected art and design, informatively written content, and authentically mastered sound quality. They really are collections that anyone taking a deep dive into the mans work will return to again and again, which is all you can wish for really.

The new edition of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series will be released at the end of October…

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 29th September 2025

PINS – I’ll Be Yours

This Manchester all female have been releasing attention grabbing indie-rock albums for nearly fifteen years now and make a welcome return here with more classic sounding original music. They are leaning into a sixties wall-of-sound aesthetic here, albeit one that still thrashes those melodic guitar hooks to Jesus And Mary Chain levels of fuzziness. When they were starting out, founding member Faith Vern brought her fashion photographers eye to the mix, ensuring that PINS always had a stylish swagger to their post-punk aggression with vivid nods to the Riot Grrrl movement. All these elements are clearly still flourishing today, so it is great to hear news of this return for their previous release was 2020’s ‘Hot Slick’, a wait that felt far too long.

Jeff Tweedy – Out In The Dark

The new album from Wilco front man Tweedy is a 30 track, triple album epic called ‘Twilight Override’. He recorded it at Wilco’s home base The Loft in Chicago in collaboration with his sons Spencer and Sammy as well as James Elkington, Liam Kazar and Finom’s Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart. Unmistakably the work of Jeff, it proves him to be a song writer still very much in service of the creative spark and with a record this size, that tap is clearly still pouring a potent natural supply of inspiration. He himself describes the record as a reaction to “the bottomless basket of rock bottom” and it is indeed a defiant action against the despair of modern times expressed through his unique musical vision.

The Divine Comedy – The Last Time I Saw The Old Man

This is just so beautifully on the money, relatable too if you have ever found yourself reflecting on your final moments with a close elderly relative. It requires a certain lightness of touch in tandem with a fluent musical vocabulary but, if there is a recording artist from the past 35 years who has consistently displayed these qualities it is undoubtedly Divine Comedy mainstay Neil Hannon. The bands newly released album is called ‘Rainy Sunday Afternoon’ and it shows a deliberate emphasis on chamber pop orchestration and offers an overriding sense of introspection. A perfect soundtrack for reflection as we enter the colder winter months, the sense of autumnal melancholy is striking and Neil himself, when talking about the album, has said it is a way to “work through some stuff”.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Horror Clowns Are Dickheads

If you need a lift after the previous recommendation then this should provide enough of a contrast. Nigel Blackwell’s band had their oeuvre nailed down on arrival forty years ago and they have stuck with it brilliantly, often hilariously, ever since. The recipe has always been energetic punkish indie-rock as a bedrock for Nigel’s dead pan mocking alongside devastatingly observed social and cultural satire. New album ‘All Asimov And No Fresh Air’ features the definitive take down of the profiteering hype around ‘Record Store Day’ (“oh I do like to re-release my b-sides” sung to the tune of “I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside”) but it opens with this instant classic, a song that instructs “all horror clowns are dickheads and if you have a phobia of them, you’re a dickhead too”.

Joan Shelley – Here In The High And Low

Joan Shelley’s new album ‘Real Warmth’ arrives, as many new releases have done in the current climate, heavily troubled by the unstable world conditions we live in. There are multiple layers to the “real warmth” she is referring to not least the collaborative, tangible connection we humans often isolate ourselves from in an online space and also the climate anxiety that is provoked by our warming planet. But she also took her mission drive to the recording process too, seeking a looser, more interactive and live feel to the sessions by recording them with musician friends in a snowy and remote Canadian hide away. That was definitely a sound move as can be heard here on the records superb cascading opening track, after which the rest of the album holds up equally well.

Julianna Riolino – Seed

So it feels like a closing of the circle with this weeks final selection for, much like the opening number, this is a cut swinging its sixties style hooks with a bolshy, assured swagger. For a song that begins like a 21st century take on The Shirelles, the way it ends in a hurricane of rising noise with Julianna repeated spitting out the refrain “I was your seed” is really quite sensational. This is taken from a new album due in October called ‘Echo In The Dust’ from the former member of Daniel Romano’s Outfit. Hailing from Canada, she has pursued a solo path since releasing a single called ‘Be My Man’ in 2019 and with this follow up to 2022’s ‘All Blue’ LP there is clear evidence of an artist who has absolutely found her voice.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 26th September 2025

Billy Bragg – Between The Wars

For this edition of Old Fruit we are jumping back forty years to 1985 and a few tracks that show an often maligned period in popular music had some seeds of hope in the margins away from the thin-synth dominance of the mainstream. I am kicking off with Billy Bragg because I launched this weeks Fresh Juice with another guitar crunching bard from Essex and I felt like indulging in a bit more of the South of England’s London overspill splendour. Bragg’s classic lament drew vivid parallels between the working class struggles felt in England between the world wars and the Britain he drew topical inspiration from in the eighties. Forty years later, the relevant themes insure this song still has a place in the musical culture, even if the idea of the protest song itself now seems awfully idealistic and naïve. Bragg though, always sang, and continues to sing, with feeling and sincerity which is precisely why he has endured.

R.E.M. – Driver 8

In 1985 this tune, heard here in a rare earlier acoustic performance, would be one of the stand out tunes on R.E.M.’s third album ‘Fables Of The Reconstruction’, a record the band would have less than fond memories of recording in a damp English winter with the legendary Joe Boyd in the producers chair. It seems incredible now that while the US was frothing over Madonna and Prince (justifiably so I might add) ploughing away in the margins at the exact same time was one of America’s greatest ever rock bands, quietly refining their craft and slowly finding their identity. Maybe it should stand as a lesson in two things; firstly that there is a lot to be said for not tasting success too early and secondly, that the good stuff really does rise to the surface eventually. Nowadays, all five of those pre-worldwide fame R.E.M. albums are regarded as must hear classics.

The Fall – Spoilt Victorian Child

Whereas the previous band would tangibly move from their cult, outsider status to a place where their genius won the acclaim and success it deserved, the same pathway never opened out for The Fall. That is, I guess, understandable for the confrontational, unpredictable and undiluted delivery of leader Mark E. Smith was clearly never made for mass mainstream consumption. Even when he did break through to occasionally occupy a popular platform (I’m thinking about his Top Of The Pops appearance with the Inspiral Carpets in 1994 or the later time when BBC TV got him to read the Saturday evening football results) the tension that followed Mark around was not unlike that felt when a potentially aggressive thug stumbles into a pub looking for someone to pick an argument with. But maybe that was the thing that gave The Fall their spark? That garage rock energy and post-punk edginess moulded into something wholly unique and real by Smith’s primitive, poetic take on life as a working class man from Northern Britain.

The Waterboys – The Whole Of The Moon

For just a short time in the 1980s The Waterboys featured two of the periods greatest songwriting and producing talents. Band leader Mike Scott, for whom the group were essentially always a solo project with an ever rotating supporting cast of musicians (much like The Fall actually), is the ever present Waterboy but for a couple of albums back then they also had the equally gifted Karl Wallinger. It was undoubtedly a volatile pairing as both men were natural leaders with a strong desire to back their ideas but Karl did later prove himself in his own one-man band with changeable sidemen configuration, World Party. ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ remains the crown jewel from their time together, definitively Mike Scott’s composition but traces of Walllinger across the recording are undeniable and do enhance it with sonic stardust that continues to burn bright to this day.

Camper Van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling

This was an early underground anthem from a band formed in 1983 in Redlands, California having emerged from garage bands like Sitting Duck and Estonian Gauchos. This track helped bestow a quirky irreverence on them that, along with their facility to eclectically fuse punk, folk, psych and ska influences, insured their status as cult favourites. This one appeared on debut album ‘Telephone Free Landslide Victory’ and two more albums would appear the following year before they signed to Virgin in 1987. They split in 1990 (although would reform by the end of the decade) after their last notable success, a 1989 cover of Status Quo’s ‘Pictures Of Matchstick Men’ which became a number 1 hit on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks in 1989.

‘Til Tuesday – Voices Carry

Elvis Costello once described the eighties as “the decade that taste forgot” and whilst this weeks feature has been tailored to present the case for the defence from the eras middle period, when all the excesses provoking that kind of comment were at a peak, it is true that around 1985 you could find acts like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and even Elvis himself struggling with the digital production evolutions of the time. But this final selection also points to the same issues possibly restricting newer artists who would find their sound a lot more convincingly later in the nineties and beyond. Aimee Mann, one of the next decades most credible and dependable purveyors of a grungy, folk-rock sound, is heard here leading her band ‘Til Tuesday, clearly developing the writing chops that would serve her so well later on, but arguably held back by a flat mid-eighties pop sheen. This isn’t too bad, there is a lot of potential on display, but there was much better to come further down the line. Something I find myself thinking about a lot of music from this era.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 22nd September 2025

Scott Lavene – Cars

Scott Lavene took some time to find his voice, having busked extensively before retreating to solitude on a boat via stints in bands around France and New York, his breakthrough came around the time he attended a music workshop for recovering addicts. That awakening brought us a singer and writer with one of the most authentic voices on the music scene today, rooted in urban Essex with the poetic flare of an Ian Dury taking on the Sleaford Mods in a lyrical arm wrestle. He is self effacing, warm, witty and incisive in his observational detail, as his music jumps between spoken word narrative and soul boy intonations whilst the subject matter pivots across real life confessions and Scott’s wild imagination. His new album, ‘Cars Buses Bedsits and Shops’, is so named because all of the songs focus on those exact, recurring subjects. Simples.

Foxwarren – Deadhead

This one is accompanied by a video that is both divertingly amusing and a little disturbing at the same time. It feels like they took the songs title as a launch pad and decided to feature some actual dead headed puppets but eerily, still smiling and moving because after all, with its “don’t stop dancing” refrain, this is quite a light and bouncy number on the surface. The effect is wonderfully unsettling as this Canadian indie band, led by Andy Shauf, deliver their second album following their 2018 self titled debut, with a similarly satisfying analogue expansion of the introspection heard in Shauf’s solo work. Especially with those flute licks, this one is infuriatingly addictive and catchy.

Bret McKenzie – Freak Out City

There was always a suggestion when performing as comedy duo Flight Of The Concordes and delivering pitch perfect parodies of retro pop styles and artists, that there was quite an adept musical talent at work here. The trouble with comedy songs is, as a general rule, they are set up for just one listen and only a few are ever re-played. Once you know the joke, it is time to move on. Still, with a burgeoning side hustle composing film music, Bret did set out his serious musician credentials on 2022’s stringently straight ‘Songs Without Jokes’. Now with a new follow up album, of which this is the title track, he appears to have struck the perfect balance; ‘Freak Out City’ is a record driven by melodic tunesmithery without totally abandoning the droll, subtle wit flowing so effortlessly out of McKenzie’s modest, humble disposition.

Brandee Younger – Gadabout Season

Spiritual, ethereal and soulful jazz played with the harp as lead instrument is thriving in 2025. At least, that is how it feels with Brandee Younger releasing sumptuous music such as this, the title track of her new album available on Impulse! Records. It is the harpists third album with the label and feels like the closest she has been thus far to realising and developing the signature sounds in her minds ear. That it was recorded on Alice Coltrane’s harp is an apt connection, for if an exploration into this music’s roots were to be undertaken then those fifty year old heavenly vibes would certainly show up. Still, Brandee is plugged into the modern motions too, as the records collaborators like Shabaka Hutchings, Courtney Bryan, NIIA and Josh Johnson only serve to prove. Justified, stylish and stately.

Carson McHone – Winter Breaking

Carson’s new album ‘Pentimento’ is out now on Merge Records and it is one of the 2025 albums that demands some immersion. All of the songs entered the world as poems but McHone has nurtured and developed each of them into a song cycle that transports the listener through the four seasons. Comparisons are already awash with references to the late 60s/70s Brit-folk-rock sound and names like Shelagh McDonald and Bridget St John are accurately being tossed into the appreciation, but I hear a more contemporary edge seeping through as well. McHone may well find her musical soul drawn connecting with these wonderous vintage echoes but her head is firmly plugged into the present day and that kinship alone makes her first full-length album since 2022’s ‘Still Life’ a repeatedly rewarding experience.

Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse Of Everything

This is the title track from Sherwood’s new record and it somehow is a heading that feels depressingly pertinent in the current climate. Nevertheless, that it should be masterfully vintage sounding dub soundtracking the breaking and broken nature of the world around us at least seems very fitting. The audio landscape is both doomily oppressive and chillingly fatalistic but, in equal measure, soothing and resigned. This is Sherwood’s first solo album in thirteen years and the experimentally inclined dub maestro, so often the background wizard sprinkling his sonic sorcery on the work of others, is allowing himself to be the centre stage focus of attention for once. It is a full length record to set sail with, playing like a film soundtrack as it glides across worldwide musical territories and regions but rarely breaking loose of the dub backbone holding this phonic requiem together as one.

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Monthly Playlists

September 2025 Playlist

I have fallen well short of my aim to publish the monthly playlist on the first of the month this time around. The past two weeks have been packed with music festival shenanigans ahead of travels from southern Dorset up to the Inverness coastline of Scotland via stopovers in Cumbria on the way up and the Galashiels borders area on the way back down. Then the return road trip was delayed by a car breakdown scenario seeing me stranded for the best part of a day on the Scotland/England border viewpoint, which would have been a lovely spot at least if not for the fact that it was depressingly wet, cloudy and grey. On top of that the so called famous Carters Bar that gives the viewpoint its name was nowhere to be seen, so I had to pass the hours nibbling on a half finished bag of nuts, stretching out the bottle of water I had with me and running the car battery down playing the playlist attached to this post. Luckily, the recovery vehicle sorted that out when it arrived after five hours and diagnosed that I had misfiring cylinders and needed towing back into Scotland to wait for repairs. The borders garage was pretty cool, run by a beardy dude called Dougie who appeared to work alone whilst blasting out Radio 4 and sharing stories of the local musical glitterati whose motors he has fixed. For example, there was once a day some years back when he introduced the drummer from Shooglenifty to the legendary folk guitarist and former Pentangle member John Renbourn while they came in for repairs. It also turned out Mike Heron used to live nearby and the Incredible String Band would rent a local house to get their mystical freak folk together in the hilly Scottish landscape.

I had actually seen Mike Heron at the start of this two-week excursion when he appeared with the Broadside Hacks at End Of The Road festival playing a set of ISB music. I am not going to say too much about the festival here because I wrote a full review for another publication which I will link to here when it is published. It was a great weekend though, awash with great performances and new discoveries. In particular I would highlight a track called ‘Broke’ by Scott Lavene that appears in this playlist; he was a real find, especially in terms of his live presence, that I had previously been unaware of. The cover stars for this edition too, The Bug Club, came over like a band that are really on a roll, getting better and better every time I see them. Still, this was all just an opener to a full on two weeks that included a miserable, for the locals, night in a Cumbrian pub on transfer deadline day where the words “Isak” and “vermin” could be frequently heard in the same sentence and then a number of nights drinking in the Shore Inn at Portsoy. A pub that feels delightfully unfazed by the passing of time, wherein locals cheerfully mock the visitors unaware of doric dialect and the difference between a ‘quine’ and a ‘loon’ (turns out ones a girl, the others a boy). The walls are covered in framed Peaky Blinders photos as a lot of that TV series was filmed in this scenic location. Anyway, it was a refreshingly real experience and by the time a local fisherman came in late one evening handing out freshly caught mackerel for free it was hard not to dream of a Scotland relocation sometime.

After a welcome catch up with some dear friends on the borders, including an unscheduled extra night while the car was fixed, Dougie was able to get my “horrible Honda” back in a drivable condition. The only issue was, at such short notice, he could only get his hands on four cylinders and the engine actually has eight. None of them looked that healthy either but he fixed the faulty ones and got me going. By the time I was around an hour away I hit difficulty climbing a very steep hill, the engine warning light came back on and the car felt disturbingly wobbly at certain speeds. Having no appetite for another roadside wait and rationalizing that the car is still driving, I decided to do the remaining five hours of the journey only ever tickling the accelerator and never raising my speed above 50mph. Luckily, I mean extremely fortuitously, I managed to do it with no more than just one stop at Scotch Corner. I may never use the car again, but I made it back, although my nerves are shot. I might have written this piece last night, but I could not unclench my tension filled hands until today. Still, at least I can say this month’s playlist is properly road tested.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 25th August 2025

Eve Adams – Get Your Hopes Up

Growing up alternating between the rural farm idyll of Oklahoma and more urban surroundings in Los Angeles, Eve began writing music at a very young age and was already showing considerable emotional depth in her songs by the age of twelve. Her latest release is called ‘American Dust’ and arrives on the Topic label continuing her narrative fuelled folk-noir style with a maturity that seems to be really hitting the heights now. In a recent interview with Uncut Magazine she described her music, which pulls in strong visual art elements too, as “a nice little ouroborus”.

Curtis Harding – There She Goes

This is psychedelic soul par excellence, featuring a deep production resplendent with strings, funky rhythm chops and a far-out fuzz guitar solo, it is clear Curtis’s music is going places other soul stirrers cannot reach. This is a recently released stand alone single marking the mans first new music since the acclaimed 2021 album ‘If Words Were Flowers’. In terms of theme Harding has described the song as a tribute to “the beauty and duality of the ideal woman” but I say it skates pretty damn close to the beauty and duality of the ideal soul track. There is much to love here, including the Twilight Zone essence of this accompanying music video.

The Black Keys – Man On A Mission

While I am thinking about psychedelic soul it is fair to say there is a huge element of that very thing in this new music from the Black Keys, that and their ever present raw blues cut and thrust. This one is from the bands brand new album ‘No Rain No Flowers’ released this month on Easy Eye Sound/Parlophone Records. They remain dependably brilliant on this LP which sees them at times return to the blues-rock sound of their roots and elsewhere turn to other modes such as post-punk, retro soul and then, pushing even farther out from those roots, a touch of eighties style synth action. Always worth checking out.

Laura-Mary Carter – June Gloom

This is one part a forlorn country-style ballad and another part a Lana Del Rey style haunting melodrama. Laura-Mary is previously known as one half of Brighton alt-rockers Blood Red Shoes but after two decades pounding down those souls she is now stepping out solo with a striking shift in tone. Hers is now an Americana adjacent motion with a vivid echo in the production that calls to mind a Spector wall of sound and a Velvet Underground-like ghostly shimmer. If that sounds like an appealing cocktail, which it certainly does for me, then be sure to dig out the solo debut album ‘Bye Bye Jackie’ when it arrives later on in September.

The Onlies – Going Across The Sea

Pronounced the own’-leez, these young yet old-timey folk and bluegrass whizz kids are about to release a brand new album called ‘You Climb The Mountain’. This lively number from a recent live performance may not feature in the tracklist but the live footage offered up does give you an idea of the fire and energy this combo possess in spades. It therefore ensures, despite its old fashioned reference points, this has a vitality definitively proving they belong in the here and now of modern times. The album features a wide panoramic view of the emotive range in the sound, from the slow swinging reflection heard in ‘Roll On Buddy’, a railroad song learned from Aunt Molly Jackson, to the punchy picking on show in a vibrant interpretation of the English song ‘Matty Groves’, it is clear The Onlies are explosive talents rightfully demanding our attention.

Studio Electrophonique – How Can I Love Anyone Else?

I am closing this edition with some dreamy electronica, a song that sounds simultaneously retro and modern, both primitive and grandiose in its lush production. It is a rather forlorn piece but there is a warmth in there too, this piece has a piercing autumnal feel ready made for the next season that is already starting to show its colours. This is the solo project of singer-songwriter James Leesley, one of the most interesting and original musical outfits to emerge from Sheffield’s current independent scene. He says this song “existed for a while as just this little arpeggiated interlude I’d play in between writing other songs, kind of like a thinking tune, but then one night it just turned into this swirling fairground ride of a sequence. The full thing came all at once, as if it was already there — like I’d found some secret waltzer and had a pocket full of tokens. I just kept going round and round until I’d finished the words”. He will release his eponymous debut album on Paris-based label Valley of Eyes Records on September 26th.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 22nd August 2025

Ottilie Patterson & Chris Barber Band – Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean

For this edition of Old Fruit I am looking back at half a dozen vintage jazz selections all of which are cooking, boiling, frothing, fizzing and fantastic. The late fifties and early sixties were overflowing with undeniable jazz music, it is probably fair to assess that this was the last era when jazz sailed close to the mainstream. Not only was it a period of great leaps forward in melodic and structural evolution but it was delivered with such ice-cool style and image. No wonder it all just looks so classic now. So, set alongside some of this bebop, bohemian cutting edge elegance, some of the British trad jazz contingent may have started to look very old fashioned seemingly overnight. But while there may be some truth to that with a combo like the Chris Barber Band, as this clip clearly proves they could still tear it up with the best of them. Mind you, they were instantly pushed into a different league altogether any time the deceptively domestic looking Ottilie Patterson stepped up to the microphone, a singer of such pure vocal power and honesty that she even managed to out-soul Ruth Brown when covering her 1953 R&B classic as the band do here. One look at Ottilie and you know this is the real thing!

Jimmy Giuffre Trio – The Train And The River

As mentioned in the text accompanying the first song, the style and visual presentation of jazz during this period was potentially as crucial to its long term status as the music itself. Nowhere was the indelible late fifties jazz look captured on film better than the 1958 picture ‘Jazz On A Summers Day’, the opening sequence of which are the images that appear with this performance. The Jimmy Giuffre Trio had released this piece the previous year and it won many plaudits for its realisation of Giuffre’s “blues based folk jazz” which merged understated swing with the sensibilities of a chamber referencing musicianship. That this rendition at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival should open the film depicting events and performances at that years festival only serves to cement this hypnotic piece into the fabric of the eras jazz lineage. And just look at the names in those opening credits, if you have not seen this movie get on whatever streaming platform you need to find it and put that right immediately.

Art Blakey & Lee Morgan – I Remember Clifford

Whilst not quite as celebrated as Miles Davis, Lee Morgan has stood the test of time and to this day remains one of the essential players to listen to from this period of jazz history. He had a beautiful tone to his playing, an awareness of melodic motion and an appreciation of the simple truth that sometimes less is more. His music remains a real pleasure to experience and his untimely death in 1972 is still one of the greatest losses to the music world imaginable. Lee had recorded this tune, a 1956 Benny Golson composition written in tribute to trumpeter Clifford Brown who had died in a car crash, on his 1957 Blue Note Records album ‘Lee Morgan Volume 3’. On both the recording and this live footage the composer Golson is present on saxophone and it is said that he regarded it as a symbolic passing of the torch from Brown to Morgan, at the time still very much a young trumpet prodigy from Philadelphia.

Charles Mingus – Better Git It In Your Soul

This was the opening track from Mingus’s legendary 1959 album ‘Mingus Ah Um’. It suits the mans personality, it is a mammoth tune that unfolds with might and momentum and packs a punch with undeniable force. You see it in these images (when they begin, the first three minutes of this one is audio only), even when the brass soloists step forward it is still Charles you cannot take your eyes off, a powerhouse propelling everything forward. The tune was inspired by the gospel singing and preaching heard where Mingus grew up, the shouts, handclaps and sense of anything goes improvisation reaching for, and finding, the spirit of a Southern Black church service. This tune is considered one of the best examples of Mingus’s faculty for bringing complex themes and structures into a soulful and rousing melange of sound.

Bill Evans – Waltz For Debby

This tune first appeared on Bill Evans 1957 debut album ‘New Jazz Conceptions’ on Riverside Records. It was written for his niece, Debby Evans, and is a beautifully lyrical waltz that blends Evans classical sensibilities with jazz harmonies. This was to become Evans most iconic original composition that would also go on to be the title track for a live album recorded at the Village Vanguard in June 1961, this proved to be the final recording for Evans legendary first trio, often hailed as the pinnacle of piano trio interplay. This particular piece of film is from 19th March, 1965 recorded for the London BBC TV series Jazz 625.

Miles Davis – So What

And I simply cannot resist the urge to finish this jazz half dozen with arguably the most iconic piece of film footage from the genre available on YouTube. ‘So What’, with the previous songs leader Bill Evans on piano not to mention John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on saxes, was recorded and released in 1959 on the landmark Miles Davis album ‘Kind Of Blue’. To this day it remains an all time jazz classic, so wonderful in its simplicity on the one hand and yet a foundation block for all the freedoms and melodic space that would define modal jazz in years to come and prove to be a guiding influence for many a legendary artist, including Coltrane himself as well as people like Herbie Hancock and so much of what was to evolve on the Blue Note label in the sixties, seventies and beyond. On top of that, it just all looks so fantastically cool.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 18th August 2025

HONK – Vine-Glo

Well, this weeks first offering takes about three handbrake turns in the first sixty seconds leaving you wondering what the hell is going on here? But in the best possible way. It starts off like a hillbilly cousin of Telstar by the Tornados before launching into space with a disturbed yeouch of a lead vocal only to surf rock over the waves of a chorus that hits all the right targets. They call this unique grain “trashcan country” which does kind of tell you what you need to know about the scuzzy, rootsy and energetic sound HONK purvey. The new ‘Closing Down Sale’ EP is the follow up EP to their debut ‘Grand Opening’ EP and drops this week, released digitally and on cassette via Leeds label Shooting Tzars, HONK also have a run of gigs across the UK this summer

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Annick Michel – Between

Sometimes brilliant new music can be discovered online clouded in mystery and this is one such example, I came across this incredibly soulful, impassioned, intense acoustic song earlier purely by chance, simply by being on the right page at the right time and served suggested content by an impressively on-the-money computer algorithm. My digging has deduced that the artist has released a little music under the name Annick Michel, she is possibly a Montreal based singer-songwriter and this track may have been around on the internet from as far back as 2022. But the mystery is around the identity and back story, for I have found the song presented under the artist name Ama & Jaguar Dream although it is definitely the same person. Whatever, this is an great new song sung and played with a conviction that demands proper attention and incites use of the old cliché, one to watch.

Paul Kelly – Rita Wrote A Letter

If you are inclined towards a knee-jerk resistance or cautious suspicion when an artist is heavily touted as a ‘great songwriter’ then I fully understand, I am of a similar disposition myself. After all, there are people who pile those kind of accolades towards Ed Sheeran or Chris Martin and it rather lowers the bar in terms of being credible, worthy praise. However, if you are of the opinion that a great songwriter will have a flare for chord progression and melody, an acute facility for observing the minutiae of human life and interaction, strong story telling instincts, a sense of the absurd and a self-effacing tendency to recognise the fallibility in themselves, then wrap it all up in a song shaped bundle that will keep you listening and coming back for more, then Paul Kelly is a great songwriter. Furthermore, this Australian tunesmith has got 45 years of experience behind him and the advance single presented here, from November’s forthcoming new album ‘Seventy’, shows there are no signs of his craftsman like quality diminishing any time soon.

Peter Holsapple – Larger Than Life

Releasing his first new solo music in seven years with the album ‘The Face Of 68’, this is a recent live clip of Peter performing ‘Larger Than Life’ from that record. The song itself is a tribute to Carlo Nuccio of the Continental Drifters and features, as does the rest of the LP, Robert Sledge from Ben Folds Five on bass and Rob Ladd of The Connells on drums. As this tune definitively makes plain, the Holsapple of 2025 is firmly in touch with his jangle and power pop roots for there is a more than passing echo of this former dB’s co-founders musical heritage. And that is great news indeed, as this is the sound of a man in touch and plugged in to the pretty damn wonderful music he is making.

Luke Haines & Peter Buck – The Pink Floyd Research Group

Moving on from a former R.E.M. sideman to a former R.E.M. man in acting side man guise, it is always so great to hear Peter Buck bring that trademark jingle-jangle style of his to the table in the name of niche, outsider, eccentric British songwriting. The song itself is a whimsical slice of Summer-of-67 flowery spacedust which, if the Pink Floyd Research Group of the title are to be believed, was written by some kind of artificial AI assisted song bot. At least that is what someone claiming to be the PFRG in the YouTube comments are claiming and if it is really them, what a brilliantly offhand way to have a gentle retaliatory slap back to a song that is not as convincing in its sincerity as it is in its freak flag flying quirkiness.

Richard Thompson – Siggy’s Song

For the recent Radio Two hosted project called ’21st Century Folk’, five current folk artists were introduced each to five people in order to learn their back story and write a new folk song about their lives. In this edition arguably our greatest living folk composer Richard Thompson meets Siggy, who came to London from Barbados in 1962. He began working on the railways and playing cricket as soon as he arrived. At the age of 85, he still works at a train station, and he still plays cricket! Tapping into the folk tradition of participation, Richard’s new song pulls in Siggy’s teammates at the Holtwhites-Trinibis Cricket Club in Enfield for some rousing backing vocals.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 15th August 2025

Donovan – Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness)

This edition of Old Fruit is jumping back sixty years for half a dozen nuggets with maximum nineteen sixty five-ity! First up is Donovan, playing a song that sixty years later is also the opening track on the new Robert Plant and Saving Grace album. Plant has acknowledged in an interview with Mojo Magazine that it was Donovan’s version that drew him into the song and, whilst being aware that it was previously recorded in 1960 as ‘Chevrolet’ by Lonnie Young and Ed Young, he was unaware of an earlier 1930 version called ‘Can I Do It For You’ by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy. This film clip, like one or two others in this weeks feature, is actually from 1966 but all the original records were released in 1965, dig?

Bob Dylan – Positively 4th Street

So captured here in his prime wild mercury, newly electrified phase is the man Donovan was, quite reasonably, accused of emulating in the early months of 1965. Of course, it was only a short matter of time before the Don’s power-flower dreaminess appeared worlds away from Bob Dylan’s plugged-in magnificent kaleidoscope of possessed poetic wonderment, which is where we find him here. Stirring up his US audience, including a quick Roger McGuinn fly past if I am not mistaken, who are shaken into feverish debate about the merits of their mans change of direction. Although not prominently featured, the snippets of a live ‘Positively 4th Street’ heard here are a real archival treasure. One of Bob’s most famous attack songs, he can be seen playing, what was then, a recent composition in a form very close to its recorded version, something of a Dylan rarity in itself.

Buddy Guy – Outta Sight

If the 1965 folk audience were getting themselves into a state of extreme agitation as their purely acoustic music was pushed headlong into electricity, it is maybe surprising that there are not similar reports from the blues fraternity, after all up to then and ever since the genre was invented it was mainly all about acoustic troubadours singing of their troubles. But this incredible colourised film of Buddy Guy, backed by Lonesome Jimmy Lee (Robinson) on bass and Fred Below on drums, not only proves what a thrilling journey the blues was on at this time, but also how naturally it was cross pollinating with other musical forms. This is no mere bluesy interpretation of a James Brown tune, it goes for full-on soul power and the funk in the groove is impossible to resist.

The Sorrows – Take A Heart

1965 was a peak period for the classic English Freakbeat retrospectively labelled sub-genre and here is one of the prime slices of that fevered, impassioned Mod sound. ‘Take A Heart’ would turn out to be The Sorrows biggest success when the 45, released sixty years ago this month on the Piccadilly label, peaked at number 21 in the UK singles chart. It was also the title of their debut album released on the same label that year, of which original stereo pressings are fetching around £200 on Discogs today. This is an essential live performance clip from the kind of mid-sixties band for whom TV appearances would have been rare.

The Pretty Things – Midnight To Six

Another one with raw garage rock texture that actually crosses over well to a live TV recording is seen here with the Pretty Things classic ode to swinging London night life. Like so many great tracks of this style from the era, this was not a big hit, only peaking for one week in the UK charts at number 46. Seeing them in their early days like this, it is hard to fathom how they did not tear it up commercially in the same way that the Rolling Stones did, a band with close ties to the Pretty Things. In fact their guitarist Dick Taylor played bass in a very early line up of the Rolling Stones but would leave in late 1962; nevertheless, the raw R&B influence and rough energy of both bands remained a tangible touching point .

The Byrds – Turn Turn Turn

I finish this edition with a bumper extended piece of TV footage and once again, a rare chance to see a classic sixties group in their definitive five piece line-up playing live in early years, beat-boom finery. This is arguably the definitive folk-rock sound, what with the vocal harmonies and twelve strings of McGuinn’s electric Rickenbacker jingle-jangling as the cloudburst of pop colour rained down on the wonderful folk material contemporary acts (as well as The Byrds) revitalised. Of course, they would also record many an essential tune written by their own hand but here we are treated to ‘Turn Turn Turn’ followed by a further brace of amped up revisions, ‘The Bells Of Rhymney’ and Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 11th August 2025

Dodie – Old Devil Moon

This weeks Fresh Juice is like a visit to the Jazz Club with half a dozen new offerings from the cool world of vibes, improvisation and musical excellence. First up is a cover version by Dodie who might just feel like two worlds colliding with her current career trajectory. She gained attention, and continues to, via a prolific release schedule of original songs and interpretations on YouTube but here she is brilliantly contributing to an album available in the traditional vinyl format through the jazz classic Blue Note label (in the US, it is on Decca in the UK). The record in question is ‘Chet Baker Re:imagined’, released to mark the 70th anniversary of ‘Chet Baker Sings’, it features fifteen re-workings by various newer artists in a modern context of Baker classics.

Manon Mullener – Nostalgia

Heard here playing a piece from her new album ‘Stories’, Mullener seems to work the piano with a rare ability to both lead and explore her instrument simultaneously. Her style is melodic and easy to appreciate but it can bare multiple repeated listens and highlight many a nuance in her flourishes with each revisit. Manon is a Swiss player and composer who, with this new album, has released her most cohesively concept driven work to date and it impresses as a record that frequently imagines real life scenarios as breath taking musical presentations.

Brad Mehldau – Better Be Quiet Now

Jazz pianist supreme Brad Mehldau’s appreciation of the late Elliott Smith’s music is nothing new, there is film footage available of him playing with Smith on TV some twenty five years ago. Even then they seemed a good match, Mehldau coming across as an understanding foil for Elliott’s introspective singer-songwriting and his mastery of what Brad describes as the “dark/light admix”. Neither is this new work the first time the piano man has honoured Smith on record but his latest release does represent a proper step towards paying a full, album length, affectionate tribute to the man and his music. And, as you would expect if his previous recordings have ever moved you, Mehldau does a fantastic job on new release ‘Ride Into The Sun’, capturing Elliott’s wondrously potent blend of major / minor ornate compositional elegance. An essential, piano led orchestral jazz work awaits.

Amina Claudine Myers – Solace Of The Mind

The latest album by pianist Amina features this emotional centrepiece song as its title track, it is a record that she describes as a “balm, a mirror, a space to sit with your thoughts”. Released this year on Red Hook Records, it finds the now 83 year old trailblazer exploring music that touches base with jazz, blues and spirituals. Although she did not start recording music until the late 1970’s, Myers is widely recognized and appreciated in jazz circles as one of the masters of improvisation and is highly regarded for her musicianship on Hammand B3 organ and piano, not to mention that resonant, expressive voice. Long may she run.

David White Trio – Close The Door

Playing a simmering electric guitar led tune from their latest album ‘While You Were Sleeping’, this is a sublime live studio rendition from the guitarists combo who have been favourably compared to top jazz guitar names like John Scofield and Pat Metheny. Still, as you can witness here, they are not a group inclined to sit still on structure, showing a perpetual inclination to explore and innovate whilst holding firmly onto the listeners ears. There is much to enjoy on this new record, especially in the groove driven backbone that locks in some of the tunes, add to that the top drawer playing and this is a new jazz album that rewards taking a deep dive towards.

Joshua Redman – A Message To Unsend

This soothing yet seductively mournful piece is taken from Joshua’s latest album ‘Words Fall Short’ released on Blue Note Records and it proves that the label, this far into its history, remains a hallmark of jazz quality. Now in his mid-fifties, Redman has a hard won reputation as one of the finest saxophonists of his time thanks to an intangible mix of intuition and fervor in his playing. This is a record that Joshua reports was largely composed during the pandemic and the reflective mood that permeates certainly enhances that impression. However, the real magic is in the way the recordings come alive with organic warmth, displaying the kind of stunning results that can only come out of a group naturally feeding off each other to bring their music alive in the studio and then, fantastically, on record.

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