Category Archives: Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 23rd June 2025

Bruce Springsteen – Repo Man

If there is anyone doubtful that Bruce Springsteen deserves to be mentioned alongside the great writers of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era then this coming week might just press a few of the doubters into submission. He is about to release seven completed albums of previously unreleased, mostly unheard, material at the end of this week and if nothing else, they go a long way to re-writing what now looks like the misconception that Bruce ever really went off the boil or had a quiet patch. His 1990s alone are about to be plunged into a wholesale revision as from what I have heard and judging by the initial reactions he was as inspired and creatively engaged then as at any point in his fifty+ year career. The unreleased albums cover electronic ambience, film soundtrack work as well as out-and-out rockers but the selection I offer up here is upbeat killer country from the record entitled ‘Somewhere North Of Nashville’. I cannot wait for this latest Bruce deep dive on the horizon.

Margo Price – Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down

I will keep it country with the exciting news that Margo Price, one of the most authentic voices on the US scene these days, has a new album ‘Hard Headed Woman’ out on August 29th. Of this top new tune Margo says “with all that’s going on in the world, I hope this song will be a battle cry for the downtrodden and create unity and action for those facing oppression and hardship”.

James McMurtry – The Black Dog And The Wandering Boy

This is the stand out title track from the new James McMurty album ‘The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy’, which is out now on New West Records. James is widely considered, by those in the know, to be one of the most under-rated songwriters playing in the country-rock scene and that is an opinion that his quietly floating around since the 1980s. Well if he is new to you or this new music prompts a return, this is a fine album to get into so check it out but meantime, the clip featured here is a recent (lo-fi audio quality) live outing.

Kristina Murray – Watchin’ The World Pass Me By

This new laid back, care free and real world baiting cracker is a proper country lament taken from Kristina’s latest album ‘Little Blue’ out now on Normaltown Records. The video leans into some cheesy literal interpretation and is all the better for it, showing an artist not taking herself too seriously whilst delivering a song that under that lush veneer packs a bit of a punch, reflecting as it does on the tough reality of those creatives who have to fight to reach their potential in an industry that can kick down on those less fortunate unable to buy their way in with looks, wealth and the right contacts. Luckily for us, there are still a wealth of artists, like Kristina, who do it for the love of music and creative expression.

Wednesday – Elderberry Wine

The alternative pockets of US country are also alive with promise and talent in 2025. This is especially true of North Carolina rockers Wednesday, led by Karly Hartzman with guitarist MJ Lenderman, bassist Ethan Baechtold, drummer Alan Miller, and pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis, who I was raving about on these pages a couple of years ago after they released the still superb ‘Chosen To Deserve’. Here they are recently making their national television debut in the US and their first airing of new 2025 music.

Ringo Starr – Time On My Hands

And in the end… the best new country album of 2025 might still have been made by Ringo!!!

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 20th June 2025

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Summertime

For this week’s half dozen vintage music selections I just had to opt for a summer theme what with the heatwave that is currently bathing the UK in a hot, bright, sticky, perspiring glow. My opening jump back is a jazz standard taken from the Porgy & Bess musical as performed here by a pair of the genres 20th century masters and OK, the video may not sync with the recording but sometimes, as is the case here, the song cannot be omitted simply because I cannot find a bit of film archive.

The Surfaris – Wipe Out

For me the optimum sound of summer, in the same way that the ultimate sound of Christmas will always be heard in the production of Phil Spector’s Christmas album, is surf music. This instrumental from 1963 is one of the best, that wave riding electric guitar twang just does not ring quite the same in the winter months, this is the kind of sizzling hot playing that could send even the non-swimmers out there diving for the rolling waves atop a surf board.

Bedazzled – Summer Song

Back in the 1990s ‘Landfill Indie’ (the necessary catch all term coined by the music press in the 2010’s to lump together all the uninspired guitar posing bands yelping their generic uninspired toss into a bucket) was not a thing, in fact many lower league indie bands were churning out little bittersweet guitar pop nuggets such as this summer-themed gem, from the soon to be forgotten and barely even registering at the time but no less worthy and ripe for rediscovery, Bedazzled.

The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Age Of Revolution

I grew up with the increasingly outdated idea that football was the winter sport and cricket the summer. Now that football has crept into the summer months too these seasonal dividing lines are all but obsolete but cricket remains, in the UK and a few other (but not enough) countries, synonymous with the warmer months. How wonderful was it that a band specifically dedicating their entire musical output in honour of the sport should arrive? Especially as the creative figureheads were supreme songsmiths from other guises, namely the Divine Comedy and the criminally under-rated Pugwash. This is a full and direct inswinger that definitively hits the stumps.

Ben Folds Five – Where’s Summer B?

This one is presented as a lo-fi filmed clip but if you are unfamiliar with the original version on the Ben Folds Five debut album I urge you to check out this aching, Billy Joel style, peach of a song. Sometimes, the juxtaposition of a yearning lyric with a warm summery sound can hit the senses hard, this great summer song is one such example.

Bruce Springsteen – Girls In Their Summer Clothes

It is not as if I was previously unaware but I have to admit, over the past month I have been taking a real deep dive into the masterful songwriting of Bruce Springsteen. I know he is a massive mainstream artist but I do believe he remains a little under-rated, at least in terms of how great a writer and performer he as always been. This summer song is a case in point, rarely listed as one of his classics but how often do pop/rock songs convey in lyric and tone exactly what they want to say as devastating and potently as this? Not often enough, this is one of genuinely hundreds of prefect songs that has risen from the hand of Bruce Springsteen.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 16th June 2025

Ron Sexsmith – Don’t Lose Sight

Canadian songwriter Ron continues to evolve and refine his craft with another new album called ‘Hangover Terrace’ set for release in August. His music can be as laid back and sleepy sounding as that weary expression he seems to perpetually wear on his face but that should not obscure the fact that his stock is song composition of the highest order. Ron can command the channels interlinking the major and minor keys with a melodic stitching that is deceptively advanced and the end result is frequently a song, such as that heard here, that was waiting for the right artist with enough range and dexterity to pull it into existence; don’t lose sight of the great songsmith’s still in our midst.

BC Camplight – Where You Taking My Baby?

BC Camplight is the performing identity of songwriter Brian Christinzio and he has used this platform to heart-wrenching effect in recent times to produce a piano-led style of confessional indie-rock that seems to delve deep into the mental, emotional and psychological core of his very being. That journey is clearly still unfolding on the new, soon to be released on Bella Union, ‘A Sober Conversation’ album in which, as heard here, among other concerns Brian deals with the trauma of re-connecting to loved ones following therapy brought on by fall outs, lost contacts, misunderstanding and hurt. If all this sounds heavy going though do not turn away, for his flare on the piano and ear for a tune in general make the music of BC Camplight a reliably deep, entertaining and ultimately rewarding experience.

Girl Group – Yay! Saturday

This is taken from Girl Group’s debut EP ‘Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform’ and is buzzing with the same kind of feminist, hook driven pop energy previously heard from Wet Leg or Lily Allen. They are a relatively new five piece who, on this evidence, are alive with ideas and capable of painting vivid audio pictures that present animated versions of the lives they and their peer groups experience, in this case a long night out that gets messy. It is worth noting too that they are all singers and each member contributes to the writing too, so potentially the ideas will never be in short supply with a well of creative energy like this, there is a lot of promise here.

Night Beats – Behind The Green Door

And the beat goes on with another fine release from an ever dependable name in psych-inflected bluesy rock, Danny Lee Blackwell’s rollin’ and tumblin’ electric circus that is the Night Beats. ‘Behind The Green Door’ is the bands latest single and is out digitally now and on limited 7″ vinyl. Even though the backbone of Night Beats music is always retained, the primitive beats and the ubiquitous green fuzz of the guitar, there is always something different to delight in as well, on this occasion a decidedly Lynch-like panorama and a widescreen cinematic sound that could place this in the soundtrack to some obscure sixties b-movie, if not for the fact that it belongs firmly in the here and now as well.

Kathleen Edwards – 6 O’Clock News

The news that Kathleen Edwards is releasing a new album called ‘Billionaire’ on August 22nd produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson, is very welcome indeed. It is described as harking back to her very first album, ‘Failer,’ with razor sharp lyrical observations and relatable real life tales. Two new songs, ‘Save Your Soul’ and ‘Say Goodbye, Tell No One’ are ready to hear online already and I will get to them soon enough but for now, let’s enjoy this recent live performance of the opening track from that aforementioned brilliant 2003 debut release.

Edith Frost – That’s What It’s Like To Be Lonesome

And to finish things off this week, here is another highly rated artist who has made a return in 2025, but this time it is someone who has ushered herself back into the ring with very little fanfare or hullabaloo. Edith Frost was one of the essential American Singer-songwriters around the start of the 2000’s earning herself deserved comparisons to singers like Elliott Smith but her new album ‘In Space’, which I am going to be checking out for the first time this coming week having only just come across it way below the surface, is her first in nineteen years. Here she is posting on her own YouTube channel a cover version of an old Jean Shepard song and it is as lush and moving as I always recalled Edith to be a couple of decades ago, it feels good to come across her once more.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 13th June 2025

Brian Wilson – I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times

How could this weeks vintage selection of tunes be anything other than a toast to those who are gone in 2025 following a handful of days when the world has lost the genius of Brian Wilson and Sly Stone? Brian may have shone brightest in the sixties when he was still in full command of his natural, musically articulate, talent and imagination but that has long since proven to be a light that will never go out, such was the indelible impact of the sounds he created. There were few contemporaries that The Beatles acknowledged a competitive, respectful empathy towards but, alongside Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson was undoubtedly a prime source of peer group inspiration and his loss to the world of music will only begin to be appreciated now the book is finally closed on his life’s work.

Sly & The Family Stone – Dance To The Music

Lost to the world the same week, another iconic performer and visionary whose period at the top of his game was frustratingly brief. However, the fusion of soul and R&B that kicked the doors of funk down to the ground, not to mention the ahead-of-the-game multi-cultural ethos pounded relentlessly by the Sly Stone led Family Stone surely paved the way for everything soul and electro became over the ensuing fifty years; that funky train cannot be stopped and will never be silenced.

Marianne Faithfull – Vagabond Ways

Most of the obituaries for Marianne focused on her orthodoxy shaking breakthrough in the sixties and her not always so clean-cut connections to the Rolling Stones, it is worth remembering however that she never let go of music as a creative, expressive outlet. Indeed on cuts like this one from 1999, she did a lot to reinforce her perceived public image with songs of this ilk that only served to add to the legend.

Max Romeo – Wet Dream

Arguably the greatest thing about Max Romeo’s classic ‘Wet Dream’ from 1969 was Max’s attempts to explain the clean, innocent meaning of the song years later. You see, according to Max the song had nothing to do with sex and the chorus line “lie down girl let me push it up, push it up” were merely an instruction to his female companion to take cover while he pushed his finger to the ceiling to repair a leaking roof. I’m in full agreement with Max, the song could have been about no other scenario.

Roberta Flack – Compared To What

Her two massive hits ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ and ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ quite rightly dominated the reverential chat and legacy surrounding Roberta but there was a lot more to admire in this piano pounding, gospel infused, soul powerhouse as this clip of her tearing into the opening track on her debut album surely attests.

Bill Fay – The Never Ending Happening

Bill received a welcome and deserved late career resurrection in which his mellow, richly detailed songwriting enjoyed a 21st century renaissance, a second coming that is all to rare in the music industry. That said, he remains one of the big names among the record collecting community thanks to the scarcity and £100+ rated value of his 1967 Deram label b-side ‘Screams In The Ears’ which has enough timelessness to indelibly stand as one of the essential slices of freakbeat period British psychedelia.

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 9th June 2025

The Milk – I Need Your Love

Top new retro soul tune taken from this now well established band’s fourth album ‘Borderlands’. The only thing that gets in the way of music that references another era is if the style outweighs the substance but if, as is very much the case here, the backbone is a great song then things really do start to happen. I first caught sound of The Milk back in 2012 when their anger fuelled ‘Broke Up The Family’ really spoke to a personal situation unfolding for me at the time but real class tends to be permanent and thirteen years later, here they are proving to be one still tasty milk that has definitely not gone off with time.

Natalie Bergman – Dance

Add this insistent little beast to the quite fertile crop of grainy, sixties go-go inspired alternative girl pop splendour currently abounding, most recently witnessed here in the hands of Lael Neale. The thing I cannot escape with Bergman’s music is that underlying current of sorrow and melancholic reflection which even manages to seep through on a groove driven dance number like this one. Delve deeper into her back story and some unspeakably tragic events are not too far from the surface, events which she was working through during the healing hymns of her last album ‘Mercy’ but here the life and light at the end of that tunnel feels like it is within touching distance. New album ‘My Home Is Not In This World’ is coming soon on Third Man Records.

Richard Dawson – More Than Real

Speaking of hymns, this really does have that sombre meditative quality that prompts a listener to stop and just listen, to absorb and reflect. Taken from Richard’s latest album ‘End of the Middle’ released on Weird World / Domino which to these ears is a work of outsider genius. Richard’s style is akin to that of a primitive painter, you know the kind that get dismissed by people saying “I could do that”, but his uninhibited melodic lines and wayward form defying structures cut straight to both the minutiae and emotional core of everyday and, as in this song, overwhelming real life traumas and situations. I find it impossible not to be moved by the identifiable realities he touches upon in his work and believe him to be a genuine national treasure.

Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You

A real change of pace with this one and the first of this weeks new music recommendations that could be placed in terms of its club friendly sound alone in the modern era. I feel that there is a lot of new R&B with roots and echoes in urban grime culture that loses me with an over produced, all-too-clean sheen airbrushing out a lot of the human heartbeat that makes soul music so special. But there are artists for whom that complaint does not apply and Jorja Smith is one, even with the face-slapping, bass driven, studio template this track is built around. There is still that jazzy voice carrying it, the punch and pull of Jorja’s authentic, un-contrived personality pumping everything that you hear which all serve to make this tune impossible to ignore.

The Horsenecks – Baker City Blues

This duo are an Oregon based husband and wife duo comprising Gabrielle Macrae (fiddle, guitar, bass, vocals) and Barry Southern (banjo, guitar, dobro, vocals) and they play an old time fiddle and bluegrass grain of country-folk. So much of the new music I feature these days might have a style that harks back to a long gone era (like the old soul sounds of this weeks opener or the many sixties garage and psych bands I play) but the thing that always bumps an act up into current relevance is if they are creating something wholly new and original within that framework. That is what the Horsenecks do here, playing a classic sounding tune newly written by Macrae which also appears as the opening track on their forthcoming ‘In The West’ album released on Tiki Parlour Recordings.

Robert Forster – Strawberries

I have just returned from a couple of days of rural escape in North Norfolk during which a meal in a village pub was rendered excruciating by an entitled, middle-class family invading the dining space of everyone else in the room due to their need to set up a phone tripod and film themselves dining and playing cards for Instagram, wilfully unaware as to their invasiveness on the evening of others. They even roped in bar staff to take photos. The mother spent so much time exacting her camera angles and poses that none of her meal was spent actually interacting with her own children, one of whom felt the need to apologise on his mothers behalf to an elderly couple and attempt to explain to them what Instagram is. Anyway, I say all this because this charming new film by Robert Forster and his partner does nothing more than address the very middle class problem of identifying the person who ate all the delicious strawberries. It is delightfully charming and I could not wipe off the cheery smile it put on my face, taken from Forster’s new album on Tapete Records.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 5th June 2025

Pentangle – Travelling Song

The favourite new album release at Fruit Tree Records this week is the Lavinia Blackwall ‘The Making’ record and so, in honour of its acid-folk splendour, here are another half dozen cherries of a similar ilk picked from that late 60s/early 70s period that Lavinia draws so much inspiration from. Top of the pile are Pentangle whose magnificent melange of influences created music that was a fusion of jazz and folk with a worldly wise outlook that transcends the era in which it is forever connected.

Fotheringay – Too Much Of Nothing

Sandy Denny’s first post-Fairport Convention project was this band, Fotheringay, who were only around long enough to release one album in their lifetime. Consequently, film footage is scarce which makes the excellent colour quality of this clip even more special. Undoubtedly it was Sandy who was the star presence in this combo and personally, I would pick her ‘Nothing More’ composition about former Fairport colleague Richard Thompson as the real standout track but this version of a Bob Dylan tune, taken from his at the time unreleased ‘Basement Tapes’, is a fine take with Trevor Lucas on lead vocals.

The Incredible String Band – Painting Box

The Incredibles were the most psychedelic of all the acid-folk brigade, both in terms of their multi-coloured sartorial elegance, the far-out nature of their approach and the apparent full embracing of hippie ideals and lifestyle. Their music too could stretch and weave way beyond all normal boundaries of song structure, occasionally flying close to the brink of collapse but always somehow magically holding together to form something unique, confusing and often beautiful. This is one of their lovelier melodic moments, performed with Julie Felix on her TV show, of a track that featured on the 1967 LP ‘The Five Thousand Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion’.

Renaissance – Can You Understand?

If the Incredibles represented the more psych end of the acid-folk spectrum then Renaissance leaned towards an exploration of the classical elements in their sound, especially as they were in the first few years of their existence. The original line-up featured two former members of the Yardbirds, Jim McCarty and Keith Relf alongside Keith’s sister Jane on vocals. However, for Renaissance, it would only be after wholesale personnel changes, including the introduction of Annie Haslem on vocals as featured here, that would push them to wider recognition and chart success, most notably on ‘Northern Lights’, a massive hit later in the decade.

Magnet – Willow’s Song

Perhaps the defining song of the whole acid-folk movement of the era, this was played and recorded by a band who were not really a band at all in the truest sense, more like a group of musicians assembled for the purpose of recording the soundtrack to the 1973 dark cult classic film ‘The Wicker Man’. Starring Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland, it is remembered for its use in an erotic scene where Ekland’s character Willow sings to Woodward’s Neil Howie seductively through the wall of an adjacent room. The music for the film was actually arranged, scored and partly composed by Paul Giovanni.

Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Richard & Linda’s 1974 album of the same name is one of the essential releases in UK folk-rock of any period, not just the early seventies. The live TV clip here is admittedly not a patch on the original studio version but film footage of the duo is not exactly in plentiful supply and therefore is offered up as the features are about showing performances, where possible, as much as hearing them. The song is about as upbeat as the pair would ever get whilst still retaining some of Richard’s trademark doom, even if it is merely in the sense that this night on the tiles is bound to have a messy ending. My first introduction to their work came in 1999 when John Peel played this song on the radio, continuing to say something along the lines of “anybody interested in music should listen to Richard Thompson”. Well, yes indeed!

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 2nd June 2025

Deradoorian – Set Me Free

Angel Deradoorian first gained wide reaching attention as part of Dirty Projectors, especially for her contributions to their outstanding 2009 LP ‘Bitte Orca,’ but it is as a solo artist that her ethereal honey has been allowed to mature into something quite mysterious and lush. Her debut ‘The Expanding Flower Planet’ in 2015 is a fascinating starting point, bringing strands of art-rock and Kraftwerk-esque electronica to the table so it is superb news to report that this evolution continues with a third solo record released on Fire Records entitled ‘Ready For Heaven’. Of the album she says it “is partly about watching humanity erode. It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?” Whilst this outlook might sound rather bleak in tone, it would be a whole lot worse if we did not have redemptive music of the kind created by Deradoorian to help us get by.

Robert Jon & The Wreck – Better Of Me

Sometimes it feels like the biggest present day, and certainly highest selling, country albums do not really sound like country at all. The production is a pop one in all but name and to these ears, a hint of token fiddle and a quick slide guitar drive-by do not a great country album make. Luckily, scratch the surface and there is still some authentic shit-kickin’ southern rock style country to be found as heard here by these Orange County amped-up troubadours. The quintet have been harvesting this good stuff since 2011 and are about to release their tenth LP and on ‘Better Of Me’ they say “it’s a rollicking, heartfelt track about staying true to yourself and moving forward — and will be featured on our upcoming album ‘Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes’, we are so excited for you guys to hear this one!” They can afford to be excited too, people are going to love this one!

Ewan Currie – Big Pine Key

Where did this one spring from? It is positively fizzing with hot sunshine-pop vibes and a classy production that references the Beach Boys, High Llamas and Stereolab with just a splash of tropicalia, a light breeze of exotica and a flashlight of psychedelia. A little internet research tells me Ewan is best known for his work as the frontman of The Sheepdogs and BROS although I confess these names are not on my radar yet. However, this could be the trigger that is about to change all that because ‘Big Pine Key’ is from an equally superb new album called ‘Strange Vacation’ which is available now on Right On Records.

Tanita Tikaram – This Perfect Friend

Often when an artist has big mainstream chart success early in their career, as Tanita did back in 1988 with her first release, they never reach those heights again because that early burst of inspiration was the pinnacle of their potential and post-success, the motivation that originally pushed-on is lost forever. This is certainly not the case with Tanita Tikaram; if anything the 37 year old ‘Ancient Heart’ record represents her more primitive and unrefined mode for the work she has produced ever since has reliably matured to form a catalogue that is quite outstanding in the eloquent, fervent sophistication of its writing. That she has comparatively flown under-the-radar since her debut remains one of the inexplicable injustices of the music industry for Tikaram is genuinely one of our finest singer-songwriters; this is a live rendition of a song taken from upcoming new album ‘LIAR (Love Isn’t A Right)’ which is excellent news indeed.

Beebe Gallini – Begged Borrowed And Stealed

OK so, this is a cover of a fuzzy sixties garage tune probably best known to lovers of that retro movement after it’s inclusion on the 1998 expanded ‘Nuggets’ box set being performed by The Rare Breed. While this quirkily re-named version by fuzz fanatics Beebe Gallini may not deviate too far from the familiar 1966 45 (re-issued in almost identical form a year later under the name Ohio Express), it is absolutely played with the right kind of conviction and all the energy and rough edged exuberance can be felt vibrating out of these grooves newly released on Soundflat Records. There is always a place here for garage rock played with unpretentious attitude and this, indisputably, is a band who do it right!

Ebba Asman – Lately

The sound may be smooth and soulful with a production that is equally Jazz FM approvingly plush but over the top is a vocal that is positively teeming with ache, regret, hurt and loss. Ebba Asman is singing this like she means it which is very often the one element that can lift something out of the realms of background music and into the kind of music that grabs you by the ears and demands an emotional response. Ebba Asman is a Swedish trombonist and songwriter who is on the first rung of the ladder career wise but is definitely showing enough here, with a tune from her newly released ‘When You Know’ album, to mark her out as one to watch.

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 30th May 2025

Supergrass – Lenny

It feels like there is a lot of Britpop nostalgia in the air right now, what with the really creditable return of Pulp, the upcoming Oasis reunion concerts and frequent references to 30th anniversary landmarks of notable 1995 Britpop releases. The Supergrass debut album is one that I have repeatedly heard included in the conversation these past few days and quite rightly so, it really did seem to cement the notion that something was happening with all these guitar bands enjoying high profile pop chart hits. Guitar bands of the indie scene were clearly nothing new in 1995, but it can be argued the other high flyers were tangibly born out of other movements. Blur were riding on the coat tails of indie-dance and shoegaze in 1991, Oasis were indisputably indebted to the flowery end of the Madchester scene of Stone Roses with a sprinkle of Merseyside throwbacks The La’s whilst Suede had burst onto the weekly music press radar in 1992 on the back of a seventies Bowie and Roxy Music aesthetic. Supergrass, on the other hand, arrived at the moment Britpop was starting to become recognised as a movement, seemingly tailor made to fulfil the mission drive as being set out by Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher. They were a young vibrant band, with a classic sixties inspired cartoon image, who were also a tight playing unit writing their own earworm ready songs with a one-way ticket to the top of the singles chart. That debut album, ‘I Should Coco,’ has not aged one bit and the Deep Purple referencing of this underplayed classic alone shows what a serious proposition they were both when they arrived then as they evolved…

Dodgy – Water Under The Bridge

A look back at the Britpop years does tend to throw up a number of also rans that give the impression the scene overall was not that inspiring. Personally, I don’t need to revisit the work of Menswear or Gene but isn’t that the way with every movement? By that measure, there are also a multitude of acts who put out amazing quality work that have unjustifiably faded from view. Dodgy hit big in 1996 with the oh-so catchy ‘Good Enough’ but they had been furnishing the British pop landscape with impossibly lush offerings for a few years before that. This tune from 1993 more than adequately demonstrates Dodgy’s long standing mastery of major/minor melodic magnificence…

Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You

History dictates that the shining lights of Britpop were all artists making their breakthrough in the 1990’s but in reality, there were a quite a few acts contributing to this wave of retro sounding pop chart action who had enjoyed success in previous decades. Paul Weller, Suggs and Terry Hall are all fine examples of names who enjoyed a raised profile with their own music on the back of Britpop appropriate releases (it is not unreasonable to suggest Paul Weller’s ‘Stanley Road’ is one of the classic albums of the whole movement, especially with that Mod classic Peter Blake album art) but arguably the most enduring single with instant whip echoes of the period is this little wonder by Edwyn Collins. Edwyn was best known as the singer with early eighties indie darlings Orange Juice but this 1995 marvel, complete with gizmo flexing guitar riffage, successfully repositioned him as a solo attraction and probably, all things considered, remains his best loved song…

The Lemon Trees – Let It Loose

The other thing that Britpop raking turns up is a very real impression that there are multitude of undiscovered rock/pop nuggets waiting for an enterprising compiler. This would definitely be one, a tune that pushes every guitar pop band button with assured competence, something that is probably not surprising when you consider that the lead singer here, Guy Chambers, was the man mainly behind all the musical hit landmarks Robbie Williams would enjoy towards the end of the decade. Here however, the ex-World Party sideman had to settle for the artistic satisfaction of creating a great indie pop tune without the hit single status and widespread acclaim…

Edward Ball – The Mill Hill Self Hate Club

Ed Ball was a member of the Television Personalities and The Times as well as a number of other fairly under-the-radar acts in the eighties and nineties who had his profile, comparatively, raised with the endorsement of Alan McGee’s Creation Records and some proactive publicising of Ed’s solo work during the peak of the Britpop era. This one is especially resonant with its mentioning of London locales and a video that includes cameos from McGee himself and one of the few Premier League footballers known to be a lover of indie bands, Graeme Le Saux. Above all though, ‘The Mill Hill Self Hate Club’ was a top level bluesy, folk-rocking pop tune that deserved a brighter day in the sun…

The Wonder Stuff – The Size Of A Cow

The great myth that has grown about Britpop is that it was born out of Suede and Blur deliberately making records that sounded undeniably like works by classic British bands of the previous three decades around 1992 and 1993 before the journalist Stuart Maconie coined the phrase in an article in the British music press. This does not stand up to a deeper scrutiny as my final selection more than adequately demonstrates, for here are the Wonder Stuff brilliantly doing Britpop before Britpop in 1991 (with a top ten pop tune shamelessly referencing British pop greats like Slade, Madness and The Jam). Not only that but revisit the pages of the NME and Melody Maker in 1991 and you will easily find journalists describing what the Stuffies were doing as Britpop, so it is clear the idea and the template had been floating around for a few years before the more enterprising commentators put a stamp on it. The only thing missing with the Wonder Stuff was the look, they still favoured the shaggy haired grebo image here but everything else is in place. I fondly recall the Wonder Stuff lighting up the pop landscape in 1991 and regretted that they really had no interest in following through by playing the commercial game. Mike Scott’s Waterboys had their biggest pop success too that spring with a re-released ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ and he too resisted any demands to comply with publicity and promotion campaigns the marketing department pushed for, he like the Wonder Stuff held firm to his deference to the artistic integrity of the music. This is the primary difference between them and the Britpop generation that followed, as soon as Noel Gallagher had a voice the idea of aggressively pushing for the top became accepted, old fashioned indie speak of the “we like it and if anyone else does it’s a bonus” variety was consigned to history. Still, at least the Wonder Stuff made some undeniable ahead of its time Britpop, like this…!

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 26th May 2025

Sunny War – Cry Baby

Singer Sydney Ward has her latest album, ‘Armageddon In A Summer Dress’, out now on the increasingly reliable New West Records and it continues the astounding cutting edge this folk-punk agitator was showing on her previous, also highly praised, LP from 2023 ‘Anarchist Gospel’. This time around she has continued her exploration of roots music and incorporating a fuller band sound into her work and the end result is some of the best singer-songwriter fare you will find today. But she is authentic too and the side of her music that rose out of her early love of punk, especially the band Crass, can still be detected in her hard line message to listeners to live and act true to their beliefs and not bow down to social pressures. This is a recent live performance of a song which on the record also featured Valerie June…

Louis Philippe & The Night Mail – Pictures Of Anna

To my shame I have only just discovered that this artist, whose music is a lush hybrid of Brian Wilson referencing sunshine pop underpinning finely tuned melodic writing with an ear and eye for a vintage 1920’s aesthetic whilst retaining a foothold in the melting pot of the 21st century, is only an alias; his real name is Philippe Auclair. That name is known to me in an entirely different context as an Arsenal football fan and it is in the world of knowledgeable, classy sports writing that I have encountered his name before. It is clear however that the music world is where the consummate talent lies and latest album ‘The Road To The Sea’ on Tapete Records is one of the must-hear outlier curio albums of the year thus far…

Matthew Nowhere (ft. Lunar Twin) – Transforming

Here is San Francisco’s Matthew Nowhere’s latest video shot in California and Italy and it’s electronica is so lush behind the stirring, cloudy singing of Lunar Twin’s Bryce Boudrea. Nowhere says the video “is deeply resonant and captures something ineffable about the experience I was trying to convey with the song itself”. This is delightfully modern sounding in the way that futurism appeared in the 1980s, as such it has the human touch production feel that pioneers like Kraftwerk and Arthur Baker injected their work with. Matthew Nowhere’s debut album is out now…

Lavinia Blackwall – The Making

The new album of the same name from former Trembling Bells chanteuse Lavinia Blackwall is released this week and you can ensure you collect a copy of the vinyl LP on her bandcamp page. Lavinia is the living, breathing essence of that late sixties, early seventies gothic folk sound and she deserves some wider recognition for the songs she creates continue to expand that particular canon and find a home in our modern day musical landscape. And she is sincere too, there is no fakery on display here, Lavinia’s musical DNA is sourced from period Pentangle, Steeleye Span and Fotheringay albums and the like from which a sublime old-England magic still rises, as can be heard and bathed in wondrously here…

Sam Amidon – Big Sky

It’s a talented artist who can remove all trace of Lou Reed from a Lou Reed song and still end up with something fresh, deep and mesmerising but that is exactly what Sam has done here. It is a track that appeared on his ‘Salt River’ album, released earlier this year on River Lea, in which Sam approaches the use of synthesised textures and modernism from the perspective of a folky campfire setting to come up with an album that is impossible to pigeonhole and easy to become entranced by. As for the ‘Big Sky’ song, it was originally kind of buried as the closing track on Lou’s 2000 album ‘Ecstasy’ and a real up-tempo rocker to boot but, as with all the best writers, Reed’s work contains multitudes and Sam has found an altogether more mystical realm for the piece here but no less legitimate; in fact it has the potential to be the definitive version people refer to in years to come…

Emma-Jean Thackray – Maybe Nowhere

Taken from her second album ‘Weirdo’, a record which has been recorded and written amid tragedy after Thackray unexpectedly and suddenly lost her long term partner. It followed her 2021 album ‘Yellow’ which had received widespread acclaim for its bold jazz futurism and eloquent groove based explorations. All things considered, it would have been entirely understandable if her subsequent work had taken an introspective turn but, although you could argue it still has, she has instead stared her trauma down with an intentionally earth pounding, afro-jazz swinging, indie-dance grooving explosion of an album. It can be heard clearly in this tune, that sense of loss and confusion burns through every layer of sound, but the need to squeeze every last drop out of the life you still have stands tall as well, this is brave and beautiful stuff…

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 23rd May 2025

Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet

Bob Dylan is arguably the greatest living songwriter on the planet, only Paul McCartney could have a shout at being as culturally significant, and this week marks Bob’s 84th birthday so this weeks half dozen older song selection is a Dylan celebration in honour of his enduring career. This tired, forlorn and reflective song is a real beauty from an LP, 1997’s ‘Time Out Of Mind’, that I frequently conclude and fight a corner for being the greatest of Dylan’s entire back catalogue. It maybe lacks the cultural impact of his famous mid sixties releases but as a collection of songs it is thematically and sonically extremely satisfying and pulls you in for a rewarding return visit again and again…

Jeff Tweedy – Simple Twist Of Fate

Jeff is one of the great US songwriters of our time too, particularly for his timeless music as the lead singer of Americana lynchpins Wilco, and he approaches his version of this Dylan with understanding and emotiveness as if the song were his own. He digs deep and gets lost inside this lyric originally from a Dylan album, ‘Blood On The Tracks’, that mediated on the subject of relationships, divorce, heartbreak and separation with a depth and 20/20 eye that few have equalled before or since…

Joan Baez – Love Is Just A Four Letter Word

Ever since Joan played this song to camera in the extensive Dylan documentary ‘No Direction Home’ it has been associated with her romantic connection to Bob that briefly bloomed in the sixties and evolved into legend when she wrote about it on her own ‘Diamonds And Rust’ in the seventies. The brilliant story around this song is that Joan was around Bob when he spontaneously made it up then, playing it back to him at a later date, he enquired “that’s pretty good, who wrote it?”. “You did, you dope” she replied before claiming it as part of her own repertoire from there on in…

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel

There is a similar story to the Joan Baez tune with this one, the connection being it is an act picking up on one of Dylan’s discarded scraps and turning it into one of the most popular tunes in their own catalogue. This time Old Crow Medicine Show picked up on a fragment of a tune called ‘Wagon Wheel’ that surfaced on a bootleg record taken from studio sessions around 1973. They wrote to Bob and asked for permission to finish the tune off, although if you manage to hear the source material it is clear the song was pretty much all there already, to which they received a positive reply and away they went, delighting crowds with their wagon wheeling ever since…

Lou Reed – Foot Of Pride

Lou Reed and Bob Dylan today seem a natural fit as writers and performers thanks to their masterful capacity for poetic lyrics and the strong individualistic personality of their singing styles. Their paths rarely crossed though, but Dylan did go through a period in the 1980s when he was very vocal about his admiration for Lou, especially in the liner notes for his 1985 ‘Biograph’ box set when he set Reed was one of very few modern artists he had any time for. Lou returned the compliment here, at Dylan’s 1992 Madison Square Garden all star tribute concert, with a spinning rock mass rendition of a song that had first appeared the previous year on Dylan’s very first Bootleg Series box set release…

Timothee Chalamet – Outlaw Blues / Three Angels

The grand service Chalamet has done to promote the Dylan legend with his incredible biopic portrayal of the great mans early years cannot be understated. However, even more delight should be derived from the way he has played Bob Dylan material, not only in the film ‘A Complete Unknown’ but when promoting it as he did here live on US TV. Timothee played a brace of deep cuts too, no mere imitation, no stars in their eyes karaoke, nothing played with a knowing nod and a wink to the audience; no Chalamet did exactly what Bob himself would have done, he played the songs exactly how he felt them and in doing so made them his own.

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