Category Archives: Fresh Juice

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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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 19th May 2025

Kassi Valazza – Your Heart’s A Tin Box

The warm hazy country shimmer in Kassi’s music certainly caught my attention in 2023 with her wonderful ‘Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing’ album and she has pushed on further up and further in with this years ‘From Newman Street’ LP. That same analogue tone remains but do I detect a little more bite and punch this time? That jumps out of this song with an opening lyric that seems to pull its own limbs out in frustration at the state of the music business now. Honestly, if I won the lottery I would make sure artists like Valazza are worrying a lot less about making ends meet and just focusing on their craft as they should be. You hear too much these days about artists playing sell out shows and still running at a loss and I guess this song is evidence that Kassi endures similar battles. What we fail to understand is that the real artists are in it because their craft is a calling, they do not see it as a ticket to wealth and luxury. They just have to make their music. We should be glad that Kassi Valazza is doing just that, this is the authentic sound of country in 2025 and it is pretty damn marvellous…

My Morning Jacket – Half A Lifetime

Jim James and his rootsy rocking band are reliably dependable when it comes to new music. There may not be reinventing the Southern rock templates they perpetually swim around in but their music is full of crunching melodic groove and to this day, every time they put out a new record (as they have here with ‘Is’) you can be sure there will be at least a handful of classic sounding pop/rock hooks to stimulate the senses of the listener…

Greentea Peng – Raw

Here is another artist who I have raved about in the past, in this case around the time of her stunning ‘Man Made’ debut LP back in 2021. Well, Greentea Peng has now released ‘Tell Dem It’s Sunny’ and in addition to reporting on it being a sharp, confident and attention grabbing step back into the ring, it is also thrilling to observe how her sound is evolving. Where before I would say the dominant vibe was a dub heavy throbbing rumble, in 2025 there is a real soul in the voice breaking out of these tracks and the music itself, as heard on this undeniable live clip, is a tasty mix of trip-hop and jazzy motions. Dig into this right away…

Father John Misty – I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All

Not exactly a new one as it appeared on the Father John Misty album released late last year, ‘Mahashmashana’, but it is new to me and jumped out of the radio speakers the other day demanding some attention and love. The Misty baroque chamber pop aesthetic remains, as you would expect, but it is just such a head turner when an artist can occupy this space with songs that sound so simultaneously fresh but also like they have been around forever (well since 1971 or thereabout anyway). Sometimes it happens that a songwriter stumbles on a bit of low hanging fruit, a title that surely has to have been used before but it is available and they then tack a brilliantly crafted new song to it, which seems to be what has occurred here…

St Vincent – Violent Times

While the Fresh Juice weekly offerings were away for a time on this site, I guess I missed quite a few releases and tracks I would have loved to have featured. So, here is another recent live performance by an artist whose 2024 album ‘All Born Screaming’ has subsequently won Grammy awards but even more significantly, remains a worthy inclusion in this weeks Fresh Juice half dozen. I personally do not believe St Vincent to have fallen short with any releases for more than fifteen years, which basically covers the whole of their career. Annie’s execution of art-rock presentation alongside beautiful, sometimes abrasive, occasionally challenging but always worth listening to music makes her one of the definitive artists of the early 21st century period in music. Digitally witness her in action on late night TV here…

Wet Leg – Catch These Fists

Finally for this week another selection from the recent highlights of music on TV file. Wet Leg have reawakened and sound like they will not be among those who suffer from underwhelming second album syndrome. Their debut record was three years ago but from what I can see here, the time has been well spent pushing their sound into far rockier, a lot edgier and even a possibly more violent realm? Obviously if you perform on TV with an angry zombie sitting at the back of the stage then you are consciously not presenting something too cute but the jagged edges on display with this one suggest that new Wet Leg album could well be worth waiting for…

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 16th May 2025

The Renegades – Thirteen Women

It’s a sixties garage rock themed half dozen track selections this week beginning with this, a raucous and still ever-so-slightly cheesy version of a song that, up to that point, was maybe best known as a Bill Haley b-side. It has a special place in my garage rock heart for it was a routine enquiry about this tune, being played by a dealer at a Record Fair, that led to him giving me a cassette tape compilation he’d made of similar tracks which proved to be my gateway to a lifetime of sixties garage and psych collecting. I think it might have been that little keyboard riff that hooked me in with this one? The Renegades were from Birmingham but had their biggest success in Finland and they are just one of hundreds of under-the-radar Beatles / Stones inspired bands from the era who put out killer 45s…. (more to follow, but first)…

The Sonics – Strychnine

This, now legendary in the right circles, band from Tacoma, Washington, produced a raw and ragged, totally aggressive sound that was punk by any other name. Their debut album ‘Here Are The Sonics’ seems so ahead of its time for a 1964 release with singer / main songwriter Gerry Roslie attacking his vocals with a pure venom that must have sent a lightning jolt through any of the middle America populace that encountered this at the time. Original film material is scarce but I am good with this later clip from The Sonics 21st century reformation; if nothing else, the gig they played in London sometime around 2008 remains one of my all time definitive life-affirming gigs…

The Lemon Drops – I live In The Springtime

Chicago’s The Lemon Drops only issued one 45 in 1967 but, despite that, they still managed to release more incredible singles than Spandau Ballet and Heaven 17 combined (in my opinion). In fact this rather delicious fuzzy guitar explosion of sound on the Rembrandt label was something of a curio in its own right because there was a version released, which was actually the more common, or at least more frequently heard version, that was issued as a mix without the bass and drums. The track presented here has the full mix although weirdly the edition without the full range of instruments remains satisfyingly hypnotic and glows with a dawn-of-summer hazy warmth. Just goes to show what a good song it is then doesn’t it?

The Smoke – My Friend Jack

The Smoke were an English psych band from York who played with a pure garage energy and it is indeed a treat to find some film footage of them that captures the Mod edge in their style. This one was an outstanding 1967 45 that effectively bottles the spirit of the period; inevitably it was banned by the BBC and therefore received very limited exposure. Sometimes the British institution could be a little too trigger happy with their black listings, a mere hint of a drug reference needlessly halting a promising tune at birth, but here I suppose you have to admit the lyric goes beyond a vague suggestion of chemical stimulants. At least they had a number 2 hit in Germany though, a great single will always find a way eventually…

Rupert’s People – Dream On My Mind

It is hard to definitively define who Rupert’s People really were or who they were supposed to be. Songwriter Rod Lynton’s original band, the Extraverts, had split but he gained a management contract as part of a new act called Sweet Feeling at which point an acetate, including a song called Charles Brown, was advised to be re-written to the tune of Air on a G String, reflecting the classical ambitions acts like Procol Harum and the Moody Blues were flexing successfully at the time. The band Les Fleur de Lys were involved in the recording but then backed out necessitating the formation of a new group for Lynton’s work, which is where Rupert’s People arrive. By the time of this track they were deep diving into the flowery, childhood memory referencing psychedelia stylings of the period which, bizarrely, left a groovy little psych-rocker like this languishing as a 1967 b-side…

Ty Wagner – I’m A No Count

This was one of only two 45s that fell under the garage umbrella issued by Wagner, ‘I’m A No Count’ being the first from 1966 on the Chattahoochee label. It is an out-and-out sleazy and scuzzy outsider bluesy rock classic; no wonder Jon Spencer was happy to showcase Ty on the, actually quite recent, clip below. What I love about this is how Ty comes across as completely and utterly the cool real deal, he does not break into a smile even for a split second! If you enjoy this you need to check out the original recording (it’s findable, as most things are online nowadays) but for now, let me sign off this weeks dig into the audio / visual archives with a performance that is about as real as you can get…

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Fresh Juice

Fresh Juice 12th May 2025

Galactic & Irma Thomas – Puppet On Your String

Irma Thomas is the goddess of New Orleans soul music, in fact you can go even further than that and claim she is the true queen of soul. It seems barely comprehensible that she was making classic R&B as far back as the fifties and can still, in 2025 at the age of 84, be involved in a collaboration project like this and deliver vocals with that voice still sounding as devastatingly wonderful as it ever did. She has made an album with fellow New Orleans chameleons Galactic called ‘Audience With The Queen’ and it is possibly already the essential soul release of the year. If you don’t know Irma Thomas then I urge you to go deeper, music does not get much better than that which has her name attached to it; maybe start with ‘It’s Raining’ and then move on from there but do not ignore this, a 2025 pleasing teaser for sure…

The Waterboys – Hopper’s On Top

Mike Scott’s Waterboys have just released a concept album built around the life, work, reputation and legacy of Dennis Hopper and despite my initial reservations, it has proved to be a well structured, frequently deviating and surprising journey in song and sound. I think my initial caution might have had something to do with this video, packed with magic carpet riding cliches and literal lyrical representations but then I have to remember, it is often the direct route that Mike Scott takes with his writing that results in so many songs that I love. And so it is here, if Mike wants us to know he thinks Hopper was a genius he’s not going to subtly weave it into a poetic yarn with indeterminate meaning, he is just going to come right out and sing it; but then love, sincerity and focus are all ingredients that have fed into the greatest Waterboys tracks of our lives and that is no different here, genius!

Samantha Crain – B-Attitudes

Taken from her new album ‘Gumshoe’, this track seems to be about the feeling you get when the idea of finding your own home, your own little space in the world speaks to you the loudest and you set about realising it. That is definitely something I am experiencing in recent times after finally settling in a town and a home that feels like me. Samantha is dependably addictive here, clearly still in command of her easy fluency in singer-songwriter craft that has been under serious threat in recent years, not least after a car accident left her unable to play her guitar, an injury that thankfully she was able to find a long path to recovery with. Here is a singer working out her life stuff through music that is regularly a thrill to hear…

Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts – Big Change

This is Neil’s first release backed by the Chrome Hearts, taken from the forthcoming album ‘Talkin To The Trees’. It feels absurd that in such unsettling economic and political times, especially in the US and Canada, that it is still the old guard like Neil Young who are planting their flags in the protest ground. He is whipping up a storm here, offering a rallying cry of big change in a moment when it’s inevitably going to come along anyway whether you like it or not so you might as well try and fight for something good to emerge. Like the late great Phil Ochs, Neil Young really cares a lot and badly wants his music to get inside folks heads and make something happen. Unlike Phil though, he can accept that the preferred option may not necessarily arrive and so can console himself with the visceral thrill of a loudly cranked guitar and amp to get him through the day. Whatever it takes…

White Rose Motor Oil – Hit In The Face

If the previous track feels like a bit of a slap in the face to shake some action, then this tune is the soundtrack to the moment of impact and the reverberations of all that follow. It is a rollin’ and tumblin’ rockin’ rockabilly thunder crack of a tune that revs its engine delightfully with every repeat of the “you’re gonna get hit in the face” chorus line. They are a red hot duo from Denver with a fire lighting zipper of a female vocalist and a love of playing fast and loud. Together they surf the waves between cowpunk and garage rock which is a pretty exhilarating place to be if you can manage to catch it, so do not miss out on this one…

Silver Synthetic – Rosalie

A couple of years ago Silver Synthetic caught my ear with a debut album that occupied a very pleasing little side street situated between the late period of the Velvet Underground and seventies FM country rock. It was a lush sound that they played with belief and proficiency and it is a welcome return that I flag up here as the band offer similarly breezy Americana on a brand new song, which also happens to be the title track of the new Silver Synthetic album…

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Old Fruit

Old Fruit 9th May 2025

Ivor Cutler – Shoplifters

One of the true British eccentrics of the twentieth century, Ivor Cutler could make records that seemed primitive and childlike in their execution but somehow snuck some depth in through the back door of your mind and could have you think about things in a whole new way. He would mostly accompany himself on harmonium, as seen in this clip, and was beloved by the late night outposts of BBC radio, in fact his radio appearances from the late fifties right through to regular appearances on the John Peel Radio One show probably leant him a relevance that his actual record sales may never have afforded him. I give his work some time whenever I come across it…

The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind

If you think talk about pop music being better in the sixties is all just a bit overblown then try and argue against the merits of a track like this. From 1966, these were an Australian beat group who scored big in the charts with one of the most piledriving, adrenalin fuelled, pop rockers imaginable and underneath it all they wrote a great song, with all due consideration given to structure, melody and dynamic punch. Wow! Fab! Groovy! Yeah, I love sixties pop…

Bob Wills – Take Me Back To Tulsa

It’s all about the sound, all about the western swing and the hard to resist rhythm. This is what country was defined by in the forties and fifties when the genre still had its rough and ready roots fully visible. The vocalist here is Luke Wills while bandleader Bob is easily identifiable as he’s the one with the unexpectedly high pitched voice who frequently calls out between the verses. Some ears find Bob Wills a bit much on his recordings because he could not stop calling out, mostly without any need, the music was uplifting and infectious enough in itself, he did not need to whip it up and solicit the attention quite as much as this, but then you could argue that the band would not have been quite so well drilled without his exacting standards…

Albert Lee – Tear It Up

Not that anyone should need convincing about the guitar playing and authenticity of Albert Lee but here is some undeniable evidence of his genius anyway. It was said by a favourite radio DJ of mine once that Rock n Roll is basically just Country music played faster and while that generalisation fails to account for the evolutions in Rock music that would explode in the sixties and seventies, there is an essentially correct element to the roots of the statement. And with a performance like this, it is roots that Albert Lee is working with, ‘Tear It Up’ is a ripper of a performance that pulls in original seeds of country, bluegrass and rockabilly and boils it all up into a barnstorm of raw and ready musical delight… tear it up!

Blossom Dearie – 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)

Blossom, seen here performing on the David Frost show in 1971, could so easily be written about as though she were a contemporary and equal in talent to someone like Nina Simone. She was a fine pianist who rarely showed off her true prowess and a warm, sincere interpreter of popular songs of the day who could pull in a jazzier element without losing touch with the songs soul. She was a demanding performer too who would not settle for anything less than the exact playing conditions she required, so photographers, chatters and smokers would be challenged without room for compromise. But Blossom was a very different beast to Nina, with her childlike voice, grandmotherly warmth and fondness for the twee (as heard here). But a phenomenal talent more than capable of a heart-wrenching performance and an ability to capture both innocence and refinement in the same breath…

Paul Simon – American Tune

So let’s finish this week with a classic selection from the writer of the previous tune. Paul Simon’s ‘American Tune’, heard here in a fifty year old TV performance, sounds like a prayer for America as much as its a weary lament. The sad thing is he could have written it last year as there are lines in there that still retain that level of contemporary relevance. I guess that does at least go to show what a genius songwriter Simon has always been, that a tune like this, which was probably thinking about Watergate and Vietnam, was written with such universal, ageless language that it can still work today. His guitar playing is pretty tasty too, something that maybe gets overlooked a little too much.

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