Overlooked Classic: Fantomas- The Director’s Cut

Imagine your favourite film scores, chopped up and put into a blender. That’s basically the ethos of the brilliant second Fantomas album The Director’s Cut from 2001. It’s a millennium mashup like no other. Essentially a bonkers supergroup, comprising Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Buzz Osbourne from The Melvins, Slayer’s Dave Lombardo and Trevor DunnContinue reading “Overlooked Classic: Fantomas- The Director’s Cut”

Overlooked Classic : Bat For Lashes- Two Suns (2009)

For me, Natasha Khan is a much overlooked singer songwriter. Bat For Lashes- her main musical project – are in that lovely sweet spot between classic songwriter and more experimental musician. I was thinking lately how she never quite gets her dues. It’s possible that she’s too strange for the Dua Lipa crowd, yet tooContinue reading “Overlooked Classic : Bat For Lashes- Two Suns (2009)”

Overlooked Classic : Ben Golomstock- Stories From the Moon

The late composer, DJ and musician Ben Golomstock created an album with some of his friends, and it’s glorious: a melee of Miranda Sex Garden style enchanted rock and the more classical, cinematic side. Having joined Miranda Sex Garden early doors, this album Golomstock co-wrote with his collaboraters can’t help but lean into the gothicContinue reading “Overlooked Classic : Ben Golomstock- Stories From the Moon”

Overlooked Classic: Lisa Germano- Lullaby For Liquid Pig

Multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano could have been dismissed as another “whisper singer”, but for the fact she can really sing, write and play. She always mines the saddest, most traumatic parts of her soul and turns them into eerie beauty. Dark night of the soul art can often be self-indulgent or mawkish, but Germano deals inContinue reading “Overlooked Classic: Lisa Germano- Lullaby For Liquid Pig”

Overlooked Classic : Sonic Youth -EVOL (1986)

The front cover shows Lung Leg, in a still from Richard Kern’s notorious film Submit To Me, doing her typically fucked-up, possessed writhing. Kern of course had collaborated with Sonic Youth on the ‘Death Valley 69’ video, but EVOL, which remains my favourite Sonic Youth album beside Daydream Nation, is a much different beast thanContinue reading “Overlooked Classic : Sonic Youth -EVOL (1986)”

Overlooked Classic: Broadcast- The Noise Made By People

Label: Warp Records 1 Long Was The Year2 Unchanging Window3 Minus One4 Come On Let’s Go5 Echo’s Answer6 Tower Of Our Tuning7 Papercuts8 You Can Fall9 Look Outside10 Until Then11 City In Progress12 Dead The Long Year http://warp.net/ Broadcast were formed in Birmingham in 1995 by singer Trish Keenan and James Cargill. Both shared a similar aesthetic and love of the esoteric. They quickly developed a huge following,Continue reading “Overlooked Classic: Broadcast- The Noise Made By People”

Overlooked Classics: Miranda Sex Garden – Suspiria

Katharine Blake’s band of merry goth minstrels – who ultimately expanded into the more “palatable” Mediaeval Baebes, were always wilfully out of step with the prevailing trends of the time. Britain in 1993 was mired in all things Britpop,: seventies Adidas tracksuits, floppy curtains hairstyles and bucket hats. Lads and ladettes stalked the land. MirandaContinue reading “Overlooked Classics: Miranda Sex Garden – Suspiria”

Overlooked Classics: The Fall- Bend Sinister

Mid-eighties Fall were, as ever, a strange proposition, fast becoming a cult band; yet always wilfully on the sidelines, casting caustic barbs at the more banal elements of pop culture. So it was with the ninth album, the brilliant Bend Sinister. It was named after the Nabokov novel. Even the cover points to the kindContinue reading “Overlooked Classics: The Fall- Bend Sinister”

Overlooked Classics: Amiina- Puzzle (2011)

Puzzle from 2011 saw the genre blurring Icelandic band Amiina experiment and expand even more, having started out as an all -female string quartet in Reykjavik. They looked like some kind of mad fin de siecle inventors catapulted into the twenty first century on the front cover, which seems entirely apposite: vintage and contemporary coexisting.Continue reading “Overlooked Classics: Amiina- Puzzle (2011)”

Overlooked Classics: Betty Davis – They Say I’m Different

In her spacesuit collars, hot pants and big boots,prowling around the stage, Betty Davis made Tina Turner look something of a shrinking violet. With her wild, hard -living reputation and unrestrained presence, Davis was allegedly too much for husband Miles, from whom she divorced after just one tempestuous year in 1969. This second studio album,Continue reading “Overlooked Classics: Betty Davis – They Say I’m Different”