Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Feed The Rats. More 90s noise rock-influenced niceness here, pretty much what you’d get if you chucked Sabbath, Motorhead and Hawkwind into the proverbial blender, and set it to ‘liquidise’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4gnbSFjU4

All Them Witches – Sleeping Through The War. Another thoughtful slab of metallic psych/blues from this increasingly classy act, music coming from the metaphorical deep south of the USA (as opposed to the real one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58BsI4PC1Lg

Chaz Bundick Meets The Mattson 2 – Star Stuff. Despite the ludicrous name, these boys sure can play – again, it’s a very American sound, but this time there’s a kind of West Coast/fusion vibe to it, albeit with modern production values. Think Gabor Szabo meets DJ Shadow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blz2IpGR1Sg (this track isn’t actually that representative of the album as a whole…)

Kairon; IRSE! – Ruination. However, winner this week of the most ridiculous ‘moniker’ is these guys. Alright, they’re from Finland, but there’s no excuse for this amount of punctuation in a name. One of those frustrating albums where one minute it’s “ooh, I quite like this!” to the next “hmmm, this isn’t so good”. It’s basically prog metal with one foot in the 70s, the other in the 90s and beyond. Definitely worth checking if you’re into this kind of stuff, as there are some cracking parts, but otherwise liable to make your eyes roll to the back of your head: https://soundcloud.com/svart-records/04-starik (having said all that, I can’t get this bleedin’ riff out of my head)

Lamagaia – s/t. Superior space rock wig-out from Sweden. Again, if you like blah blah blah… https://lamagaia.bandcamp.com/album/s-t

VA – English Weather. Thank you to whoever posted about this the other week on Unsung, it’s the Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs curated early 70s psych/prog comp, and it is absolutely lovely. T2’S ‘JLT’ followed by Bill Fay’s ‘Til The Christ Come Back’ is just inspired, but there’s loads of other great stuff on this, much of which I hadn’t heard before. Great, informed sleevenotes too – pretty much an essential package: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XfntqG9m4E

Krause – 2am Thoughts. Suited my mood earlier this week, pissed off and frustrated…

D-Generation – Entropy In The UK EP. Cultural theorist and music writer Mark Fisher killed himself the other week after a long struggle with depression – he’s the bloke who wrote Capitalist Realism and Ghosts Of My Life, both of which I think have been mentioned here before. Sad news obviously, but one nugget that arose from the obits was his involvement in this mid-90s psych-dance EP, which I bought at the time, primarily because it was promoted (in retrospect) along hauntological lines, and includes various Moorcock references (and cleverly samples John Lydon’s famous “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated”). Not amazing, but still interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRE67S7Ydg

Pink Fairies – Never Never Land. Not sure if I’ve ever properly heard this before, actually much better than I expected, particularly like the way that the version here of ‘Uncle Harry’s Last Freakout’ is just straining to turn into ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ towards the end.

Listen With Father:

Danielle Dax – Dark Adapted Eye. A confirmed favourite with the girls.

B is for…

The Black Dog – Spanners. Like many people I suspect of a similar age and trajectory, I have quite a few Artificial Intelligence-type CDs in my collection from around the first half of the 90s, most of which haven’t been played since that time. Along with Aphex and Autechre, these guys were often identified as one of the prime movers on the scene, with their wacky computer art sleeves and obsession with Egyptology… I listened to about half of this before deciding that going to bed was the sensible option. It’s not bad by any means, and in places it still sounds pretty great eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuWjYCExrik, but boy is it wearing when listened to at any length, the programming wizardry generally getting in the way of either melodic development or simple excitement.

Live:

Machiine / The Eskimo Chain, The Shacklewell Arms, Dalston

Arranging to meet a friend, he suggested this free gig as a venue, so wasn’t expecting too much. However, while the headliners were some shouty electro garage tosh (yes, they’d heard of Fat White Family), The Eskimo Chain (bands, please make an effort to come up with better names for yourselves) were actually pretty good, like a harder-edged Clinic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rew7CcFKZx4