Open the door:

Sonic Youth ‘Daydream Nation’ - perfect summertime rock & roll is all. As is

MC5 ‘High Time’ - like ‘Born In The USA’, this has been too easily taken for granted in the shadow of one of the greatest live albums ever. On its own terms, it’s a belter;

Syd Barrett ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’ - much as I love both of these records, they fill me with too much sadness when I play them. I can’t help feel that I’m intruding in their creator’s mental breakdown. Am I alone in this?

Led Zeppelin ‘Southampton 1973’ - great sounding soundboard boot fully deserving of an official release;

David Sylvian ‘Do You Know Me Now?’ - specifically Disc 4 which has some excellent Nine Horses remixes and other bits & bobs. Quite the man’s most accessible music of this century. God, that voice;

Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real S/T - if you like country rock but think you’ve heard it all before, check this out. It ain’t new (2016), but it’s fresh as a daisy. Lukas has inherited his dad’s chops;

Elton Dean, Steve Miller & Pip Pyle ‘Home Brewed’ - engrossing live session from 1976 that saw the light of day just a few years ago. More jazz than rock, but with ample invention from just three acoustic instruments. How tragic that all of these gifted players were to leave us before their time;

Urs Leimgruber ‘Reflexionen Live At Montreux 1987’ - Urs has been swimming in more abstract waters in recent years, so it’s good to be reminded of how lyrical his playing could be in earlier groups like OM and the excellent combo recorded here;

The Workers ‘Altburon’ - Urs is one quarter of this Swiss free jazz collective who released this online gem for just £1.49 a year or so back. Pretty much the polar opposite to easy listening, and worth every penny;

Stanley Cowell ‘No Illusions’ - Cowell’s studio swan song was up there with his best work. He remains too underrated a jazz pianist;

Beethoven: Violin Sonata no.9 ‘Kreutzer’ (Itzhak Perlman & Vladimir Ashkenazy) - I can’t imagine how this could be better performed. Sublime music and playing;

Debussy: Images (SFSO/Pierre Monteux) - incredibly vibrant sounding reading from what Van the Man would describe as “the days before rock and roll”;

Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.2 (Solomon/Philharmonia/Andre Cluytens) - poetry without histrionics was Solomon’s style, beautifully exemplified in this early Beethoven masterpiece;

Mozart: Symphonies 29 (LPO/Sir Thomas Beecham) - Tommy’s Mozart style is long outdated but who cares? The pleasure quotient more than compensates;

Bruckner: Symphony no.8 (VPO/Carlo Maria Giulini) - I don’t think a greater symphony was ever written than this, and this is one of very few readings that does its truly epic status justice;

Elgar: Pomp & Circumstance Marches (LSO/Sir Arthur Bliss) - much as I admire the likes of Boult and Barbirolli in this music, it’s great to hear it played straight and free of the cloying pomposity (no pun intended) that it’s usually associated with. Bliss played it refreshingly straight;

There’s more to life than you can think of.

Happy trails

Dave x