#77 Bark Psychosis – Independency

I love the serendipity of true random choice, it’s what’s made writing this blog over the last nearly 3 years now so enjoyable. If I had just chosen directly myself what to listen to and review then I would have gone for the usual suspects, and missed a lot of great music that I loved …

#499 Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

I’ve had to make the difficult decision to drastically reduce my reviews on this blog for the foreseeable future, hopefully I’ll be able to reinstate them at some point. Most likely I won’t be able to resist and will post a review every now and again. Randomly of course. So I’ll keep choosing via random.org …

Vangelis – Odyssey: The Definitive Collection

Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou Is a curious composer. Some of his soundtrack work, in particular the theme from Chariots of Fire, but also Blade Runner, Mutiny on the Bounty and tracks such as Pulstar from Albedo 0.39 are instantly recognisable, yet very little is known about the man himself. He keeps his personal life personal and …

#616 Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O.

I’ve been a fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor for twenty years now, ever since I heard their second album Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven in 2000. This is the follow up, described by the band at the time as “just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock” which is a pretty apt description …

#666 Heldon – Electronique Guerilla

This is Heldon’s debut album, and arguably their best. It’s 1974 French electronic space rock with Fripp-ish guitar sonics and Nietzschean tracts recited by its brainchild. Richard Pinhas’ philosophy lecturer. If that doesn’t turn you on, then look away now. It is of course, brilliant. Pinhas released this, at the age of 22, on his …

#1519 Various Artists – Touch 25

Back in the days of illegal music file sharing, BitTorrent, Napster and the like, and before Spotify, Tidal and all the rest, one relied upon alternative radio and press to find out about new music. 2006 still felt like relative internet infancy: YouTube and Google Maps had only launched the previous year, Twitter (or Twttr) …

#464 Brian Eno – Ambient 4: On Land

My Eno entry point was Talking Heads Remain In Light album which I bought on vinyl after hearing Once In A Lifetime on the radio. It was one of the first records in my collection and it’s still one of my top five favourite albums. After that I tracked down My Life In The Bush …

#821 Massive Attack – Protection

I wasn’t really into Massive Attack at the time. Somehow their brilliant debut album, Blue Lines, passed me by when released in 1991. Maybe because I was focusing on my A levels at the time, but most likely because I just wasn’t cool enough. I recall clearly the brilliant video for Unfinished Sympathy but they …

#1000 Pink Floyd – The Endless River

This was the first record I bought in Amsterdam when I moved to live there with my partner in 2014; bought in order to ‘test’ a newly purchased record player. I found that I couldn’t live without one, despite having boxed mine up at home, stored it safely in the attic, and asked my best …

#1188 Sigur Ros – Hvarf/Heim

A double disc set from the Icelandic post-rock group, released in 2007 along with the documentary film Heima. The first disc Hvarf, is a five-track collection of rarities from their vaults, dating from 1995 to 2002. The second, Heim, has six live acoustic performances from some of their best known tracks from roughly the same …