Obviously Forest Fire Citation are best known for their epic 1970s albums P. Bryan Twyne and the Pype of Wine and, of course, The Squirrels of Blame . One would have to be a completely idiotic retarded mindfuck not to know this really basic fact. However, like many of their folk-rock ilk, the band continued to record, release and perform new music long after their star had faded, and indeed are still active today, albeit with none of the original members on board, though drummer Reg Pegson continues to act as a sort of 'percussion consultant' to the group, even at the brisk old age of 104! Amongst their later catologue, 1988's Chickadee is perhaps the highlight. Their ninth album overall, it saw FFC reinventing themselves through the abandonment of traditional folk instrumentation, each member adopting instead a selection of home-made instruments, fashioned from household objects, kitchenware, car parts, cheesewire and so on. While this undoubtedly gives the record an ...

    It's very rare for me to review 'contemporary' music, what with me being old, dead, and made up, but sometimes a debut album comes along that literally shakes you back into life with its sheer debutness. One such relentless debut in 2021 was debuted by Mongolian songstress Pecky Yin and while this is technically her third release, it's the first release to be released outside of the street markets of Ulaanbaatar, where debut releases retail at prices well North of five shillings. And they don't even use shillings in Mongolia, except when buying Pecky Yin albums which may or not be debut releases, obviously. If that all sounds monumentally confusing, you probably shouldn't listen to Your conscience is gay . It makes a musical statement as bewildering as it is powerful, and as statementlike as it is musical. The question isn't whether or not you actually like Mongolian folk music - it's whether you even believe in it or not. And if you do not, why not?...