1958 was a big year for Jazz albums. With the release of Go , the Hipton Hipnotes put themselves firmly on the musical atlas and set themselves up for a lifetime of confusion with their rivals, the Hipstone Hiptones. 1959 was arguably an even bigger year, except in the ways in which it wasn't, obviously, as Alton Sultan and the Returning Officers emerged from the woodwindy shadows to release their first four volumes. But it was this - their fifth and final release - that set their legacy in liquid stone. Ironically none of the original 'officers' actually returned to make this record, with bandleader Sultan forming a new ensemble consisting of members of the aforementioned Hiptones and Hipnotes, many of whom weren't themselves entirely sure which of the outfits they had previously been in. None of that was to bother Alton Sultan who bravely wielded whatever instruments he could get his hands on in front of anyone brazen enough to play along with him - and the results ...

  When Nub first collapsed onto the scene in 1995 with their self-titled debut album, they defied categorisation.  Even Professor Bertrand C. Treband, head of band categorisation at the University of Oxford Institute of Categorising famously failed to categorise the band, eventually reducing the options to 'post-post-punk' and 'pre-post-post-post punk', both of which were rejected by all four members of the power trio. By the time they released Pissinfectant , they had settled on a more defined sound that, while still essentially uncategorisable, could at least be categorised as 'not actually very good'. Not that this mattered to their legions of hardcore fans, most of whom were equally not very good at their jobs, lives or relationships. And it was to this sense of failure that Nub appealed - loudly. This second album was literally recorded in the hope that it would fare worse than the first. Tracks such as 'Mob-handed pipe jockey' and 'My invisible...

  It is perhaps the greatest irony ever to befall the much-misunderstood electro-proto-funk-o-lectro genre that Morecambe duo The Repeat Offenders failed to release a follow-up to their 2007 debut, Loon Bran. Some might argue that it's not just an irony but an outright tragedy that the three-and-a-half Moog synthesisers used on the album now lie abandoned and gathering moths; Richard Ralts and Colin McCrombie having long since turned their back on the music business and sworn to never lay down another beat for the rest of their lives. But this music was a product of its time. Strangulated, condensed, some might even say deeply unpleasant to listen to. The opening track 'Versatile Log' does away with any pretence of tonality, rhythm or other such trivial conventions, while the 13 minute epic 'Rupert done toilet' was described by McCrombie as "trivial noises, performed and recorded in a critically important way". Other artists - Elf Conversion Syndrome , Cam...

Spare Turkey are due to release their 4th album 'Going Flaccid' next month, 15 years after their 2007 debut, and more than 2000 years after the birth of Christ. This may or may not be relevant, but then isn't that the point? Really? A band that releases an album once every five years only needs to be relevant once every five years, ideally around the time when the album is released. But relevance has never mattered to Spare Turkey who continue to ply their effortless fusion of pub-rock, techno beats and Victorian cradle-songs with consummate quinquenniality.  Anyone expecting a live gig will be disappointed - they have performed live only once in all of history - but those unfamiliar with the band could do a lot worse than check out their 2012 effort 'A-Hole in a K-Hole' which broke new ground, refurbished the ground that had been broken, and then broke it again, in the words of guitarist Paul Flounce, 'for the shitting hell of it'. Bassist Len Kenson, now...

    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?...

     Seattle-based Lesbian grunge outfit 'The Cunts' released vaginal quantities of music in the early 1990s, some of it actually quite listenable if you turned the volume down to -11.   Having acrimoniously fallen out in 1995 following a dispute about 'feminine products' and bassist Laurie Yell's involvement in the notorious dildogate scandal, the original lineup did manage to reform for one last Sapphic hurrah in late 1998 and split up for the last time while this, their final album was being recorded.   Indeed, several of the tracks were recorded with only one or two members present in the studio; drummer Courtney Gebärmutter had to play several lengthy solos just to remind other artists that The Cunts were still, technically, making an album.   Eventually, with none of the other members wanting to contribute anything further, a lineup of session musicians were brought in to finish the record, hence the name. To this day, Lead Guitarist Juli...

    There is much to admire about spoken word artist Jerome Dupont. His lyrical poetry, his unrepentant Frenchness, his determination to circumnavigate the globe travelling only on rail-replacement bus services. But most admirable of all is perhaps the way in which he relishes the societal scorn of his complete disregard for all forms of convention - including the convention of disregard, or to put it in his native language, la limace. To date, Monsieur Dupont has released 14 albums of his own and appeared as a guest artist on a further 37 - some achievement given how widely he is despised among those who admire him. The sixth of his solo recordings, known only as 'The Yellow Album' consists largely of abstract musings about croissants and urination, set against the backdrop of Ambient soundscapes in eccentric Gallic time signatures. That doesn't mean it isn't tres bon, of course, but it really isn't tres bon.  As the Yellow album celebrates it's 30st anni...