At some stage Teenage Fanclub managed to transition from being Creation indie darlings to pretty much inventing a new scene: indie country. It really shouldn’t work but the endless melodies and west coast throwbacks colliding with a little bit of indie jingle jangle leads to a very warm feeling.

The Fannies are the great Creation survivors. Songs from Northern Britain was kicking back against all the Britpop sensibilities at the time. You couldn’t wish for an album that had less bravado than its contemporaries. It still stands up today, mainly because of the quality of the songs. Gawd bless the Fannies.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Kaiso Power: Sound Revolution in Trinidad is an absolute joy. It’s a compilation that has just dropped on the Soundway label. It came via the always excellent Late Junction, as most things do these days.

The title may suggest something revolutionary involving Trinidadian music. That’s not far off the mark but it’s also so much more.

At the heart of this is the rhythm and the dance. Revolutions are always the better if they involve some dancing.

There’s so many styles on offer here, all colliding and building up a sense of change, movement and just having a bloody good time whilst you’re at it.

There’s ska, some afro beat and even some Latin rhythms thrown in. It’s the perfect antidote that I should turn to after being served up some dull rock shite as part of the daily album routine.

The closing track, More Weight by Abdul Malik de Coteau, is a bit of a variation from the rest of album. It’s also the standout track.

The story follows that More Weight is a game that the young Abdul played back in Trinidad, involving his school friends having basically a pile on to add more weight.

He then moved to Brixton and the More Weight now becomes a metaphor for the pressures growing up around him.

It’s a thoughtful way to close an album that tries to raise awareness but often takes you down a different path with your dancing shoes.

My kind of music.

Quite a mixed bag, but then actually two albums that share something of the same ethos.

First we have Todd Rungrun’s Something/Anything? double album. I know very little about Todd apart from the Drum song. I’m increasingly being drawn to his back catalogue.

This has been on my wishlist for a number of months now after it was served up on the 1001 albums list.

It’s absolutely bonkers, as you would expect from most early 70s double albums. I suspect strong drugs were involved in the recording.

What I like is how Todd manages to mix up the pure pop with tracks such as I Saw The Light and then slowly, slowly drag you into something a lot more deeper and fucked up.

I think he’s an artist I should really explore a lot more and dive deeper into his back catalogue. It looks like there’s quite a treasure trove there.

How the fuck did I get into early 70s prog?

Fast forward twenty years or so and we come to Edwyn Collins' masterpiece Gorgeous George.

This completely passed me by at the time. All that I knew was, of course, the lead out track A Girl Like You, which had endless radio play during the Britpop years.

I think time and money simply stopped me from buying the album first time round. It’s been a pleasure catching up with it two decades on. It still stands up and shows what a wonderful songwriter Edwyn is.

Crime of the Century? Talk about nominative determinism. This is basically pop Pink Floyd. I’m all for prog and certain elements of pop, but it’s a most unlikely alliance of genres trying to be welded together. I’d rather listen to this than what pop troubles the charts these days, but that’s just the old man shaking his fist at a cloud. Dreamer almost gets me having a little jig, but that’s about the best that it gets.

⭐ ⭐

Far Out Magazine recently did a comparison between Tom Petty and Elvis Costello. It made the case for their careers being played out in parallel on different sides of the Atlantic. I had never made the connection before. I always thought of Petty as being pure Americana whilst Costello was the twisted, bitter Englishman.

I’ve been wanting an excuse to dive into early Tom Petty for some time. I can now see the point Far Out was making. This could quite easily be early 80’s Costello but with a slight American twist.

He knows how to craft a song but more importantly he knows how to add a twist to the lyric, leaving the songs to mean something else entirely. There’s also more than a hat tip to early Springsteen. Petty is great at crafting mini soap operas around his characters. This is a very worthy album.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Bland as fuck.

⭐

Solitude Standing was absolutely everywhere for me during the summer of ‘87. It was pretty much played on repeat as I worked the summer at the local Virgin Megastore, plus it was then wall to wall with even album tracks being played on daytime Radio Trent.

It captures a moment for me, rather than being a peak musical performance. That being said it’s still something pretty special. I find it difficult to listen to Tom’s Diner without wanting the Soul II Soul style back beat. Luca and its social importance is well documented. I’ve forgotten what a glorious song Gypsy is.

This is a very, very classy album. It was a pleasure to revisit it once again.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Endless Summer is pretty much Beach Boys by numbers. There’s nothing wrong with that. All killer, no filler, etc. This compilation was a new one on me. The very ropey cover art suggested something a little different but no, it’s just hit after hit after hit. These songs are built so deep into your conscience that there’s not a lot new going off. It’s an album that only really works as summertime listening. You wouldn’t put this on in the dark, deep months of December. They’ve always been a joyous band. Four stars for what the album represents, rather than the musical content.

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The new album from Haircut 100 is a hell of a lot of fun. Boxing the Compass is 44 years in the making. These boys make The Stone Roses appear almost hyper-productive.

Back in the day and a jazz samba rhythm was always at the heart of The Haircuts. Sure, they felt the need to add in some pop perfection in order to gatecrash the charts.

Unboxing the Compass retains the classic Haircuts horn section. This is sunshine music that leaves you with no other option but to smile.

The lead single The Unloving Plum seemed to have dropped over an age ago. The wait for the remaining tracks was worth it.

Pelican West was absolute perfection from The Haircuts. The new record, almost half a Century later, picks up the pieces.

The foppish good looks and persona from the band back in 1982 may have weathered slightly. Nick Heywood, however still retains a certain schoolboy charm.

The Haircuts haven’t lost it.

Hurrah!

I bloody love The Fall - even though I can never decipher the lyrics and haven’t got a clue what he’s banging on about. The Wonderful and Frightening World is nominative determinism personified. This is a collision of sounds with guitar rackets crashing in and the double drums trying to drown out all the nonsense from yer frontman. It leads to an inner desire to dance - not in a rhythmic way but more of a stomp, chanting out random Mark E Smith mantras as you go along. There is nothing like them. It’s highly unfashionable music yet in some circles it remains almost peak hipster. I just love the experimentation, yet still being grounded in traditional meat ‘n’ two veg guitar sounds.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐