I am fairly sure you cannot improve on perfection. In Orbital’s case, reissuing their spellbinding ‘Brown’ album (London Records) was always going to be warmly greeted, but what else did the brothers Hartnoll have in their locker? In stark contrast to Kraftwerk’s recent unmolested 50th anniversary reissue of ‘Autobahn’, the duo managed to curate a thirty-twotrack 4 CD boxed techno odyssey.
Unruly West Midlands duo Big Special return to Leeds just over 12 months after tearing Key Club a new one, courtesy of a thunderous set, expertly capturing the raw anger and quiet desperation of debut long player ‘Post Industrial Hometown Blues’.
No strangers to touring,
a punk vibe so alluring,
Lambrini Girls are coming to town...
We’ve watched them here before,
From the Brudenell 's sticky floor,
This Brighton-based band won’t let you down.
It’s a brace of decades since ‘Permission To Land’ catapulted then cult NWOBHM throwback quartet ‘The Darkness’ into the stratosphere, infectious power pop underpinned by tongue-in-cheek 80s metal sonic pyrotechnics, leaving the listener wondering if the East Anglians were the real deal or simply the greatest piss take since Bad News.
Zzzahara is American singer-songwriter Zahara Jaime; part Filipino, part Mexican, all California; or more specifically, Los Angeles. Waves of sun and grit spill out of this, their third album; a sound so uniquely Angeleno you can almost hear the traffic. Defiantly formed in the ashes of an ill-fated relationship, the emotion is thick and palpable. It’s a cliché to talk about sun-drenched guitar melodies, but the dreamy, beachy sound is undeniable. There are hints of Girls in there, of early Grimes, of Sky Ferreira's better produced moments.
