Furman's new album Perpetual Motion People is another gem, and I hope it makes him a huge star, but in these days of Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran selling out stadiums the problem might well be that he’s nowhere near bland enough.
I don’t know about you but this new Friday release day for albums is working out really well for me. Instead of spending the whole week desperately cramming in as many albums as I can during lunch-breaks and tube rides, then publishing a hastily thrown together round-up late in the week, days after you’d have heard them already, now I have the whole weekend to leisurely listen to all the new album releases at my own pace. This means I can more carefully choose my words and craft my cogent opinions about how much I fucking hate modern music, all ready for Monday morning. Then I can spend the rest of the week listening to the same Adam and Joe podcasts I’ve been listening to for the last five years.
The following artists represent the most gob-smacking, eye-wateringly insane and undeniably brilliant music I could find in my time in Japan. Some of these songs turned my tiny world upside down and I hope it reveals a little something about popular Japanese music today..
“Okay” said Noel ‘not a fan of cover versions’ Gallagher, “Six! Six covers versions! Is that all you’ve got?'
It's summer. You can tell it's summer because the music industry buggers off on holiday for three months leaving us all bereft of new music and having to listen to our Dad's Greatest Hits of ELO cassette and pretend like that's a brilliant and convenient thing to do. It's lucky you bought that cassette player last year, you hipster bag of crap otherwise you'd be really fucked.
Again, this was a perfect set and HEALTH are truly becoming a phenomenal live band. Catch them while you’re still able to stand only a few feet away from them in a small local club as they look you in the eyes, willing your demise by eviscerating noise-pop.
I have invented a with its roots in the only two things that I can talk about for more than eight minutes at a time: music and things that I hate.
My addiction to buying horror movie soundtracks started a few years ago when I discovered the magnificent Death Waltz Recording Company, its US based counterpart Mondo and their range of artfully curated LPs. These beautifully produced records, often sourced from the original masters, cover everything from John Carpenter's entire back catalogue to Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery, the overlooked masterpiece The Visitor and long-lost Italian curios like L Profumo Della Signora In Nero.
Faith No More's wilful disregard of what a mainstream rock band "ought to do" is one of their most heroic qualities. Despite practically inventing rap-metal more than 30 years ago, the Californian five-piece moved effortlessly from face-melting metal aggression, to bossa-nova, to jazz-funk, to a Commodores cover without a single apology, all the while never straying too far from a pop melody.
Ridiculous artwork, pictures of dorky guys from Iowa with B.C. Rich guitars, albums called ‘Burning Nun’... ah, good times.
I like money. The less I have, the more I want. And right now, I‘ve got none. But what I do have is about 1,000 heavy metal CDs.
