Cooking Vinyl 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: The 40th anniversary of the start-point of the career of Billy Bragg, British singer-songwriter and activist whose music's stark sociopolitical conscience has gripped fans and protesters alike since 1983. While the original box set contains 14 CDs with more than 300 songs - including each of his 12 studio albums, non-album singles and B-sides, session tracks, rare live recordings, collaborations and previously unreleased material - this version comes pressed on orange vinyl and distills 40 years of music down to just 13 tracks!

Review: Chocolate Hills is a duo made up of Paul Conboy and Alex Paterson, Orb founder and Orbscure Records boss. Their excellent Yarns From The Chocolate Triangle is one of those albums that is tailored made for listening to on good quality headphones, a lush and world class ambient soundscape with vivid designs and bright colours all in high definition. It draws on library music, exotica, kitsch, Balearic, downtempo, folk, spaced out pop and even d&b, all loosely based on an imagined nautical journey to the Bermuda triangle and back. All is calm at sea as you bob and drift on these roomy and magnificently realised sounds, mixing organic and electronic sources and taking a more gorgeosuly idiosyncratic route than the latest Orb album.

Review: Applying what we're all thinking in February 2021 to a kind of Netflix & Chill parody, Fickle Friends are definitely the most thematically fitting band of the month. The Brighton outfit join a long and esteemed list of British pop groups that manage to marry scathing, sarcasm, and bare-boned honesty with sweetness, beauty and universality. Providing you like those keyboards with a No.1-style glitter coating, of course.

Opening on biggest of the lot, 'What A Time', the troupe opt to get the most inescapably positive out of the way first before rolling out real variety. '92' is an icy cool, emotionally scarred (or scarring?) ballad, 'Million' is a stepping, rave-rock workout, with 'IRL' apparently made for sunnier times than the current UK winter, and finale 'Finish Line' closing out on a calming and uplifting tone that's not a million miles away from what some would describe as Balearic chill.

Review: Ladytron return with their highly anticipated seventh studio album Time's Arrow, a panoramic view of many different electronic music styles, umbrella-ed by the arch of indie rock. Building on the Liverpool-based band's rise to prominence in the early 2000s off the back of the electroclash wave, Time's Arrow makes for a whirlwind of difference to back then - shoegaze, indietronica and cloudy industrial music all crop up now, making this a stylistic departure of note.

Review: Given that he's been active musically since the turn-of-the-80s - most famously as part of Big Audio Dynamite - it's rather surprising to find that Outta Sync is Don Letts' debut solo album He's pulled out all the stops for the occasion, not only joining forces with dub artist Gaudi (who co-wrote and produced the album), but also a swathe of guests including reggae vocalist Hollie Cook, his old pal Terry Hall, Zoe Devlin Love and his daughter, Honor Letts. While there are plenty of nods to Letts' varied musical tastes, it is naturally rooted in weighty dub reggae rhythms, with the other constant being Letts' own spoken word vocals, which generally offer reflections on the Black British experience and his fears for the future. It may have taken decades, but he's finally delivered an artist album fitting of his legendary status.

Review: Prism brings the number of Orb albums to 18 and now in their fourth signnificant phase as a line up - Alex Paterson joined by Michael Rendell, replacing long term Thomas Fehlmann - released by electronic music duo The Orb into at least the high twenties. In this time, the pair have achieved cosmos-wandering musical mastery, expanding their usual dance music horizons into even further-flung territories like synthpop and non-dub reggae, tempering it all into a unified, fantastical sound. Only nine tracks convey The Orb's latest sonic imaginings, with the phase-swirly, wah-infected 'Why Can't You Be In Two Places At Once' and the future-reggae cut 'Dragon of the Ocean' standing out as highlights. Of course, it wouldn't be the same without The Orb's usual indulgence in collaboration, this one sporting appearances from Gaudi, Youth, David Harrow and violinist Violeta Vicci. .

Review: Hype and awe abound over this Orb side project, with Oss having been resurrected last year several decades on from its initial stint as a hybrid live / DJ project from Alex Paterson and his longtime collaborator Fil Le Gonidec. This new album is a mere 8 track weirdo's favourite, straight from the brains of this techno-toned, post-dub power duo, from the psytech clicks and claps of 'Wow Picasso' to the worse-for-wear machinations of 'No Speed Limit'. Grab this special coloured vinyl edition while you can.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight split on top of outer sleeve, slight creasing to outer sleeve, record unopened and in perfect working order***


Hype and awe abound over this Orb side project, with Oss having been resurrected last year several decades on from its initial stint as a hybrid live / DJ project from Alex Paterson and his longtime collaborator Fil Le Gonidec. This new album is a mere 8 track weirdo's favourite, straight from the brains of this techno-toned, post-dub power duo, from the psytech clicks and claps of 'Wow Picasso' to the worse-for-wear machinations of 'No Speed Limit'. Grab this special coloured vinyl edition while you can.

Review: Orb offshoot project Sedibus has proved popular with fans for two reasons: it reunites Alex Paterson with Andy Falconer, who worked extensively with the Orb between 1990 and 1994, and the music they make recalls some of the pair's best moments of that period - albeit with a quite different instrumentation. Seti, the pair's sophomore album, has been described by their label, Cooking Vinyl, as "ambient unplugged". That only tells half the story. While it does boast all manner of acoustic instruments - sitar, guitar, piano, tabla and other percussion - it also features Paterson's trademark spoken word snippets and the dreamiest of electronic chords and aural textures. With beautiful, immersive and typically lengthy compositions, it feels and sounds like a grown-up version of the Orb's mightiest early 90s work.

Review: When will Alex Paterson, the Dr, run out of ideas? Here joined by fellow originator of The Orb, Andy Falconer, the pair's Sedibus project takes all of the serenity of the legendary UK electronic act and then walks it up onto the nearest mountainside in the middle of the night, sets up camp, and invites you to join in a stargazing odyssey. You can almost feel the cosmos appearing around you as the work unfolds. Just like the great blanket of stars, energy and matter above, there's complexity here, even if it often feels deceptively simple. Layers, textures, passing noises, background harmonies, all these elements subtly create this deep and incredibly immersive soundscape that pulls you in like a black hole, before showing you what the spread, retreat, and expansion of energy might sound like.

Review: Stornoway achieved plenty if great success during their first run including a pair of Top 20 albums and plenty of hardcore fan adoration. In 2016 however they called it a day following their best album to date, 'Bonnie' and a large goodbye tour. Fans didn't stop listening though and their version of 'The Only Way Is Up' got them plenty more attention as it was steamed over two million times and heard on plenty of adverts. After time spent arhat the band reconnected over their love of music and began writing this new record in a makeshift studio on a remote coastal hilltop. It's their first in eight years and a big success according to fans.

Review: For our money, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of The Moon is one of those heavily and historically hyped albums that is actually worth the plaudits. While onetime core Floyd member Roger Waters continues to attract controversy with his views on Israel, this recent re-recording of the classic album, despite its apparently precarious mission, has been almost universally lauded by fans. New arrangements, instrumentation and fresh vocals from the man himself, as well as welcoming on board guests Azniv Korkejian, Gus Seyffert, Joey Waronker, Via Mardot and others.