Review: The man behind the Death Is Not The End label and archival NTS radio show got plenty of people talking earlier in the year when he presented the music on this record on the airwaves. It is a brilliantly authentic document of a very special time in the history of British music culture. Pirate radio was the voice of the underground, the mixing pot for the musical sounds and scenes of the time with their famous phone-ins, shout-outs and adverts all adding to the atmosphere of each broadcast. Relive it now as often as you like with this brilliantly assembled collection.
Review: Talk about a time capsule. While the obvious nostalgists out there scour and share their cassette eight packs, desperately converting the mixes they contain to digital files before the inevitable unspooling renders the original recordings obsolete, here comes Death Is Not The End - a record label that lends its name to (well, hosts) a show on NTS Radio - with the ultimate trip back to a time many weren't lucky enough to live through.
As the name suggests, this is literally a collection of no less than 40 radio adverts that appeared at some point or other on London's once-plentiful pirate radio stations between 1984 and 1993. Many are poor quality in terms of production, a good number use samples from some of the biggest dance tracks of the day, loads namecheck some legends of the UK rave scene, and every single one would be loads of fun to drop into a mix or use as a sample for productions. Not that we're recommending doing anything without license.
Review: Welcome to the parallel musical universe of Miss Maria Teresa Luciani, a landscape of sonic architecture and theoretical composition constructed by a family of engineers that reinvented the wheel before the vehicle even began the journey. Imagine, if you will, the musical equivalent of Peter Cook's Archigram group or the soundtrack to Charles and Ray Eames' private sketchbooks, hinting at a new municipal, utopian metropolis just hours before the blueprints are suspiciously misplaced by the courier and mainstream pop building regulations piss on our asbestos bonfire. These 1972 constructions of progressive, cyclic, proto-industrial colour music were never intended for public habitation. These are the Sounds Of The City in a galaxy far, far beneath our radar and above your expectations that was never built. Pseudo-futurist pop music? Cubic folk? Tape-op-art? Si, grazie!
Review: New novelty operations from Graham David Fellows aka John Shuttleworth, the hit-scoring, Radio 4-starring, organ-stroking Sheffield comic songster formerly known as "Jilted John", who returns with his first album in over seven years. The Pumice Stone & Other Rock Songs' title track sees Shuttleworth urging his new listeners to exfoliate at bathtime with a very particular brand of spongy, hard stone, rather than exfoliant lotion. Such trifles may be the only refuge of a South Yorkshire pop music duffer, whose comedy accent and Yamaha auto-accompaniment feature do seem to be more than enough to entertain the man for a lifetime. Including 'Berlingo', 'Blue Light Kettle', and 'Rapidly Downhill', you're in great, humdrum company here.
Review: Three years ago, Dutch multi-instrumentalist and producer Noam Offir unveiled his debut album as Soul Supreme, a vividly realised fusion of jazz-funk, jazz-fusion, hip-hop, soul and electrofunk flavours that boasted impeccable musicianship. Poetic Justice, the rising star's hotly anticipated follow-up, continues in a similar vein whilst aiming higher. The musicianship is, if anything, even better, with liberal use of horns, P-funk synth sounds, Clavinet, warming electric piano motifs, loose limbed drums (blessed with the swing of live drums, but - we think - MPC-powered). It's basically the same old super Soul Supreme sound, taken to the next level. As a result, Poetic Justice is even better than its lauded predecessor. Don't sleep on this one!
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