Ten for 10

Here is another selection of snippets of news items and tidbits that have scoured the internet in the last few months, music, news and a sniff of scandal. 

Read on.

Radiohead to stream past shows during COVID-19 lockdown

It’s fair to say that Radiohead has what could be described as a pretty vast archive of live footage, films that are a key part of the Radiohead Public Library which was launched earlier this year, those films are being used for the uploads. The band shared an explanation on their Facebook page. “We will be releasing one a week until either the restrictions resulting from current situation are eased, or we run out of shows”.

Full story here

Damien Jurado releases new single Alice Hyatt

He has a reputation for dabbling in lo-fi folk recordings, cassette-only releases, found sounds, field recordings and all manner of weird and wonderful techniques, experimenting with a host of tape recording tricks. He started with those tape recordings in the mid ’90s, hawking his music up Broadway East and into Capitol Hill in Seattle hoping to gain a little traction, slowly we’d imagine, given his love for C90s.

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Ghostpoet announces new album, tour dates

To produce the record Ghostpoet worked with a series of eclectic artists: Art School Girlfriend, Skinny Girl Diet’s Delilah Holiday, SaraSara and Katie Dove Dixon to name but a few.  Obaro is no stranger to collaborative explorations, he has worked with artists across a broad range of styles, with Massive Attack to Nadine Shah, Melanie Di Biasio, Maximo Park’s Paul Smith and the Damon Albarn outfit Africa Express among those he has worked with over the last ten years.

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Liverpool International Jazz Festival 2020

Since launching in 2013, artists such as Courtney Pine, Denys Baptiste, Kit Downes, Led Bib, GoGo Penguin, Troyka, the Neil Cowley Trio, the James Taylor Quartet and the Dennis Rollins’ Velocity Trio have all graced the stage on Shaw Street. The emphasis of the festival is on contemporary instrumental jazz in a variety of styles. The intent is to take audiences on a musical journey that traverses genres and cross-genres and seeks to surprise.

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In the Pit Festive Special

The first time I picked up a camera I was on a school trip to a coastal town called Ballycastle on the North coast of Ireland, it was an away day where it took so long to drive there and back on a rattly department of education bus that we had about 45 minutes to photograph anything. It was the year of our Lord Nineteen Eighty-Eight.

Full piece here

COW: All My Friends Are Dead To Me

I remember when the Tories were elected first time around, I had a long conversation with a friend who used to write at Music Mirror and the NME, we talked about how when Thatcher was elected music got angry very quickly, we were waiting a long time for angry music but thankfully it seems to have bubbled recently. One band that could easily fir into that angry and socially aware with it are our very own COW.

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Poliça release new music!

There were stints in fine arts schools, teaching abroad, duos, folk-pop outfits, and any number of personal and public trauma, it could be said they were looking for each other all along.  They recently shared a rousing single in the shape of the defiant Forget Me Now, their second track from their fourth long-player, When We Stay Alive which is due to hit the shelves on January 31st.

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Unknown Pleasures #196

There’s something of a guilty pleasure in writing Unknown Pleasures.  Sometimes it’s a team effort, a few of us pulling together some tracks we like, sometimes, say, when we’re pulling together a dozen end of year lists with two dozen quotes from the great and the good, it’s down to one of us.

Every week, without fail, we watch as our email account is bombarded by PR companies, individuals and the odd record label who work with one thing in mind, that their artist is greater than all the other artists you’ve got in the mail and their record should be the record you tell your readers about because it is that good.

Full selection here

Unknown Pleasures #201

(That time we learned that a magazine was charging for reviews)
I’ll quote the tweet in case you can’t be arsed following it;  “If you would like is to review your release… there will be a £25 administration fee to cover the time it takes for at least two of our staff to have several serious listens.”

Several.
Serious.
Listens.

Full selection here

Algiers release new single news

Atlanta’s Algiers square up to lunacy and bottle a lot of rage in their forthcoming single, Void, taken from their soon to be released third long-player, There Is No Year, set for release in January of 2020.  The band may well have met and formed in London, but their move to Atlanta has given them a new view on a world where everything seems a little bit off its axis, and they have a lot to say about it.

Full story here