R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now
With appearances from Peaches and Patti Smith, R.E.M. show no signs of wear and tear in their fourth decade of making music.
Too Pure Singles Club – Interview with Paul Riddlesworth (2011)
For the last three years the Too Pure Singles Club has been releasing monthly 7" singles to subscribers featuring a selection of rising UK and international alternative acts, many of whom are unknown outside their own country (their own town even). The appeal of a singles club is more than just a piece of vinyl every month by a band you're unlikely to have ever heard of. Actually, that is the appeal. Hit or miss as they can be, you never know which one of these limited run singles will turn out to be your next favourite band.
The Cult – Love (Omnibus Edition)
Get out your eyeliner and your crushed velvet blouse as The Cult's Love is dusted down and dressed up in this sublime 4CD boxset.
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
No jokes about rock dinosaurs please, Mascis, Barlow and Murph defy expectation with their ninth disc.
Black Mountain – Wilderness Heart
Brooding psychedelic rock with some Zeppelin-esque undertones, Canada's Black Mountain let loose on their third.
HTRK, Ipso Facto, ROMANCE – London – 24 July 2009
Ipso Facto recently trimmed the fat, excising keyboardist Cherish Kaya in favour of the perfect rock triangle. The sound is now suitably streamlined, focussed and finessed -- the girls now move a like well-oiled, well-coiled machine.