The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, will march on to the conference stage in Birmingham feeling buoyed. “Kemi’s soaring,” coos the Sun, and that sums up the…
Misconceptions following Burnham’s speech
The Prime Minister’s conference speech was a week ago, but there is still plenty of confusion about how it should be interpreted. Indeed that confusion may be…
AI giants are trying to sell us the apocalypse. Don’t buy it
David’s One of my favourite bookshops. Above it is the apartment where Maynard Keynes and his wife Lydia Lopokova used to stay when they were in Cambridge.…
“It Would Almost Be Endearing if it Wasn’t So Completely and Utterly Fucking Mad”
Grace Cummings – Bloodhorse!
This Australian singer‑songwriter and stage actor was first brought to my attention by GIITTV back in 2022 with the release of her second LP, the mainly acoustic Storm Queen, and the brilliant Up in Flames appeared on Uneasy Listening 2022. In 2024 she released her third LP, produced by Jonathan Wilson, which was was very multi‑instrumental and lush and it didn’t quite manage to float my boat – it felt a bit too produced and polished.
This new LP, also produced by Wilson, has big production too, but it’s more diverse and wonderfully unhinged. And then there’s her voice which, to re-quote from Wikipedia, has been described as “commanding and magnetic”, powerful, and possessing a “devastating force”. Think a mad (or madder?) Dame Shirley Bassey at one end of her scale but also understated beauty on tracks like I’m Not Crazy.
To the people voting for Nigel Farage: is this really the finger you want on the red button? | Marina Hyde
Another week, another chance for Nigel Farage to demonstrate his literally hysterical leadership inabilities. For a guy who supposedly valorises the wartime…
A Meditation on Train Stations
“If you weren’t here, then you won’t believe it.” Thus the gentle pronouncement of the distinguished literary scholar, walking slowly next to me in the dark,…
Arab Strap – Half-Told Tales
I was an admirer of this band’s debut single when it was first released back in 1996, but their subsequent releases didn’t really float my boat, as I’ve never been a big fan of LPs made up of spoken‑word “songs”. However, I did become a fan of both members’ solo material – initially with Malcolm Middleton’s brilliant second LP Into the Woods from 2005, and then in 2015 I belatedly got into Aidan Moffat + The Best Of’s How to Get to Heaven from Scotland from 2009 after discovering his album from that year with Bill Wells. In the following year he released the essential Hogmanay LP Where You’re Meant to Be, and on these releases Mr Moffat is much more of a singer than my impression of him from early Arab Strap.
Since 2019 they’ve reformed as Arab Strap, and tracks from their previous two LPs have featured on my Uneasy Listening and Top Pop year‑end playlists. This new LP is Arab Strap 2.0 at their most poptastic and forthright. There’s not much subtlety, but it’s an absolute blast. The lyricism is as brilliant as ever and possibly even more amusing, such as: “I was so relieved by your answer I let the swearing slide”.
Then on Fighting For You they are particularly topical:
“From the business class lounge, they’re fighting for you
From the deck of a yacht, they’re fighting for you
Warming up by the AGA, they’re fighting for you
By a poolside in Spain, they’re fighting for you
From a countryside bolthole, fighting for you
From a penthouse in Mayfair, fighting for you
From a back of a stretch, they’re fighting for you
From a pad in Dubai, they’re fighting for you”
Racism and xenophobia are not ‘legitimate concerns’.
Brennan Wedl by Brennan Wedl and a bit more
I think I was recently introduced to this artist via the NPR music feed. She is Nashville based and this is her second LP following her 7 track debut in 2019, and she was a co-founder of the “queercore outfit Dazey and the Scouts” according to her Spotify bio. This new record is quite different, taking the Americana folk of her debut in a far more rock and roll direction that is wonderfully reminiscent of peak Rilo Kiley and the more mellow moments bring to mind Big Star and Woody Guthie. Quite a few of the tracks were pre-released from 2021 onwards and five others did not make the LP, and so over on Spotify I have put them together on one playlist, and it ends with her cover with Waxahatchee of the brilliant Six O’Clock News by Kathleen Edwards from back in 2003.
