Colonel Awkward

  In my frequent meanderings around the internet looking for new music, I occasionally stumble across a site or a label or an artist and think "yeah!" Very recently I was contacted by a lovely gent called Andy who offered me the digital preview files of the latest releases on his Misophonia label. I investigated and hell yeah! I then learnt that this recent batch of releases were to be his last...hell no! I didn't pry too much as he seemed pretty gutted talking about it but it would seem Brexshit  has a lot to do with it - it really is the gift that keeps on taking. Anyway, in this recent batch is this absolute peach of an album by Kehrschliefe. The name rang some very distant bells then I remembered they (he) had had a single on the mighty Polytechnic Youth label way back and further investigations revealed that Kehrschliefe is actually Allan Murphy, the bod behind the wonderful Midwich Youth Club. What we have here is a pseudo concept album (not that rancid Rick Wakemen

  I know very little about Northern Lighthouse Board aside from the fact that I own 2 or 3 physical artefacts of theirs (all via the wonderful Reverb Worship label - more on that later) - I have no idea who they are or where they dwell. I do know, however, that they (could be just a he/she for all I know) make music that is eerily beautiful. In their own words they make "soundscapes for Victorian seances and nocturnal forest gatherings, Abandoned lighthouses, possessed goats, occulted moons and haunted dolls houses."  'A Plague of Shadows' follows in the footsteps of 'The Spirit Cabinet', 'The Wych Elm' and a S/T album  released by Reverb Worship. For those that are not au fait with Reverb Worship, I would thoroughly recommend that you rectify that ASAP.  They excel in bringing to the public music that would sadly not get much exposure. A look through their 500 or so releases (with sublabels sleep FUSE and Future Grave) highlights the excellent taste a

  This was one of those rare times I bought something unheard, mainly because I absolutely gobble up pretty much everything The Rowan Amber Mill (RAM) put out, the last being the wonderful 'Harrowed By The Stones'.  RAM have cornered the market in two aspects: the 'imaginary' soundtrack and 'folk horror' (or 'Witchfolk' or 'alt-folk' depending on what tag is popular this week).   Until this point I would have said that RAM's acme was the superb 'Book of the Lost', recorded with fellow arcane traveller Emily Jones, a bucolic soundtrack to an imaginary portmanteau TV series (think Amicus films but with more countryside). I would have to say though that 'Disciples of the Scorpion' transcends 'Book of the Lost', an accomplishment in and of itself.  To give some background, via RAM's Bandcamp page, 'Disciples of the Scorpion' is "The official soundtrack to the folk-horror film....a 1975 low budget film made

  Another bleedin' music blog you cry...why? I'll tell you why..... I have been reading blogs for years, especially music blogs. There were 2 or 3 I used to read religiously but they have unfortunately fallen by the wayside....they were good blogs because THEY TOLD ME WHAT THE MUSIC SOUNDED LIKE. Browsing recently I was faced with blogs that were either written by frustrated journalists thinking they were up for a Pulizer or they slavishly just stick to one 'genre' (*warning - genres will be a future rant*). If a blog tells me, in whatever language the writer sees fit, what the music sounds like I'm happy - I can make a decision to buy or not to buy on that information. If a writer starts bleating on about how the music brought back memories of a glorious holiday in the Norwegian fjords, that doesn't really help because I WASN'T THERE! Now, I'm not saying this blog will be more worthy or better written (in fact it won't) and I'm certainly not say