For reasons various, I realise it’s been another month plus since I ventured toward the ‘Add Post’ button. Without going into too much of the detail, it’s been a strange few weeks – lots of venturing up and down the country and I’m pretty sure Record Store Day was in there too. Once again I sit here in a sort of recovery mode, this time thanks to the volley of anti-allergy stuff I had to take before and after tackling some intense gardening work of the machete through the undergrowth variety.

As such, I hope you’ll indulge me as I sit coffee in hand and take a walk through some of the musical stuff that I’ve been adoring of late, and I’m going to ease into it with one of my favourite songs.. with a little RSD-style twist.

Air – All I Need (feat Beth Hirsch) Vegyn Mix

I did certainly get up at silly o’clock in the morning again on Record Store Day but it was later in the day that we popped into a record store to have a ‘normal’ poke about that my wife saw the intriguing Blue Moon Safari album perched between the RSD boxes. Having had another Air record on my morning’s haul I’d completely forgotten about it – glorious in its presentation and sound, Vegyn’s remix of Air’s unimpeachable Moon Safari is more of a gentle re-imagining than a remix, a subtle tweak there and slight key change here and it’s a beautiful listen that’s already had a lot of turntable time.

Elbow – Gentle Storm

S.G Goodman – Snapping Turtle

Who remembers the amazing ‘Cry’ video from Godley & Creme? It was a real game-changer of a vid from the ex-10cc duo who’re probably remembered more for the videos they made than their own musical work after that band. I was reading a piece about the making of the song and its vid and it mentioned how Elbow’s Guy Garvey was so blown away by it he asked them to recreate it for his band’s song ‘Gentle Storm.’ Now it had been many a year since I listened to Elbow but this track got me very much back into the work of their’s I’d missed since 2008 and I’be been really blown away. They’ve made some brilliant music, Guy Garvey very much a talented wordsmith.

Also a very talented wordsmith – S.G Goodman’s ‘Snapping Turtles’ is one that I found on this month’s Uncut magazine’s CD (ever the champion of physical formats) and had to restart a number of times in order to soak in the song’s vibe and lyrics. Brilliant stuff.

Public Service Broadcasting – The South Atlantic (ft. This Is The Kit)

Public Service Broadcasting’s concept album about Amelia Earhart’s fateful last flight has had many a spin since its release last year, including one last night. There’s something fascinating about the tragic journey and, unlike their previous works, it doesn’t hide from the terror of the dawning knowledge that things very much went wrong. 

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – Over The Rainbow

Buffalo Tom – Roman Cars

Yeah… we’ve all no doubt hear Israel ‘Iz’ Kamakawiwo’ole’s take on ‘Over The Rainbow’ more times than we can count since every tv/film producer thinks they need to sneak onto a soundtrack but it remains a wonderful thing and up on the list of ‘things I can’t get enough of’ is the way Iz pronounces ‘chim-a-nee’.

Another entry on that list is the vocal harmonies of Buffalo Tom’s Chris Colbourn and Bill Janovitz. As Bill tends to be the principal songwriter and singer in the group those songs tend to be lower in count but have historically been strong – think ‘Postcard’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Wiser’ – while ‘Roman Cars’ was initially one of those I’d not paid attention to from their supremely underrated 2018 album Quiet and Peace, I’ve been enjoying it a lot lately as it also features Bill’s delicious guitar tone.

Momma – I Want You (Fever)

Blondshell – What’s Fair

Couple of new albums that I’ve been enjoying lately. Momma’s Welcome to My Blue Sky is a very enjoyable blast of hook-laden, ’90s inspired alt-rock that’s got plenty of catchy tunes on it. Meanwhile the second album from Sabrina Teitelbaum’s Blondshell project is a real step-forward from her 2023 self-titled debut and definitely worth a bit of your time.

Anywho. I’ll leave you with one from Martha Wainwright who’s debut has just received a 20th Anniversary press and a song with a title that serves as an example of how not to get a great tune any radio airplay and hopefully get around to writing the last two of my Least and Most series.