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VARIOUS: "Krampus Is Coming" (OIB Records)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? The best Christmas compilation you’re likely to have been able to buy last year that is probably already sold out as there were only fifty made. How shit is that? But at least I get to tell you about it a month too late, is that any consolation?
IS IT ANY GOOD? I guess it isn’t any consolation, but you might be able to track these tunes down somewhere. ‘Krampus is Coming’ is a compilation by the Brighton based label OIB and is a rather varied affair. We open with a jaunty number from The Hornblower Brothers called, aptly, ‘Christmas Song’ and is all sweetness and joy until they call Cliff Richard a dick, but some things need saying plainly. Curly Hair are up next with a number with slightly less festive cheer called ‘Silly Billy Yellow’ with xlyaphone and Casio keyboard and a lyrical dash of disparagement: ‘It’s fine for a day but I value my time’. Foxes are next with a ditty sounding like it’s played on another Casio keyboard that states ‘the elves just keep working ‘cos they’ve got no place to go’ which actually brings a tear to my eye, but it’s a positive song hoping the sad ones can find cheer at Christmas, which is nice. Fourth is Lonely Ghosts with about as much festive cheer as a dead reindeer, with lyrics softly spoken and gently sung. Five is a mental rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ by

the electronically psychotic Pseudo Nippon with help from The Todd Shrimp, you have to hear it to understand, but it’s how I imagine Jingle Bells to sound when played by a robot who's just done too much MDMA. And last but not least we have My Device sending us off with a powerful slice of frantic guitar abusement and cymbal smacking that would get the dance floors writhing any time of the year. So there you go, the lowdown on OIB’s first Christmas compilation that you will never hear. You could try phoning Resident Music on 01273 606312 to see if they have any copies left. Oh, and more bad news, there is no digital release and all the songs are, for now, all unreleased (although Foxes ‘Christmas Gifts’ can be found on A Very Cherry Christmas vol.5 which can be found someowhere else around here). Keep a sharp eye out for any of OIB’s releases as they are putting great stuff out there, and next year they are going to have another of these Christmas compilations, so maybe pre-order now to guarantee a copy to avoid disappointment.
WHERE IS IT? www.oibrecords.com

CHRIS BRADLEY: "At The Outpost" (17 Seconds Records)
RELEASED? 29th March
SOUNDS LIKE? Brilliant, brilliant songs. Twelve
of them. All intricately crafted, played with joy and
sung with warmth.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Chris Bradley has a voice, a
voice that I feel like I already know. I can’t pin it
down. I’m reminded of the records my mum used
to play as a child, it’s a quality to the voice that
sounds so familiar it must be a part of my past.
But my mum listened to Eric Clapton, Peter
Frampton and Rod Stewart, and Chris Bradley
doesn’t sound like any of them, though he shares
the same wealth of song writing talent. The
opening track ‘The Man I Love’, a song Chris
Bradley wrote after the death of his dad, is
almost too strong an opener, a slow build of a
track that is both sombre and uplifting. The rest of
the album is definitely rooted in the American
journeyman sound, mature and immediate, such
as with ‘Bored Little Rosie’ and ‘Running Song’,
but never matches up to the power of the opener.
‘Your Close Friend’ is a standout track, slight
percussion that backs up Chris Bradley’s voice which finds power in raw definition, both chanting and melodic, creating a song that sounds both traditional and contemporary, that could be covered by The Owl Service just as easily as by Gnarls Barkley. Chris Bradley is a talented songwriter, though I do have to say that this album is lacking in heartfelt emotion, and sounds just a bit too polished and well made. Like a brilliant artist copying a photograph, Chris Bradley has written songs using traditional blueprints without putting much of himself in there, which is great as an introduction, but with this being his second release I would have hoped to hear a few more risks being taken. Still, ‘The Man I Love’ is one way to start the year on a high that may not be topped, it certainly hasn’t been topped by Chris Bradley himself.
WHERE IS IT? www.chrisbradleymusic.com

CHRIS KASPER: "Chasing Another Sundown" (B.O.S Records)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? An anonymous guy with a guitar who has anonymous friends that are willing to play the other instruments behind him. Of course you can find out the names of these people by looking in the liner notes, but that is not going to give the music any more personality.
IS IT ANY GOOD?There is a special sound you hear when you watch too much day time tv eating handfuls of cheese and onion crisps from a bowl. It’s the same sound you hear when you walk through the doors of the job you’ve been slaving at thanklessly for the last twenty years. It’s the same sound ageing celebrities hear
                                                               whilst at yet another champagne drenched
                                                               minor awards ceremony where no one is
                                                               paying them any attention. It’s the sound all
                                                               those crinkled old folks can’t ignore as they
                                                               shuffle the corridors of a decrepit nursing
                                                               home that reeks of piss, disinfectant and
                                                               death. This sound can be initially ignored,
                                                               maybe even for years, but eventually this
                                                               sound will override everything you hear, the
                                                               crushing sound of the egg timer, of sand
running from one bulb to the next. It is the sound of your life slowly fading away. That’s all I could hear as I listened to this album. The music on this album is so boring that the only measure of positivity I can garner is from the illustrations on the album and in the lyrics booklet. The illustrations contain a quiet idiosyncracy that drags equal measures of disconsolate alienation and yearning hope from my withered soul. They are by Nini Sum, who has a website. Google it. At least then some good will have come of this.
WHERE IS IT? www.chriskasper.com

VARIOUS: "A Very Cherry Christmas Volume 5" (Cherryade Records)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? The fifth instalment of Cherryade records annual Christmas album. For those of you who caught the last four, you know what to expect. For those who didn’t, you’re in for a treat from one of Englands hardest working independent labels.

IS IT ANY GOOD? Of course, even now, in January. The 10p Mixes have got it wrong by saying that “there won’t be any snow this year/ too much carbon in the atmosphere” but we won’t hold that against them. You’ve got all your favourites from Cherryaade, such as The Lovely Eggs, The Pocket Gods, Fever Fever, The Gresham Flyers, Mia Vigar, Persil and many, many more. There are twenty five tracks in all of festive charm and cheer to keep you merry. Half of the tracks on here may be too festive for an all year round listen, such as Detox Cute and The Beauty Junkies ‘Unhappy New Year’ and Das Wunderlust’s ‘Someone To Pull Crackers With’, but come Christmas next year they sound better than any of the traditional Christmas songs that are going to be forced down your throat.
WHERE IS IT? www.cherryademusic.co.uk

ANDREW VINCENT: "Rotten Pear" (Kelp Records)
RELEASED? 1st February.
SOUNDS LIKE? Warm, heartfelt songs with catchy melodies and memorable lyrics. You know, lo-fi pop fronted by a fragile voice, that type of stuff.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Music is a mood thing. The best music will change your mood, the mediocre will placate your current mood, and the worst will not suit any mood you will ever feel. Listening to music you want to relate to it, you want to be able to place the emotions expressed, you want to identify with the lyrics, you want to respect the talent that created it and ,most of all, you want the music in your ears to enhance the experience of being alive. It could be said that music is a drug, a mind altering substance and you can go on a good trip or a bad trip, or you could get horribly burnt and it does nothing but give you a headache and an early night.
.                                                                                                   Andrew Vincent, the
                                                                                                    singer/songwriter
                                                                                                    behind ‘Rotten
                                                                                                    Pear’(his fifth album)
                                                                                                    makes music that could
                                                                                                    facilitate a good trip, if
                                                                                                    only you could get high
                                                                                                    enough, it’s like it’s cut
                                                                                                    with something like
                                                                                                    baking soda. Whilst we
                                                                                                    are on the subject of
                                                                                                    drugs, sometimes
                                                                                                    when you go on a
                                                                                                    mushroom trip you can get to a place in your head where everything feels like a dream you’ve already had and you can’t shake the feeling that this has all happened before, like deja vu but for a few hours rather than a brief second. Some would say that this moment of the mushroom trip is where you connect to the group consciousness of human experience and discover that we all share the same existence and have done for all eternity, repeating our lives over and over until infinity unravels from its own navel into a sea of orphic analogies. Others would say this is where your brain starts mis-firing between your memory and your perception of the present, causing you to experience the present as a memory. A lot of others would say you are just fucked up on illegal drugs and deserve every foul punishment the inquisition can burn into your writhing, naked body. No matter what anyone says, listening to Andrew Vincent feels like you’ve maybe heard this before. This is not a bad thing for most, through our lives most people fall in love with many different individuals, and when we put them side by side they are normally very similar, it’s a comfort thing. ‘Rotten Pear’ is an album that can enhance the moods of a few, those who like their heartfelt songs and catchy melodies that eschew immediacy for slow-burning melancholy, but to most he will merely placate their current mood and be met with a shrug.
WHERE IS IT? www.kelprecords.com

JASON & THE SCORCHERS: "Halcyon Times" (JCPL)
RELEASED? 22nd February.
SOUNDS LIKE? Imagine a barndance. Now imagine that same barndance, but faster, with a circle pit. Imagine Cotton Eye Joe getting stomped by a few good old boys drinking whiskey and rye out the back of a roadside tavern. Imagine the band in that tavern, whipping up a dancefloor held together with spit and sawdust, bottles smashing on the stained wall behind them, dodging broken glass and sweating like squealing pigs. Imagine back road America rocking out.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I always worry when a bands latest release comes with a bands autobiography. In this case the autobiography highlighted the thirty year legacy of Jason and the Scorchers, their many line up changes, their ups and downs, dropping in and out of fashion like Vivienne Westwoods bouncy ball, and how this latest album, their first of new material since 1996 is their most relevant, ever. So of course I get well defensive and start to ask why, analysing the package in front of me. We have an album named ‘Halcyon Times’, and for those that don’t know, Halcyon means calm, or untroubled, so of course I’m sensing a nostalgia trip. The song in which the titular phrase appears is in a song named ‘Golden Days’, which looks
to be an ode to being 21.
Another clue that maybe
this current line up of
Jason and The Scorchers
is looking behind rather
than around them. In the
epic press release I am
told that when Jason and
co. started touring they
were met with very mixed
crowds, people didn’t
know what to make of
them, hard rocking country boys with Mohicans getting all punky (cow-punk, I think is their self moniker), they divided audiences. Listening to this now, with no knowledge of the band beyond what I have just read, I can’t hear anything that would make an audience react that way, and it isn’t the fault of Jason and his mates, it’s more the sound that they were pioneering 30 years ago has become an established, if not establishment, musical genre. This album isn’t going to be blowing minds around the world, but for fans of Jason etc. this will be another (maybe) last chance to hear some new material from a band that could have quite easily died, and often did, a long time ago. Come witness the latest resurrection. It’s not that bad, songs like ‘We’ve Got it Going On’ and ‘Moonshine Guy’ (sample lyric- “He’s a moonshine guy in a sixpack world”) have energy and a vestige of humour that makes them enjoyable to listen to, and there are moments of maudling in songs such as ‘Days
of Wine And Roses’ and
‘Mother of Greed’ (which sounds
a bit REM) that doesn’t grate too
much. The problem I find is that if
this was the debut from a new
band I would see the potential,
the album is well played and
produced, but as the last album
from a once great band,
‘Halycon Times’ is a safe and
comfortable hour of competent
music that, had it not been
released, would not have been
missed by the world at large.
WHERE IS IT? www.jasonandthescorchers.com

BIRDS IN THE WOODS “Something Knew?” (i-Tunes)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? Funky folk pop with a hint of blues and soul all held together with a few jazz staples. You want more? Well, I could say Birds in The Woods sound like a yawn in a coma ward, but that wouldn’t help you find them in the music shop, would it? General. You will find them under General, or Misc.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I need a shave. That’s what I was thinking as I stroked my chin and listened to this album. The hair on my face doesn’t grow very much, I put this down to being six foot five. My theory is I used most of my teenage hormones on growing so freakishly tall that I only had a small amount left for the rest of puberties ills, such as extra hair and a nagging sense of responsibility. My point is, I can’t have had a shave in ages for me to think I need to shave, or maybe my mind was just wandering.

So I stopped stroking my chin and trained my senses to Birds In The Woods. The opener ‘The River’ kicks in with a funky lick that makes me think of blaxpoitation and sex which, I have to admit, probably says more about me, but before I can even think of a single blaxpoitation film, it’s over, all over when the soul kicks in and you're clicking your fingers and maybe tapping a toe or two. We’re doing okay.This singer guy has a great voice, generic in a well trained way, powerful, refined and smoother than my chin even after I’ve shaved. For the record I don’t wet shave, I prefer clippers, less chance of coming out of the bathroom looking like I’ve been punching a thresher with my face. Sorry to digress. Focus. Birds in The Woods. Nice violins. I like violins, if you need emotion and sincerity all in one hit, just bust out the violin (note: child choirs work better for rock bands, but you get the idea). Just don’t mistake a fiddle for a violin, they are very different. One is ethnic, the other isn’t. I wonder who made the distinction? I think I’ll just Wiki that and… Wait, sorry. Birds In The Woods. They know how to play, and sometimes play quite well, such as on ‘Memorable Meeting’, a song which starts with the lyrics “Christ came/ he sat beneath Stonehenge and he began to pray/ a passer by/ brushed against his arm and she began to cry” which gets me drifting. I’m thinking Stonhenge is fenced off, so if Christ was praying at Stonhenge he must have scaled the fences, which means that no one is passing him by close enough to brush his arm. Mostly, I reckon people would be looking through the fence at this robed up biblical guy praying in the stone circle, staring at him as if he was some rare species caught in a zoo. It would make a day trip to Stonehenge more exciting. In my experience, the only person brushing Christs arm the day he decides to pray at a sacred pagan site is going to be security hauling him away. I think that may have been about Birds In The Woods. I’m not sure anymore. All in all, I’d say that Birds In The Woods can craft good songs with melodies, riffs, drum beats, all that, and they can put together a decent arrangement, breakdown, build up, give you a summer day as well as a winter evening. Funky, but soulful enough not to irritate. All the boxes are ticked. It’s well rehearsed. Each instrument is given a time to shine. The world turns. Some summer days you’re mowing the lawn, some winter evenings you're watching CSI. These days aren’t wasted, they are lived. These are the days you don’t remember that make up the rest of your life. What’s to dislike?
WHERE IS IT? www.birdsinthewoods.com

MY LITTLE PONY “My little Pony Play The Hits Of My Little Pony” (Lazy Acre Records)
SOUNDS LIKE? Cute, clean cut kids playing cute, quirky pop tunes. Imagine the soundtrack to any film that does well at Sundance. Got that? Yeah, that’s the shit, you’ve got suburban montages, alienated housewives and awkwardly ineffectual social situations in your brain now. Feels like crying whilst wanking, doesn’t it? RELEASED? Out now.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I guess. It’s not horrible. It’s just a bit sickly cute, like Belle and Sebastian re-imagined by Chupa-Chups, all smooth, sweet curves and no sharp corners. There’s a lot of cute kids in the world, but they aren’t listening to the cute stuff their older brothers and sisters listened to. All the cute kids these days seem to be

listening to music made on modified Gameboys that sound like remixes of the soundtrack to level three on Streets of Rage for the Megadrive. They dress in colours that give even Japanese kids epilepsy and have t-shirts so limited edition they only exist in two dimensions. The cute, screaming post-puberty kids of generation High School Musical have haircuts you need a pet licence to own, snort Ritalin in the school toilets and fornicate endlessly. Skins is a lifestyle guide to these kids. And these kids bully other kids. Probably the ones that hang in the library. And it’s these library dwellers that probably listen to My Little Pony. The kids with the books and glasses and bad complexions wearing grey and brown with jeans that give the legs room to breath. The kids that in a couple of years will be the cool kids. Maybe. Maybe they blossom at university. Or maybe they carry on listening to songs that make them sad even though they sound so happy. Or maybe they become IT technicians. What I’m saying is I don’t know what the future holds. Do you think Hitlers parents knew what they were bringing into the world? No. You never know what life will throw at you. You just do your best, that’s all. You just do your best.
WHERE IS IT? www.lazyacrerecords.co.uk

ROBIN GREY “Strangers In shoes” (Self-Released)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? One man and his guitar singing songs that hold a mirror up to life with a voice that makes you want to reflect on life. Along the way he’s accompanied by violin, bass and a few other instruments that can be found lying around the place. Sometimes there is a woman’s voice to be heard. I do not know her name. She sounds like a ghost, or possibly a wood elf. Ethereal, maybe. Yeah, that’s a good
word. That’s a keeper.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I guess he
caught me in the right mood.
Right now I’m in the middle of
a break up and I’m feeling
melancholy, a bit sorry for
myself, but hopeful for the
future. I’m reflecting on what
went wrong, but I can’t not
think about how right it felt
when it was going well. I’m in
the type of mood where I want
to be left alone to smoke
cigarettes and listen to music
that doesn’t cheer me up. So,
right now, Robin Grey is
keeping me company. I’ll
probably keep him on repeat
for about three weeks. After
that, say my i-Sock is on
random and say a song like
‘Montreal’ comes on and it
won’t matter if I’m shopping
for tuna or collecting the larger
cigarette butts from the
supermarket car park, that
song will come on and I’ll be
right back there amidst the
shame and loss, a distant, catatonic shell mechanically lighting one foul tasting cigarette after another. I don’t want to imagine the swiftness of the regression if I hear ‘The Suitors of Ballyhoo’, with the lyrics “I want you” and “I love you” in tandem. It’s a violent yanking open of tender wounds that tickles the fancy of my masochistic side, but doesn’t help me get my tuna any faster and may actually make my eyes leak. Maybe. Bonus features include an opener that states “I don’t like your fashion business, mister” with a whole load of banjo, fiddle, accordion, guitar and shaky stuff put together with that general good time revolutionary feel of good, honest folk music. ‘I Love Leonard Cohen’ is a nostalgia drenched pimp, name dropping Weezer, Jeff Buckley and Meatloaf with derision whilst giving eternal love to the titular songsmith, Big Co’. I can’t help thinking that between those four massive heavyweights of popular music I know who I’d pick, but it would only be after asking if you had any other CDs. How about MP3’s? Alright, Meatloaf. But it better be ‘Bat Out of Hell’ and not that Bon Jovi 'Beauty and the Beast' comeback shit that festered in the charts like a performing corpse for like a Wet Wet Wet half-life in the Nineties. I’d rather just sit in silence. Luckily I don’t have to make that choice and can instead listen to Robin Grey, and I can’t help think it will be alright in the end. And it is, with the final track, ‘Roses From Africa’ riffing on the whole Bill Hicks “it’s just a ride” theme I can’t help but just be thankful to be alive, but before it finishes I skip it back a track to ‘Ninety Days’. I did this once with Cat Stevens and now I can’t ever listen to ‘Wild World’ again without tearfully hiccupping shame and loss. ‘Ninety Days’ is my new ‘Wild World’. I guess that was meant as a compliment.
WHERE IS IT? www.robingrey.com Full album also streaming on Spotify.

WYLDSKY ‘Wyldsky’ (Mandatory Music)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? Dad Rock.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I’m not talking about your dad, my dad, anyones real dad. I’m talking the generic dad. The blue jeans belted to the waist with the t-shirt tucked in dad of us all. The dad that watching American TV has made us all feel we have. The dad that embarrasses us in front of girls, gives us sage advice in the garage next to his tools and laughably gets stomped on by his wife who is

the domineering power centre of the house, your American TV step-mum, the one you secretly fancy. If Wayne and Garf were rocking ironically to shit like ‘Wyldsky’ (I don’t know why, maybe it’s the assonance, but I can’t help think of White Snake when I say that name) back before irony was cool, how are we supposed to listen to it? Like it’s some kind of beam of guitar noodling God light shining down on us mere mortals from the hallowed heavens of balls-to-the-wall rock? No. What’s going to happen is we’ll buy it for our collective dad on his birthday and he’ll play it once and then let it gather dust on his already obsolete CD collection. I do have to get this on the record though, there is a moment where the album gets scary, maybe even ‘Parental Advisory’ scary. On song ‘Rendevous’ you’ve got the lyrics “with heavens Gate already open/ someday there will come a big sleep”, which, if I’m not mistaken, is a reference to that apocalyptic suicide cult that offed themselves round the millennium. Then, after a shredding knuckle bleeder of a guitar solo, he’s singing “child, I’ll be your guiding light”. You know, I do listen to a lot of fucked up shit, the kind of shit that tips any parent off to their child’s massive drug habit, but this shit is too fucked up for me. Dad has issues. As much as I love him in all his Malcolm In The Middle/ Wonder Years charm, I am not taking the big sleep with him and his child murdering suicide cult. You’re on your own Homer/ Al/ Tim Allen. Just one thing, you only need two doctors signatures to commit someone, right? I’m not asking for any particular reason, I just love you, dad.
WHERE IS IT? www.wyldsky.com