Life Elsewhere

Traveling by train, entering Waterloo Station with The Shard visible in the distance May 2026, I decided to take the whole month off. A much needed getaway. An extended trip back home to visit family and friends. I planned an intriguing route by rail beginning in the lush and genteel Surrey Hills and the charming riverside town of Guildford; heading north to the bleak but stunning Pennines;…

Coyote – Teacher We begin with a two chaps out of Nottingham, UK who present as Coyote who share a pleasant mellow cut titled Teacher. Their Nag Champa EP may cross genres yet all three cuts are strictly dub-wise. DJs / Producers Timm Sure & Richard Hampson (aka Ampo) are Coyote, between them they spent the 90s’ with residencies at many of the decades seminal parties. Coyote officially came into…

Hannah Lou Larson – Move Like Rivers Danish born Oxford based Singer-Songwriter Hannah Lou Larsen says “The EP, Peach Pine Ocean is my offering of four deeply personal meditations on love, loss, and the shifting nature of human connection.” She goes onto to tell us, “The EP was written, recorded and mixed by yours truly in my home studio in Oxford.” Move Like Rivers is dedicated to “The people I…

The Layoffs the world’s first band to leverage ChatGPT to advance songwriting & release an album in less than 50 days! Josh KlenertJeremy LaCroixDavid Robinson “During the post-COVID wave of tech layoffs we were inspired by a New York Times article that covered the chaos and angst surrounding remote job cuts during the pandemic.” The Layoffs write, “People got the news through emails, Slack…

Founder Of Manchester’s Iconic Post-Punk Inca Babies  Harry Stafford – photo by Simona Masoni Inca Babies have that unmistakable essence of genuine rock ’n’ roll. Plus, they have always proudly worn the mantle of being a Manchester band. As foundational pioneers of the early post-punk and deathrock movements, Inca Babies remain a vital cornerstone of the Manchester and UK music scenes to this…

bobbie – I Could Call You At the end of the notes for bobbie’s LP Lessons they write, “Lessons is about loving people. Thank you for listening :)” bobbie also writes “Lessons is an artifact of love, curiosity and humility. This is one spec/snapshot into one spirit aka me being real”. It’s strikes me as curious that bobbie uses an all-lower-case name yet is unabashed in asserting their feelings.…

“Should the current global turmoil caused by the Trump administration motivate a collective response from the Popular Music community?” That is the question we posed to writer Daniel Rachel.  Our inquiry was prompted by the knowledge that history tells us Popular Music has continually voiced dissent since the end of World War II. Singer-songwriters and social activists Pete Seeger and Woodie…

Carla dal Forno – Going Out Castlemaine is about 80 miles north west of Melbourne in central west Australia and this is where you may find, Carla dal Forno. She began her music career in Melbourne in 2010, then relocated to Berlin to record in 2014, as COVID raged she was in London with her partner, they attempted to return to Melbourne and by late 2022 Carla was living in Castlemain. She says…

“We see connivence, cravenness and complicity from US allies and satellite states who are so afraid to mention that this was an illegal strike that took place on February 28th and the war taking place in Iran now is an illegal operation”  Binoy Kampmark  On February 28 President Trump posted a statement in the form of an 8-minute video on Truth Social. He declared the objective of the on Iran…

Twisted Teens – Is It Real?  I read one commentator attempting to explain Twisted Teens with “They are either punks who play country music or cowboys who play punk music. The answer just depends on which part of their sound hits you first.” Fair enough but then the writer heads off in a wordy jumble of references all a little too smarty-pants, “The guitars drone like Caspian looted them from…

Daniel Rachel – This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich In this meticulously researched and sensitively told history, with an Introduction by Billy Bragg, Daniel Rachel examines pop music’s enduring and problematic fascination with the swastika – and Nazism itself. Over the last seven decades, some of rock ’n’ roll’s most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the…

Nixxy Rain – Lawyer (Extended) The soul-drenched vocals here take us to church, driven by rolling breaks and refreshing piano stabs on Nixxy Rain’s debut cut Lawyer. This is the second release on Hospital Records marking their 30 years of the Drum ’n” Bass sound that helped define the label’s identity. Lawyer pays homage to the foundations that shaped several eras of the Hospital catalogue.…

Smith & Taylor Classics is an imprint of Unnamed Press, founded in 2024, combining Unnamed’s mission to uplift the unlikely and unexpected from around the world with editors Allison Miriam Smith and Brandon Taylor’s shared love of craftsmanship and classic literature. Featuring both celebrated and lesser-known authors from the past, S&T seeks to reintroduce titles that pushed the boundaries of…

To begin, the sad news came in this week that legendary drummer, Sly Dunbar had passed. He was best known as one half of the prolific Jamaican rhythm section and reggae production duo Sly and Robbie. Lowell Fillmore “Sly” Dunbar was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 10 May 1952, he succumbed to cancer after a long illness on 26 January 2026, at the age of 73. I did a casual search of my archives and…