This morning's episode features an interview with Spike Fuck, who will release their debut album, Evidence, via Sacred Bones this coming Friday, 2nd October. Spike Fuck will also play Crowbar this coming Saturday, 3rd October, alongside Lunar Dirt and Dominance. Find out more about Spike Fuck (and purchase his music) here: https://spikefuck.bandcamp.com/music

This week's show also features a phone interview with Stan from local three-piece Stan. What's The Use? and Don't Listen To Me are Stan's latest singles and the band will be playing two launch shows: At Banshees Bar in Ipswich on Saturday 3rd October with 88 Tokomak, Milly & The Maths Show and Gobarralong and at Weller's Hill Bowls Club on Sunday 11th October with Trawlers, Milly & The Maths Show and The Blankettes. Find out more about Stan (and purchase their music) here: https://thebandstan.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Tashi Dorji & Faith Coloccia's And Their Power Was Alive, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://tashidorji.bandcamp.com/album/and-their-power-was-alive and my review can be read below.

Tashi Dorji & Faith Coloccia: And Their Power Was Alive (Whited Sepulchre Records)

Released September 25th 2026

And Their Power Was Alive, a collaborative album between vocalist/percussionist Faith Coloccia and guitarist Tashi Dorji (which also features piano and organ by Nicholas Wilbur) is true labour of love and cooperation that took shape over several years. Dorji’s parts were recorded in 2021/2022, Wilbur’s in 2021 and Coloccia’s in 2024/2025, this sense of patience, of space, time and understanding is at the forefront of this beautiful record and a testament to the vision of all those involved.

There is something elemental about the album, this is evident in the song titles themselves, which reference the sea, ash, cinders and land/earth itself. Elemental, but not monumental, for it is a slow burn of a record that feels imparted with the slow shifting of time, the passing of the seasons or the transition from night to day. These may seem like abstract concepts, but the interplay between Dorji’s haunting guitar, Coloccia’s plaintive vocals and Wilbur’s sparse playing feels as natural as a summer’s breeze; and occasionally as brutal as a winter’s wind.

Each track imparts the album with its own spirit. Excessive Yield is little more than the reverberating sound of a tubular bell whilst Short Lived Echo gives the impression of a simple piano ballad, before descending into a haze of noise. This essence of quiet vs. loud experimentalism is extended on Invisible Lines Between Imaginary Lands, before Silica’s Last Word closes the album on a eerie yet wistful note.

Together, Coloccia and Dorji have conjured up something truly wonderful, an album that is rich with experimentalism, yet it is neither difficult nor demanding. And Their Power Was Alive is a compelling listen that doesn’t ask too much of its audience, instead it immerses them in a cocoon of sonic beauty that —given its 34 minute runtime— is, unfortunately, far too short.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Lee Hazlewood - If It's Monday Morning
• Dinosaur Jr. - Blowin' Up
• Papa M - Ode To Mark White
• Mick Turner - Sometimes
• Oren Ambarchi - Hidden Tableu
• Leaker - Spinemelter
• Valve - Garden Wall
• McKisko - Trolling
• Freya - A Smaller World (Live)
• Interview - Spike Fuck Part 1
• Lunar Dirt - Death Of A Star
• Interview - Spike Fuck (Part 2)
• Spike Fuck - All By Myself
• Joy Division - Atmosphere (Live)
• Squanderers - Theme For Femme Presenting Hands
• Warumpi Band - Dead Flowers
• Jimmy Little & Kylie Minogue - Bury Me Deep In Love
• Lost Animal - Bowl Of Berries
• The Blankettes - Wide Brown land
• Stan - What's The Use?
• Lottie McLeod - Take It Back
• Trawlers - Happy Times
• Tashi Dorji & Faith Coloccia - Invisible Lines Between Imaginary Lands
• Jules Reidy - Clerestory Windows III
• Claire Rousay & Martyna Basta - Cool Girls Go To Heaven
• Andrew Tuttle & Darren Cross - Is This Too?

This week's show also features a short catch-up with Kade and Ben from local band Valve, as they prepare to release their debut album on Friday 25th September. The album is titled, Last Hands Of Heaven And Angels and I have the privilege of premiering two interconnected songs from the record, How To Push It Down Into Your Hollow Legs and Last Hands Of Heaven And Angels. 

Nick's Pick of the Week is Curbside Lambsear's Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://curbsidelambsear.bandcamp.com/ and my review can be read below.

Curbside Lambsear: Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands (Scenic Route)

Released September 11th 2026

Curbside Lambsear are a London-based two-piece featuring Magdalena McLean from Caroline and Annabelle Mödlinger from The Umlauts. Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands is their striking debut for Scenic Route, a stunning EP that contains catchy hooks and laconic lyricism alongside noise and drones. The EP may have appeared out of nowhere, but the songwriting ability and knack for experimentation belies a pair of songwriters who are well-versed at their craft.

Ironically, both McLean and Mödlinger are from Austria, however, they only connected after each had established themself in the English capital as members of the city’s thriving experimental music scene. Curbside Lambsear was born from a desire to do something simpler than their respective projects (Caroline contains eight members, whilst The Umlauts have core of four that expands to nine for live shows) and a desire to learn something new. Mödlinger had this to say in a recent article on The Quietus, “The first session we spent together was just an hour of figuring out where everything needed to be plugged into… this project is the first time I’ve done this, so the run-up has just been me teaching myself everything.”

Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands contains five tracks, all exceeding five minutes in length, making it a relatively long EP, and (at thirty minutes in length) even longer than some other band’s albums. No Ordinary Word opens the record, with a dubby backbeat, layers of feedback and noise and spoken word vocals. The unpronounceable Jjochstubn is a slow burn of static, whilst the (relatively) poppy Man The Door provides a breezy mid-point break. Avril, the EP’s high-point, has a maximalist, shoegazy energy, before Uneasy winds things down with its laid back, broken-synth tones.

Even when one considers Mclean and Mödlinger’s musical pedigree, Put Rings On All My Fingers To Weigh Down My Hands is still an astonishing debut and a release that manages to sound equally fresh and accomplished. The EP’s mish mash of styles and influences results in a record of continuous surprises and a listening experience that few could consider boring. It really is a remarkable release and one can’t help but wonder what this dynamic duo will produce next.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Tape/Off - Monday
• Dinosaur Jr. - Read The Room
• Party Dozen - Special Unit (Live)
• Guiding Light - Liebe Im Kapitalistischen Reich
• Kankawa Nagarra - Tell You A Story
• Keanu Nelson - Warumpinya
• Jamie Trevaskis + James Lees - The Third Sunday
• Madeleine Cocolas - An Introduction
• Vanishing Twin - Sugar Stone
• Interview - Oren Ambarchi Part 1
• Gravetemple - Ambient/Ruin Part IV
• Interview - Oren Ambarchi Part 2
• Oren Ambarchi - Hidden Tableu (Excerpt)
• Interview - Ben & Kade (Valve)
• Valve - How To Push It Down Into Your Hollow Legs
• Valve - Last Hands Of Heaven And Angels
• Craning - Metro North Access Line
• Current 93 - The God Sleep Has His House
• Kali Malone - Heavy With Fruit
• Rowland S. Howard - White Wedding
• Bloodletter - Doom Town
• Midwife - Autoluminescent
• Curbside Lambsear - Avril
• Lea Carine - Кристофина
• Stan - Don't Listen To Me
• Spike Fuck - Had Your Way

Find out more about Pure Mass (and purchase their music) here: https://puremass.bandcamp.com/album/fire-sale - All proceeds from this release will go to Black Rainbow, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Sistergirl and Brotherboy (LGBQTI+SB) organisation.

Nick's Pick of the Week is Sly & The Family Drone's With Love, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://familydrone.bandcamp.com/album/with-love and my review can be read below.

Sly & The Family Drone: With Love (Self-Released)

Released August 28 2026

Sly & The Family Drone have been producing their own unique kind of noise for almost two decades now. Each new album is both a continuation and an expansion on past ideas, incorporating elements of noise, free jazz, electronica and drone. With Love is their sixth studio album, a half-hour slab of skronk infused mayhem, that may be the group’s best effort yet.

As is per usual for Sly & The Family Drone, With Love is entirely instrumental. It contains six songs that twist, weave and meander their way from genesis to conclusion —whilst rarely taking the predictable route. The band, however, does not lack a sense a of humour, as is evidenced by Under The Rainbow, a riff on Over The Rainbow that comprises mostly static noise and a plaintive variation of the classic melody famously featured in the film The Wizard Of Oz.

Elsewhere, Psychic Surgery imparts a frantic, tribal rhythm, whereas In The Oils provides a meditative break from the rest of the madness. The Guts Of Albion is —perhaps— the album’s centrepiece, a gloriously noisy but slightly slow burning slab of ecstatic free jazz bliss that drags the listener (perhaps kicking and screaming) down roads less-travelled and through realms unknown.

With Love isn’t an album that invites or encourages passive listening, this is an immersive experience that assaults the senses and alters perceptions. It may be a bumpy ride, but the damage to the vehicle is worth it —sit down, strap in, open your mind and enjoy the journey.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Radio Birdman - Monday Morning Gunk
• Rebel Yell - Scorpio
• Vanishing Twin - Oral Tradition
• Mala Fama - Compañerita
• Klara Lewis - Tide
• Colin Stetson & Brìghde Chaimbeul - Snowfall
• Genital Shame - Down Titration Strategies
• Collector - Cutter's Concern
• Leaker - Old Dog
• Grieg - Thrash By Night
• McKisko - Into The Night
• Fatshaudi - Places You Only See Once
• Cannon - Burnt Down City
• Kitchen's Floor - Haunted Houses
• Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - Love Hurts
• Vic Simms - Stranger In My Country
• Andrew Tuttle & Darren Cross - Afternoon Sunrise (I Saw Galadriel at 711)
• Einstürzende Neubauten - Morning Dew
• Nina Winder-Lind - Foremothers
• Stan - What's The Use?
• Ritual Disorder - Rewind
• Ghost Variations - Siren Song/Collective Whiplash
• Raw Impact - Better Things To Do
• Pure Mass - Born Old
• Sly & The Family Drone - Guts Of Albion
• Cities Aviv - Bigger Than The Program
• Open Mike Eagle & Kenny Segal - Watching a Movie Called Freedom By Myself
• Oren Ambarchi - Hidden Tableu (excerpt)

Nick's Pick of the Week is Lex Walton's Ultimate Love Forever, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://youthagainstsatan.bandcamp.com/album/ultimate-love-forever and my review can be read below.

Lex Walton: Ultimate Love Forever (Sub Pop)

Released Friday 4th September 2026

Ultimate Love Forever is Lex Walton’s Sub Pop debut, but it is just one in a long line of delightfully scrappy, lo-fi recordings released by the Brooklyn, New York based singer/songwriter, poet, artist, filmmaker and actress. Recorded by Uniform’s Ben Greenberg at Thump and Circular Ruin studios, Ultimate Love Forever also features contributions from Greenberg, as well as Emily Green and Sam Revaz of Geese, Sarah Neufeld of Arcade Fire and more.

Clocking in at a brief twenty minutes and comprising just seven songs, Ultimate Love Forever is a short and sharp burst of all-killer no-filler power-pop delivered earnestly and with unflinching honesty. For Thee I Sing, Hipster Run Off and Ultimate Love 4Ever each grab you by the throat from the get-go; then never let up. Owing as much to the Folk Implosion as the earliest Strokes releases, there is a naivety and an urgency to these faster tracks that makes them instantly infectious.

I Wish I Was An M80 and Adrian Borland Will Have His Revenge On London are slightly more experimental, incorporating tape hiss, acoustic guitars and additional percussion. About half way through the former, the songs sounds as if it is going self-destruct, albeit somewhat gleefully. Even at their most challenging, however, the songs on Ultimate Love Forever are too damned enjoyable to be unbearable.

Chock full of hooks and passion, Ultimate Love Forever is a major step forward for Walton, who has previously confined themselves to solo, at-home recordings. The backing of a record label allows her the freedom to expand her sonic palette and the budget to add a touch of polish to the album’s endearing scrappiness. Quick and to the point, with little margin for mucking about, there is very little about Ultimate Love Forever to complain about, with (perhaps) one exception —it’s a little too short.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• David McCormack & The Polaroids - Monday Morning
• Roger Knox - Black Tear Tracks
• Charlie Ivan Band - Despair & Devotion
• Michael Beach - The Calvary Cross
• Kali Malone - Heavy With Fruit
• Helen - Dead Shark II
• Carmen Villain - Blue
• Chat Pile - Family Funeral
• Genital Shame - I Want To Die Before You
• Godflesh - Living/Ending
• Interview - Aidan Moffat & Malcolm Middleton (Arab Strap) Part 1
• Malcolm Middleton - That Voice Again
• Nyx Nótt - Theme From
• Interview - Aidan Moffat & Malcolm Middleton (Arab Strap) Part 2
• Arab Strap - Beats Per Minute
• Ritual Disorder - Not The Same
• Bitumen - Minutes Of Pure Joy
• Ancient Channels - Juniper
• Bugs - Clear Vision
• Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Maps (Live at The Royal Albert hall)
• The Go-Betweens - Cattle And Cane
• Spike Fuck - Had Your Way
• Metallica - The Wait
• Freya - Prelude (Live)
• Valve - A Garden Wall
• Lex Walton - For Thee I Sing
• Stan - Don't Listen To Me
• Ups And Downs - Radio Is Dead
• Pure Mass - Bug

Nick's Pick of the Week is Black Duck & Elena Setién's Black Duck with Elena Setién, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://blackduck.bandcamp.com/album/black-duck-with-elena-seti-n and my review can be read below.

Black Duck & Elena Setién: Black Duck with Elena Setién (Thrill Jockey)

Released 28th August 2026

Based out of Chicago, Black Duck is a trio that features guitarist Bill MacKay, bassist Doug McCombs and drummer Charles Rumback, all veterans of the Windy City’s underground, experimental and improvisational music scenes. To list each of their respective projects, collaborations and other musical outlets would take days —and multiple pages— but think Tortoise, Bill Callahan and Ryley Walker, to name but a few. For their second album, Black Duck with Elena Setién, the band recruit Basque singer Elena Setién to contribute vocals and add a timeless, cinematic edge to the group’s unmistakable and incomparable sound.

Setién and the members of Black Duck became acquainted when the latter was on tour in Spain in 2025. Their mutual respect and admiration for each other’s artistry led to a cross fertilisation of ideas that culminated in collaborative sets taking place throughout the tour. Following this, studio time was booked and the current project rapidly took shape, resulting in the tracks that comprise Black Duck with Elena Setién.

Black Duck with Elena Setién is an album that sounds fresh and full of surprises. The connection between the artists is evident in the interplay and —despite the rapid timeline from realisation to completion— the group sounds as if they have been performing together for years. Seekers of experimental and filmic visions will find much to love here, but, despite its artistic pretensions, Black Duck with Elena Setién remains an accessible and beautiful album that will curry favour with all kinds of forward thinking music fans.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Tegan & Sara - Monday, Monday, Monday
• Roky Erikson & The Aliens - Two-Headed Dog
• Tropical Fuck Storm - Stepping On A Rake (Live)
• Ancient Channels - Beta Waves
• Chris Corsano & Camila Nebbia - Unadorned/Never Better
• Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Bobby Kapp - Afterglow
• Chelsea Wolfe - Turn The Key
• Julia Holter - My Twin
• Ed Kuepper - Rainy Night (Live)
• Michael Beach - The Sea (Live)
• Darla Quintana - NGC 1982
• Oren Ambarchi - Hidden Tableau (Excerpt)
• Missing - Cities Without Rivers
• The Drones - River Of Tears
• Kev Carmody - Black Deaths In Custody
• David McCormack's TRS80 - The Wilhelm Scream
• Hotchkiss - Sinking
• Granddaughter - Teeth
• Iceage - Plowing Into The Field Of Love
• Valve - Garden Wall
• Black Duck & Elena Setién - Behind The Door
• Believe - Braided River
• Miss Kaninna - Chat My Shit
• Chiffon Magnifique - Marionette
• Arab Strap - Fighting For You

Nick's Pick of the Week is Jad Atoui's It Will Take Forever, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://jad-atoui.bandcamp.com/album/it-will-take-forever and my review can be read below.

Jad Atoui: It Will Take Forever (Ruptured Records)

Released July 17th 2026

Based in Beirut, Lebanon, Jad Atoui is a an experimental composer and improviser who draws influence from noise, drone and rave cultures. His fourth album, It Will Take Forever, is built from live, modular synthesiser performances that took place in Beirut between 2023 and 2025.

Each of the six tracks that comprise It Will Take Forever owe their genesis to longer compositions, intended to be experienced at high volumes in venues and art spaces. On record, despite being condensed, the tracks still echo the energy of their forbears, bristling with life and urgency —if you can play it loud —I mean really loud— do so, you won’t regret it.

Despite the liveliness of the record, or perhaps even in spite of it, there is an underlying sense of tension (even dread) undercutting the entirety of It Will Take Forever. Fizzing electronics crackle ominously, building slowly and purposefully, before vanishing into thin air and being denied a moment of sonic catharsis. It is tempting to attribute this undercurrent of tension to Atoui being forced to create under the spectre of violence and occupation being perpetrated against Lebanon by Israel. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but the presence of unease is unmistakably there.

It Will Take Forever is a dense and multifaceted record that defies expectations and descriptions. Despite being floored by it on the first listen, further spins revealed additional secrets and invited further discoveries. Expansive, meditative and completely thrilling, It Will Take Forever is a complex album of experimental electronica, don’t expect to understand everything the first time you hear it, but keep trying and trust me, it’s worth it.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• New Order - Blue Monday
• STAN - What's The Use
• Refedex - Drinkin' Bout
• Ancient Channels - Year Of The Rats
• Stephen O'Malley - 21:13 (Take 4)
• Hana Stretton - Nojiri 1993
• Lawrence English - Acid Nostalgia
• Cloud Tangle - Merry-Go-Round
• Rebel Yell - Heaven's Blade
• Arca - No End
• J.WLSN & Liam Keenan - The Power Of Emptiness
• Gwenifer Raymond - Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark
• Lambchop - A Doctor In The House
• Maťkovia - Hrochy
• Vanishing Twin - Archives
• The Amazing Snakeheads - Heading For Heartbreak
• Arab Strap - Be A Man
• The Cramps - Problem Child
• David McCormack's TRS80 - Home Surgery
• Plum - Can Jam
• Jad Atoui - Pressure Dream
• Big|Brave - In Grief Or In Hope
• Valve - Ringer Found His Dose

• Songs played
• Quiet Steps - Generation To Generation
• Angry Birds - The Angry Birds Theme Song
• The Australian Beef Week Show - Geoff's A Hoarder
• The Pogues - Dirty Old Town
• The Windmills - Don't
• Supertramp - Asylum
• Gudgeon - Black & Blue
• The Rubens - Live In Life
• Antenna - Don't Cry
• Sial - Zaman Edan Single
• ISIS - Treat Yourself Gently
• Propagandhi - At Peace
• Slumlawwd - Hyper Dome Rave Up
• Nancy & The Jam Fancy's - Proceed With Caution
• Ed Kuepper - La Di Doh
• Le Tigre - Deceptacon
• The Media - Hunters
• Elvis Presley - An American Trilogy (Live)
• Mambo No. 5 - Masayoshi Takanaka
• Angine De Poitrine - Sherpa
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For?
• Sugar - Slick
• Pinebender - There's A Bag Weights In The Back Of My Car
• Simona Castricum - Rupture
• The Lamingtons - No Time Lost Cleaning Windows
• The Fat Bastards - Drug Mule
• Radium Dolls - Tractor Parts
• Batpiss - Black Paint
• Razel - Stegosaurus
• The Grates - Storm & Fevers
• Killing Joke - The Great Cull

Three interviews this morning, equalling one huge show!

The first, with Amy and Freya from local guitar-drone duo Freya. Check out Freya's music here: https://freyadrone.bandcamp.com/album/yamabiko

The second, with People's Poet and occasional community radio broadcaster, Our Carlson. Check out Our Carlson's music here:  https://ourcarlson.bandcamp.com/

Finally, with Leon from local noise-rock group Leaker, who you can catch this weekend at That Sound Over The Fence.

Nick's Pick of the Week is Ceremony's Tell Me Your Dream, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://ceremonyrohnertpark.bandcamp.com/album/tell-me-your-dream and my review can be read below.

Ceremony: Tell Me Your Dream (Relapse)

Released 7th August 2026

Named after the Joy Division/New Order song of the same name, Ceremony formed in Rohnert Park, California in 2004 and have now been active for over two decades. Tell Me Your Dream is the group’s seventh album and their second for the (the primarily metal focussed) Relapse Records.

As the years have progressed, Ceremony have gradually moved away from the hardcore-punk/power violence of their first record, gradually embracing a jagged sense of melody and post-punk sensibility that belies the influences that gave the group their name. It was 2015’s L-Shaped Man that truly signalled this shift —being produced by John Reis (of Hot Snakes and Rocket From The Crypt fame) and released by Matador Records helped herald the band’s new intentions— and they haven’t looked back since. With Tell Me Your Dream, Ceremony remain firmly locked in to the post-punk genre; with just a hint of garage-rock and traditional punk thrown in for good measure.

Album opener, Prograde, is as angular as it comes, somewhat similar to the earliest eras of My Disco, whilst Other Hells unleashes all the hardcore elements from their cage before Madness resettles into a solid post-punk groove; with a furiously dancy edge. For some reason, track four on every record is almost always a standout and Dark Summer is no exception. Channelling the High period of Royal Headache, it’s a catchy track the belies a melancholy underside yet (despite its pessimism) demands a replay. Antenna, Justify and Death Destruction Mayhem all tread along a similar bass-heavy but melodic path, easing the listener into the sparseness of, album closer, Paradise.

With Tell Me Your Dream, Ceremony continue the evolution they started more than ten years ago and —despite the apprehension of some fans and critics— the band themselves have certainly never looked back. Tell Me Your Dream reinstates Reis as producer, for the first time since L-Shaped Man, and his influence can certainly be felt across the album’s ten tracks. Ever reliable, Ceremony can be depended upon to release a solid album every few years and Tell Me Your Dream is no exception. This time, however, they may have outdone themselves, by releasing their best album in more than a decade.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Wilco - Monday
• Body Type - Planet 8
• Clamm - Rats
• Crying/The Heavy Light - Over The Range
• Silver Sircus - Under Your Skin
• Interview - Amy & Casey (Freya) Pt 1
• Big|Brave - What May be The Kindest Way To Leave
• Interview - Amy & Casey (Freya) Pt 1
• Freya - Yamabiko Pt. II (Live)
• Rebel Yell (Feat. Naomi) - Burner
• Ninajirachi (Feat. Porter Robinson) - IWannaCry
• Panda Bear & Sonic Boom - Be The Bridge
• The Stubbies - Living The Dream
• Mulga Bore Hard Rock - Stay
• Michael Beach - I'm Gonna Need Ya (Live)
• Ed Kuepper - Sea-Air (Live)
• Our Carlson - A Donk Don't Come For Free
• Andrew Tuttle & DC Cross - Is This Too
• John Glacier - Bond Girl
• Leaker - The Horrors
• Tropical Fuck Storm - Aneurysm
• Special Features - Poles
• Ceremony - Dark Summer
• Chelsea Wolfe - Cold
• Gilla Band - Placeholder
• Protomartyr - Sounds We Cannot Hear

Nick's Pick of the Week is Sir Richard Bishop's Hillbilly Erotica, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://sirrichardbishop.bandcamp.com/album/hillbilly-erotica and my review can be read below.

Sir Richard Bishop: Hillbilly Erotica (Drag City)

Released July 31st 2026

Sir Richard Bishop made a name for himself performing with Sun City Girls, but his first solo release was on John Fahey’s Revenant label in 1998. It seems fitting that one of the originators of the American primitive style of guitar playing would release the first record by an individual who would carry its torch into the new century — and the new millennium.

Hillbilly Erotica serves as a companion piece —or, perhaps, a continuation?— of Bishop’s previous album, Hillbilly Ragas, released in 2025 by Drag City. In the words of the man himself, Hillbilly Erotica is, “…still exploring the areas around these parts with a similar type of aggression [as Hillbilly Ragas], but as morning light approaches, a clearing or two present themselves, with hills and valleys viewable in the distance inspiring a slightly different sonic landscape. One could be forgiven for feeling a sense of relief from finally arriving from out of the night-time woods to a place which may seem less threatening in the daylight, but it’s a trap - the darkness of night is always right around the corner. Enjoy the postcoital smoke but tread carefully!”

Lick Spittle open the record. Fast-paced and frantic, it borrows a touch from the flamenco and mariachi styles, while it’s follow up, Finger, Tennessee, is a far more mellow affair that wouldn’t feel out of place around a campfire. Back Forty Lashes is a heavily strummed highlight that takes a little while to get moving, but doesn’t let up once it does. Finger Revisited slows things down, once again, before the album comes to a close with one final, beautiful track, Postcoital Serenade.

Comprising eight tracks across (almost) forty minutes, Hillbilly Erotica is an intense and impassioned collection of instrumental, acoustic compositions that are deeply rooted in the annals of American guitar music, whilst also bearing influence from various eastern musical traditions. Bishop is an adept player, but he never sacrifices passion for virtuosity, always ensuring that —at its core— each and every song is not only soulful, but (equally) has a soul.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Clamm - Monday
• The Scornful Four - Hymn For The Light
• Suncuts - Cut Through The Silence Pt. 2
• J.WLSN & Liam Keenan - Suburban Dopamine
• The Durutti Column - Liars
• Spike Fuck - All By Myself
• Dinosaur Jr. - Blowin' Up
• Semantron - Krummholz Heart
• Hotchkiss - Ghosts
• Leaker - Spit
• Silver Jews - I Remember Me
• Vic Simms - Anybody's Nobody
• Dirty Harry - You
• Smallest Horse - Fishing
• Flangipanis - Down At The Bottom
• Sweeping Promises - Cocoon
• Ed Kuepper - Electrical Storm (Live)
• Primitive Calculators - Shout
• United Axis Of Filth - Making Queensland Safer C
• Dominance - Love Is The Minimal Form
• Richard & Linda Thompson - The Calvary Cross
• Michael Beach - Societal Breakdown (Live)
• Sir Richard Bishop - Back Forty Lashes
• Boris - Akuma No Uta
• Freya - A Smaller World (Live)

Nick's Pick of the Week is Earth Trax's Everlasting Flame, you can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here: https://earthtraxonline.bandcamp.com/album/everlasting-flame and my review can be read below.

Earth Trax: Everlasting Flame (Lapsus Records)

Released 12th June 2026

Earth Trax is the project of Warsaw, Poland based electronic artist Bartosz Kruczyński. Active since 2016, Kruczyński has released numerous albums, EPs and singles under various monikers, but most prominently under his own name, The Phantom and Earth Trax. Everlasting Flame’s style fluctuates between the deconstructed side of techno and the more experimental side of dub, it’s an oddly fluid album and one that is adaptable for both early morning and late night listens. 

Everlasting Flame borrows far more from Dreams And Whispers, released in 2024 under Kruczyński’s own name, than anything recently released as Earth Trax — with the possible exception of 2023’s Closer Now, but even that was a far more danceable affair. 

A double album that spans fourteen tracks, Everlasting Flame features over an hour of ambient, industrial, dub-techno, think some of the more recent solo releases by The Bug on Kevin Richard Martin’s Pressure label: ghostly, broken, glitchy —but beautiful— electronic soundscapes. In The Zone, Wait And See and Towboat really amplify the industrial elements, whilst Out In The Cold allows a brief, dance-like reprieve, whereas the title-track expertly combines the album’s two main elements for fitting finale.

Eerily beautiful and sonically soothing, Everlasting Flame is an album that slowly works it magic, but before you know you are completely under its spell. Kruczyński’s move into even more experimental, ambient territory is a welcome shift indeed and a potential herald of even more exciting things to come.

Nick Stephan

• Songs played
• Tape/OFF - Monday
• Arab Strap - Glamour Magick
• Ed Kuepper - Not A Soul Around (Live)
• Dinosaur Jr. - Several Got Away
• Attention Shoppers - Wormhole Explained
• Jashka & Fatshaudi - Sitting On Your Shoulders
• Chaneze - Bodybuilder
• SCRAPS - Love That With One Stroke Cuts Time In Two
• J.WLSN & Liam Keenan - The Power Of Emptiness
• Kassel Jaeger - A Shell, A Bell, A Spell (From Sub Re)
• Chris Corsano & Tashi Dorji - Finite Volumes
• Interview - Robin Wattie & Mat Ball (Big|Brave) Part 1
• My Disco - Irreversible
• Interview - Robin Wattie & Mat Ball (Big|Brave) Part 2
• Big|Brave - What May Be The Kindest Way To Leave
• Freya - Prelude (Live)
• Spike Fuck - Tomorrow We Get Healthy (Live)
• Body Type - Sick Bag
• Keanu Nelson - Lonely Man
• 100% - Belonging
• Chat Pile - Sifting
• Tad - Dementia
• Earth Trax - Everlasting Flame
• Vanishing Twin - Bring Me The Axe
• Michael Beach - Calvary Cross (Live)