LTW Newsletter 33

Welcome warriors!

We seem to be fully back in gig season as we run around the huge pile on of shows in Manchester and the rest of the UK. If it feels like three years of gigs all at once it's probally because it is three years of gigs all at once. It's been great to see faces looming out of the eternal venue twilight - faces sometimes not seen for years. Older and maybe or maybe not wiser but still with that enthralled look on their faces as they receive their dose of the high decibel in that unique communal rush of the live gig.  Not only that but the week has been peppered with great new releases and Louder Than War has been here, there and everywhere as someone once sang reprting back! 

Things seem to be a bit tripped out this week - no wonder with the world as mad as it is...sometimes a retreat into a cosy psychedelic womb is perhaps the only solution to the international head fuck.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard must be the hardest working band in showbiz.  Somehow hey have just released yet another astonishing peice of work and another missive of their lysergic, creative wildness. Not only that - it's a double album!  Sometimes it feels like we review a new album by them every month...and that's a good thing! they somehow, remarkably never let their standards drop! 

Speaking of tripped out genius, Brian Jonestown Massacre are back with their 19th album - and we get to preview one of the tracks from it here. Anton never lets you down whether it's on record or on twitter and we are enthralled at the prospect of a new album...

Can it really be 40 years since The Clash released 'Combat Rock' ? 

These days the album is often overlooked in their story - the big selling, almost last chapter on the band but it's arguably their most innovative and the perfect fusion of styles with the emphasis on New York street culture instead of London. The first single from the album is this magnificent version of 'Rock The Casbah' and 'Red Angel Dragnet' with the late and great Ranking Roger toasting over the top. 

Finally getting their tour out on the road after the filthy plague postponed it for two years, The Psychedelic Furs, are in their pomp. Their gigs have been fantastic - perfectly executed and beatifuly played and full of the romantic poetry and late night psychoramas the band were famous for. 

Age suits some people perfectly!

Goldfrapp finally played much delayed show which is now as close to Black Cherry’s 20th anniversary as it is to Felt Mountain’s, but good things are worth waiting for and the converted Wesleyan chapel of the Albert Hall in Manchester felt like just the right setting for the atmospheric, otherworldly vibe of their first album...

We were saddened by the death of Chris Bailey - the lead singer of the Australian punk band, the Saints. The band were a force of nature and somehow came up with their wall of sound punk rock in 1974 in Brisbane in Austrailia. In total isolation they released the first sonic definition of punk with their 'I'm Stranded' single in Sept 1976 and deliberatly swerved the scene they preceded by refusing to play the image game and releasing three quick albums that were each equally genius...

Brix Smith is back!
Now with a solo career and an upcoming album produced by Youth she played her first show in Hebden Bridge with an all woman band and it brought the house down! 

Simple Minds are out playing the sheds and the band who have been embrcaed of late are delivering great shows as our reviewer eventually gets round to mentioning  in this 'novel' review! 

We were shocked and saddened to lose a good friend of Louder Than War this week, punk legend Jordan who died at 66. We had done many in conversations together and she was a really good pal. Not just a punk legend and the first punk on the scene but also a warm and wonderful woman witha wickedly funny sense of hunour and an ongoing love of music and culture. 

Kae Tempest returns with their fourth album, The Line Is A Curve. More personal, warmer and musically evolved, it represents an important milestone in their career. Gordon Rutherford reviews for Louder Than War

Former Cocteau Twin, Elizabeth Fraser and percussionist Damon Reece have detailed their newest project – Sun’s Signature – a stunning 5-song EP out physically on June 18th via Partisan Records for Record Store Day with a digital release following a few weeks later in July (date TBD). To coincide with the announcement, the life and musical partners have shared genre-defying highlight “Golden Air”,.

 With its permanent home at The John Rylands Research Institute and Library in Manchester, the British Pop Archive will present a collection of artefacts that shaped pop culture in Britain and worldwide.