And now that we have made it to the actual end of 2023 and come up screaming into 2024, we can finally put our music heads on and look back at the albums of what is now last year. here then are the pick of the albums, the best things we covered or heard or played or fell over during a very very busy 2023… And of course we didn’t check out everything, how could anyone?  I think we can claim we did check out hundreds and hundreds of albums and bands and bites of music and here, are the top 43 albums of Organ’s 2023… 

1: Gazelle Twin –Black Dog (Invada) – This really has to be the album of 2023, as we said at the time, “There is so much here, so much up those dark dark stairs, up there with her black dog, or with ours maybe? Everything about this new album is dark, beautifully dark, dark all the same, and you kind of want to know but then again you maybe don’t? As a piece of work, as a body of music, as art and as a new album it really is something but then, if you’ve been paying any kind of attention to…more

In terms of her albums, her live perormances of Black Dog, her midsummer performance with NYX, it really has been Gazelle Twin’s year. There was her other album this year as well, here soundtrack Gazelle Twin’s Then You Run soundtrack, she’s just so on it right now…

2: Ultraphauna – No No No No (Dur Et Doux) – One of the most played albums this year on The Other Rock Show (brought to you by Organ and broadcast every week via London’s Resonance FM). A newborn band of art-rock veterans whose wide-eyed, wriggling form is born of the music of Timba Harris (violin, trumpet) and Dorothy Wave (vocals, synths). The band features Toby Driver (bass) and Joel Murray (drums) who both crushed their studio performances in New York and Liverpool respectively, helping bring to life the debut album, No No No No, that came out back in April 2023. As you can imagine from the history of groups represented among the band’s pedigree – Estradasphere, Secret Chiefs 3, a.P.A.t.T., Kayo Dot, Extra Life, Duo Probosci, Barberos, Grails, Tzadik Composer Series…the list goes on and on – the potential scope of musical ground covered is vast… More

3: Univers Zero – Lueur (Sub Rosa) – Do like it when they do that slightly sinister slightly dark clanking thing they do, Belgium’s Univers Zero and a new album, their first in almost ten years, a follow up to Phosphorescent Dreams. We’re told Lueur is “the fruit of two years’ work and reflection, the foundations of which were laid…. read on: The first album in almost ten years from avant-prog band/chamber orchestra Univers Zero is as darkly rewarding as ever

4: Export/Import – If you asked the ten or so members of the band, the London thing known as Export Import would probably tell you this isn’t an album, that is is actually a 43 minute single and yes it is all one track, it is a big track though – ORGAN THING: Export Import Live at Gallery 46, an album? A 43 minute single? Whatever it is, some kind of wired up klang and angles that are straight, but nothing is straight and then there’s the, whatever this might be, art rock or progressive jazz or, you need it…

5: Deerhoof – Miracle​-​Level  (Joyful Noise)– Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story, let me tell you about the new Deefhoof album and by the time we’ve passed the delight of the already heard single My Lovely Cat! (and that slight feel of a breezy Led Zeppelin that Lovely Cat has), by the time we’ve said hello again to the cat and reached the third delightful track in,The Poignant Melody, a piece thatis just gorgeous …. ORGAN THING: Deerhoof’s latest album, Miracle-Level, is a delight, of course it is…

6: Aunty Rayzor –Viral Wreckage (Hakuna Kulala) – Meanwhile Hakuna Kulala, a label based in Kampala, Uganda continued to come up with musical treats in 2023. The label deals in “Club explorations from the East African and Congolese Electronic Underground and beyond”, we featured several of their releases this year, in particular, new tracks from the then forthcoming Bisola Olungbenga a.k.a Aunty Rayzor album Viral Wreckage that did eventually come out in September of this year… read more

7: Historically F*cked – The Mule Peasants’ Revolt of 12,06/7 (Upset The Rhythm) – But who are Historically F*cked? Someone said something about carrots and a head of broccoli, I think that’s what someone said? Don’t ask me, hang on, it was half-a-pound of carrots and nothing to do with the indignity of donkeys, see I did get to the end!  We’re back to the start ofThe Mule Peasants’ Revolt of 12067 now and a re-run of the whole damn thing, the whole beautiful album. What is going on here? Well what we do know… more

8: Pound Land – Violence (Cruel Nature) – Now this latest release sounds like a big leap forward – “Pound Land were formed in 2020 by vocalist/lyricist Adam Stone (Future Bomb/sometime collaborator with Dead Sea Apes) and multi-instrumentalist Nick Harris (Reverends of Destruction/ ex-Dead Sea Apes) – an absurdist post-industrial ‘kitchen-sink’ punk for a dogshit-dull Britain …More

9: Mandy, Indiana – I’ve seen a way (Fire Talk) – We seem to have been listening to them, throwing them on playlists and such all year, rather like the mystery, they sound like they’re from Paris, not Indiana, they are actually from Manchester, they’re a rather beautiful, rather velvety four-piece experimental noise band that, so we’re told, “formed out of the fertile Manchester scene”, although if it is noise then it is a quiet noise, a refined noise. They have a gloriously lush sound, a rather refined thing, refined really is the word. A glowing thing, I guess they can turn up the noise when they needs to, noise is never the weapon.   read moore…

10 Saddam Webcam – Exc​è​s de beurre et Ruine morale (Dur Et Doux) – Did we ever get to grips with this one? It came out right at the end of Summer when we were busy throwing paint and raging at the gallery machine. They quoted usm,, we quoted them quoting us, a whole lot of insane vut ‘n paste, and holy merd, this is hatstand mad and More musical otherness from Lyon via that one eyed horse… more

11: Dead Pioneers – Dead Pioneers – They’re from Denver, Colorado, this is a sound and a set of often urgent statements rooted in the proper Punk aesthetic, Dead Pioneers are a band clearly not to hold back, they’re right in there tackling the issues in that classic US hardcore punk rock way, they kind of feels like classic Dead Kens with a lot more spoken word, that strong spoken word element is an important part…. read on

12: Terms – All Becomes Indistinct (SkinGraft Records) – There isn’t enough time in the day for all the music fired at us, especially when there’s paint to throw and art shows to hang and pigeons pecking at the studio door and the terms of it all to be explored (are we late with this? We just about made it before the release date didn’t we?). Terms, hopefully you’ve caught slices of this fine album already on the Other Rock Show? Several tracks have been played during the run up to the much anticipated release, here’s the reviews – Let’s go round again, a second deliciously complex, warmly rewarding album from Terms, out on SkinGraft this week. Hear an exclusive track before it hits the streets…

13: Tombouctou – Tricky Floors (Cheap Satanism Records) – From Lyon, France and sounding rather like a band from Lyon should sound. Most of the time Tombouctou sound like Siouxsie and the Banshees picking over the bones of a slightly disorientated Blonde Redhead and messing with the notions that are flowing in such a healthy way through the best bits of French experimental avant rock at the moment… more

13: M(h)aol – Attachment Styles (Tulle) – M(h)aol’s rather wired tracks have been featuring on our playlists and as part of our regular five slices of music pages for the last couple of years now, Attachment Styles is an album that deserves to be very much treated as an album rather then one off tracks though, it is a decisive beast, a pinpoint set of songs or tracks or challenges or whatever you want to call them…. more

14: Van Der Graaf Generator – The Bath Forum Concert (Esoteric) – “Well… Well well well”. The new Van Der Graaf Generator live album has just landed here, and here’s what we said about it when it did first land – ORGAN THING: Van Der Graaf Generator, The Bath Forum Concert – a live album. The perfection is in that imperfection, surely as vital now as ever?

15: Hawkwind – The Future Never Waits (Cherry Red) – Back in the Spring of ’23 Hwkwind returned with their best studio album for years, some of it very very Hawkwind, some of it alive with new musical adventure, our review was one of the most read pages on the Organ website in 2023, here’s how the review a started – “Those aren’t very Hawkwind-like sounds gently flowing past there on the fourth track of the new alum are they? A piece called They Get So Easily Distracted, some kind of mellow almost-jazz thing that’s flowing by in a rather likeable way and yes sure, there is a trademark wind-synth and swizzzzzzz or two just beneath the surface, the fingerprints are there and it is all very very nice but it isn’t very Hawkwind. We’re on a first listen here and I guess they’re damned if they do and they’re as equally dammed if the… More

16: Romy – Mid Air (Young) – Romy’s Mid Air came out back in September, it really is such an uplifting celebration of life, of love, of so so much. Mid Air really is an album that makes you swell with warmth, underpinned by a gloriously uplifting 90’s dance vibe, it just feels good, sometimes it really is as simple and uncluttered as that. I knew very little about Romy, knew about her band XX, vaguely knew who she was when we walked in to that big blue tent at All Points East back in the Summer, quite often I kind of feel this might be the actual album of the year… more

17: Frankie and The Witch Fingers – Data Doom (Greenway) – Back in the Summer, Frankie were really buzzing, “L.A’s Frankie And The Witch Fingers hit Hackney and Mid Summer with some seriously proper locked-on psyched-up garage rock and roll…” read our headline as the new wave flavoured psyche rock garage band played one of the gigs of the year in support of their album Data Doom more

18: MC Yallah – Yallah Beibe (Hakuna Kulala) – Born Yallah Gaudencia Mbidde in Kenya and raised in Uganda, MC Yallah has been involved in East Africa’s rap scene since 1999. Alternating rhymes in Luganda, Luo, Kiswahili and English, her conscious, poetic and experimental style was slow to creep into Uganda’s mainstream… more

19: Hey Colossus – In Blood (Wrong Speed Records) – There’s a massive hook of a riff three tracks into this new album, sometimes that’s all it takes to pull you in and make you want to explore more, sometimes that’s all it takes to engage you as a listener, Perle has you asking what else is there here waiting to catch you, if there was any kind of resistance… more

20: Sn​õ​õ​per – Super Sn​õ​õ​per (Third Man) – Nashville’s rather frantic much hyped Sn​õ​õ​per have a debut album out on the too-cool-for-the-likes-of-us Third Man Records, I expect they’re all over Pitchbloodtfork and such. We have been featuring them quite a bit on these fractured pages, they do kind of go off and things in a very American urgently frantic new wave no wave kind of way…. xxx more

How do we seperate Eyeless owl and The Filibuster Saloon? The two albums feel like they’re releated, like they know each other well, they certainly feel comfortable together, they can share the number 21 slot…

=21: Eyeless Owl – Murmurations  (Mogul Intermissions)  – Now how gloriously uncool is this! Cool as flipping flip, they sound like some kind of rich warm blended whisky, there’s elements of Yes, there’s a hint or two of Zappa, some more than healthy Cardiacs moments, they may be from New York State but there’s all kinds of (very English) prog rock references in there… more

=21: The Filibuster Saloon – Going off Topic (self release) – Are you sure this bloke is American? This sounds like it comes from the fields of Southern England, it sounds like country lanes, steam trains on branch lines, cows called Henry, caravans and Cardiacs, this sounds delightful. Properly proper English strawberry jam flavoured prog rock, a delight that sounds extra good tonight in the Summer rain of East London… more

22: Me Lost Me – RPG (Upset The Rhythm) – Me Lost Me are led by Newcastle-upon-Tyne based artist Jayne Dent, they have a new album, RPG is out via the respect2d Upset The Rhythm label on 7th July, this is their fourth outing as a collective, seems they transitioned from an ambitious solo project in 2017, Jayne now regularly collaborating with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope… more

23: Pere Ubu – Trouble On Big Beat Street (Cherry Red) – A new Pere Ubu album, it isn’t out until late May but hey, it just landed here and the first listen is always the best listen, second dime or indeed time around you kind of know, first time you really don’t (dime was a typo, it kind of works). Nearly four years after their previous “conventional” album release, The Long Goodbye. we maybe weren’t that sure that health would allow us another one…. more

24: Abstract Concrete Abstract Concrete (The state51 Conspiracy) – Well if Mr Hayward is involved then things have got to be worth an ear. Abstract Concrete, so they say, are “another big step for UK underground heavyweight Charles Hayward (This Heat, Camberwell Now), joined by some of the most exciting and forward-thinking young London players from a diversity of European underground and experimental scenes more

25: a.P.A.t.T. – We (Dur Et Doux) – Before anything else, it is important to say this a.P.A.t.T. album very much flows as one thing, one whole body of a work, a proper album with a clear identity, it is important to say that and make it clear because the Liverpool band are all over the place in terms of the flavours they hit you with.. more

26: Peter Hammill – In a Foreign Town/Out of Water 2023, 2CD Edition (Cherry Red) – Mr Hamill chose to re-record two of his solo albums from the 80’s this year. If these are his thoughts originally recorded in the late 1980s then right here in this whole world window of difference we find ourselves in now, thirty or forty years later, he still sounds as committed to his words from back there as he originally was, indeed things like Hemlock could have been written this year…. more

27: Alice Gerrard –Sun to Sun (Sleepy Cat Records) – Alice Gerrard’s latest rather beautiful albuM of warm wise Americana. In a career spanning nearly sixty years, the 89 year old musician has known, learned from, and performed with many of the old-time and bluegrass greats… more

29: African Head Charge – A Trip To Bolgatanga (On-U Sound) – A Trip To Bolgatanga is a musical journey to Bonjo’s current hometown in north Ghana. A psychedelic travelogue across the landscape featuring their trademark hand percussion and group chanting augmented with rumbling bass, mutated horns, dubbed out effects, wild wah-wah…more

30: Silver Moth - – Black Bay (Bella Union) – Way back at the start of what has turned out to be a very (very) long year we got rather excited by the first tastes of what we said at the time was a rather warm track from a new album and back. Silver Moth are a new collective involving Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai and “other acclaimed musicians” we reported back in January as we posted that the band had “today announced their debut album, Black Bay, out 21st April via Bella… read more

31: Ni – Fol Na​ï​s (Dur et Doux) – This is cleverly constructed violent light and shade, progressive as in moving forward, as in pushing the edges of the musical envelope – sometimes frantic, always composed, graceful even when they are falling up the stairs. Ni are from France, some of the most genuinely progressive bands, well most of them actually, seem to be coming from France right now (is it a Lyon thing?). Actually some of Fol Na​ï​s really i sbeautifully graceful more

32: PJ Harvey – Old Year Dying - We didn’t feel we needed to cover the rather beautifully rewarding I Inside the Old Year Dying, the tenth PJ Harvey studio album that came out earlier this year, it was rightly covered everywhere and really didn’t need anything from us down here in the undergrowth, more here – Watch PJ Harvey’s performance at L’Olympia, Paris, as the band perform the album ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’ followed by a selection from her catalogue…

33: Snuff – Come And Have A Go If You Think You’re Rachmaninoff (SBÄM/10 Past 12) – There’s something rather dignified about a Snull acoustic live album, but then Snuff have always been a rather dignified band – ORGAN THING: Come And Have A Go If You Think You’re Rachmaninoff, of course Snuff’s acoustic album is a good one (and if Donald Duck was here he’d quack his heart out in agreement)

34: Takh  – Takh – (Consouling Sounds) – Takh are from Ghent, Belgium and this album has been kicking around here patiently waiting for some for some much deserved attention since the middle of Summer, what can I say? Not enough hours, things to paint, shows to prepare for.. more

35: Chromb! – Cinq (Dur Et Doux) – This opening track is kind of like having mice run around your feet, or pigeons maybe, French ones? I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Chromb! sounded like last time around? Or maybe they did, who knows what’s going on here? Rather like it when we don’t really know what’s going on in terms of music. Hang on, things are suddenly making perfect sense in some kind of off-hinge way… more

36: David Eugene Edwards – Hyacint – He of the richly coloured Wovenhand, and back there we saif that he had released a rather fine new track and video ahead of his soon to be released solo album Hyacinth . The two tracks you can hear on his Bandcamp page right now ahead of the album’s release at the end of the month more than bode well, they’re sounding right up there in terms of dark intrigue and that palette of Wovenhand, all red ochres and heavy hearts, lesser keys and more if and…  read more

37: O’o – Spells (InFiné) – A fresh release, another refreshing release, a new mini album from experimental-pop duo O’o. They’ve just unveiled the first single. the album itself is out in May and follows on from their rather excellent 2022 debut Touche. Pleased to say the French twosome are back with more of the same, this latest set of quietly beautiful songs are as deliciously positive as things… more

38: Crime and The City Solution – The Killer (Mute) – Back at the end of Novermber we reported on Crime and The City Solution at Hackney’s Moth Club, and moted that they were sounding strong, touring an album that sounds as good as anything they’ve done,,, read more

39: Gina Birch – I Play My Bass Loud the oft covered painter,musician, boot-wearer and lots more besides put out a defiantly fine solo album im 2023 as well as having a very good year in terms of her paintings and well, is Gina’s time still to come? More

40: M-Opus – At The Mercy Of Manannan – M-Opus have these gorgeous moments, these gorgeous arms out wide slices of what you might call proper old school prog rock, like this bit here two thirds of the way through their tiny epic of a fourth track, To The Other Side, where they’re taking us soaring through valleys. Right now they’re sounds a little like.. more

41: Whalesong Leaving a Dream (Zoharum / Old Temple) – More than 120 minutes of bliss, hope, dreams and bright radiant light, a marvelous stream of consciousness, a sonic cinema for those who love to get lost in the sound…. more

42: Monika Roscher Bigband – Witchy Activities And The Maple Death (Zenna Records) – An Avant-Pop-Math-Jazz-Experimental Prog Bigband? Well that sounds like just about the perfect brew. It was a single from this new album that led us to Monika Roscher and her big band earlier this year. That single, a glorious nine minute piece, 8 Prinzessinnen, that opens the album, that single led us off exploring previous releases, live footage, especially that excellent footage at that Zappa festival….more

43: Lovely Little Girls – Effusive Supreme (SkinGraft Records) – Be good to your shoes?  Shoes have never been good to me, Bobby Conn has great shoes, or boots, stack heel glam rock boots, he wore them at the Powerhaus, those were shoes to be good to. more about him and that Sounds To Make You Shudder!  thing he was on alongside Lovely Little Girls in a moment. And so,yes, Lovely Little Girls, without much of a warning – ORGAN THING: The new Lovely Little Girls album, Effusive Supreme, reviewed and meanwhile SkinGraft’s vitally excellent compilation Sounds To Make You Shudder is to get a vinyl release…

And while we’re here, there were quite a few more, it was a very good year for albums and music and here’s some more of the albums that got our attention in 2023…

Airbridge – Openings – Airbridge are a delight, lets put that there first, set the stall out as it were, walk the railway line eating too many Black Jacks and sherbet-filled flying saucers. The very English band came back a couple of years ago with a …more

Algiers – Shook (Matador) – The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Franklin James Fisher, Ryan Mahan, Lee Tesche, and Matt Tong. They pull together a sound built of a divergent number of musical (and nonmusical) influences, they blend a post-punk soul with hints of hip-hop, Southern Gothic literature, and what they say is the concept of the Other. Their sound has been described as dystopian soul, which it is said might just be something to do with more

Basil’s Kite Shooting Tsars (Dark Trail Records) – They’re from Sydney, Australia, they’re sounding a little more agressive these days, you can catch quite a few tracks from what sounds like an excellent new album – ORGAN THING: A rather tasty slice of wildly awkward mathcore noise, a track from the excellent new Basil’s Kite album…

Chaos and The Cosmos – Our Song –  the breezy opening track The Singularity sets the rather easy on the ear tone for the Seattle band’s new album, Chaos and The Cosmos are a little different, the musical vehicle of composers Paul Langer and John Allday. We’re told the band draw on decades of musical exploration, playing in bands of varying genres including southern rock, experimental/avant garde, new wave, alternative, prog, surf…. more

Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau – The Garden of a Former House Turned Museum (No Hay Discos) – The album is made up of six tracks, six letters six rather experimental pieces of music, lush, slightly rotten? Moss, graffiti, the beauty of the city, it does have a feeling of a Broadway music play, maybe somewhere left of Broadway, not some giant production, more something going on in that weird art theatre down there, the one only the strange people go to more

Civic – Taken By Force (ATO) – Sometimes they sound like The Ruts, sometimes they sound like Magazine, right now they sound like Stiff Little Fingers, are they from 77, 78 or 1979, where ever the Brighton band are from they do their chosen thing very very (very) well indeed, they sdound proper, proper songs and well we probably should have said so back in February whe nthe album came out but hey, we can#t be everywhere, who can? Thank the Dirtsharks for this one….

Clark – Sus Dog (Throttle Records) – The Textures that are being played with here really are rewarding, there’s a luscious glow to this new Clark album and the rather easy way it all fits together. Clark albums are always worth your time, and once again here this is a beautiful… read more

Dog Lips – Fuzz Buster – a no messing striped to the bone punk rawk band from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Chugging guitar, low lung attitude and an album that came out in November, and you can’t always look the other way and worth the admission price for the title track alone.., read more

Durand Jones – Wait Till I Get Over (Dead Oceans) – We knew zero about Durand jones and his band before we caught in the early afternoon sunshine on the last day of 2023’s All Points East here over here in the East London sunshine – “Earlier in the day Durand Jones and his very tight band of impressively high-end musicians treated us to some serious old school R&B flavoured soul, some mellow fusion and funk that at times got positively gritty and indeed serious rocked out when it needed too…. more

Edley ODowd – F​(​our)​-​Ward – From New York with a kind of menacing sound, an enveloping sound, “a long-time veteran of multiple music scenes, Edley ODowd has collaborated and performed with many musical luminaries of various genres over his 30+ years. A founding member of NYC’s Toilet Boys and longtime member of Psychic TV, ODowd established himself as a solo-artist in 2022. F(our)ward has an almost suffocating sound, this is not background music, this isn’t nice music, well it is… more

French TV – A Ghastly State Of Affairs (Cuneiform) –  “French TV’s newest album, A Ghastly State Of Affairs, is their 15th in their long history.d…. more

Hey Colossus – Live in Leige – A beautifully raw recording of a full live show recorded at La Zone, Liege, on the band’s ‘In Blood / 20th anniversary’ tour on the 10th November, 2023 and…. more

House Of All – House of All – The Last laugh foundation? Martin Bramah, he of The Fall and all that and a rather fine, well, here’s a bit more we threw out there at the start of te year… ORGAN THING: The Last laugh foundation? Martin Bramah, he of The Fall and all that. House Of All and a very impressive first taste of the Manchester band’s new album…

Insect Factory – Nature (Chocolate Monk) – Another encounter with Insect Factory, an encounter with Insect Factory (AKA Jeff Barsky) is always rewarding. We’re talking that gentle art of noise thing again, that composed sound art thing, a glowing kind of musical composition that sounds painterly… read more

John Ghost – Thin Air . Mirror Land – More of the band’s smooth crisp progressive rock flavoured jazz and on the evidence of this first track released today, the band are on excellent form again. The Dimmed is a gorgeous nine minutes of properly progressive forward looking restraint, a piece quietly alive with so much colour… read more

Lana Del Rabies Strega (Gilgongo) – The third full-length album from Sam An’s dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project under the semi-notorious moniker Lana Del Rabies came out this year… more

Lankum – False Lankum (Rough Trade Records) – The rather dark folk band ‘s delicious fourth album came out back in the Spring of this year, we brought you that brilliantly weerie first taste back when it first emerged, they really didn;t need much more from us, they were everywhere, and why not, it is a damn fine album – more

JAAW – Supercluster (Svart) – JAAW are a post-industrial supergroup featuring Andy Cairns (Therapy?), Jason Stoll (Mugstar, KLÄMP, Sex Swing), Wayne Adams (Death Pedals, Big Lad, Petbrick) and Adam Betts (Three Trapped Tigers, Goldie, Squarepusher). “JAAW glories in big riffs and massive hooks, while also pushing the boundaries of what that even means thanks to its uncompromising strangeness”. And over here in the Organ bunker we are…. read more

Legs on Wheels – Legroom (Dismembers Club Records) – Legs On Wheels are from  Manchester, they’ve just released a new album, Legroom, “Wild and restless Chameleon Rock” is what they claim to make …more

Jah Wobble – A Brief History of Now – Hello, hello (to the milky way), hello, the new Jah Wobble album just landed here, we’ll start digesting it all probably in a moment, so far it sounds rather tasty, lots of fiction or was it friction? Take the knee, 1, 2, 3, I am, I am, I am… read more

Madmadmad – Behavioural Sink Delirium (Bad  Vibrations)– The latest rather mad studio album from the ather mad outfit known as Madmadmad. “Powered by their wild live parties and rooted in the sounds of mutant disco, post-punk and experimental electronics, the London-based trio’s third …. read more

Nobro – Set Your Pussy Free – a caustic, celebratory, glorious party-punk firework show, a record about the ecstatic pursuit of personal escape and liberation even as the walls are closing in – ORGAN THING: Let’s go, Nobro! The Montreal all-girl punk band have announced their debut album and released a defiant new track….

Pink Fairies – Screwed Up (Cleopatra Records) – Brrrrring briiing, ‘ello there, turned on the Teeeveee and what did I see? That’s a rather decent version of Hawkwind’s Hassin I Sahba, an almost deviant version you might say, wasn’t expecting that (I hadn’t looked at the track listing), Hawkwind and Pink Fairies have of course always been very (very) closely related, those Pinkwind gigs and ORGAN THING: A Deviant, a Hawkwind and a Motorhead? A new Pink Fairies album in 2023? Screwed up? Far from it! What a bunch of sweeties…–

Pissabed Prophet – Pissabed Prophet (Antigen Records) – Melodious, at times delightfully chaotic, relaxed and at ease at others, rather psychedelic here and there in a very English Village Green kind of way, energetic, at times glorious, the strangely named Pissabed Prophet are a dandelion field of freshly cut goodness …more

PoiL Ueda – Yoshitsune (Dur Et Doux) – That second album from PoiL Ueda, a genuinely progressive coming together of two powerful experimental forces,,, read more

R.M.F.C – Club Hits (Anti Fade/Urge Records) – R.M.F.C have been worming their way into our heads, they, whoever they are, keep crossing our path, The Trap is just that. Apparently Club Hits is the debut full-length album by R.M.F.C. (Rock Music Fan Club apparently although, that might be a bright red herring), a garage rock and post-punk project led by Buz Clatworthy…. More

Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds – Hey, we don’t need to cover this, they may have launched with a press confrence on our street here but hey, come on, they don’t need us and we dont need them, it is a damn good album though…

Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group – Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group (Mississippi Records) – A spiritual record for the ages so were told, a self-titled album from “Portland’s finest practitioners of Great Black Music”. They’re an earthy jazzy trio (sax, drums and organ) augmented by additional percussion, occasionally soaring vocals and… more

Sexmob – The Hard Way – (Corbett vs. Dempsey) – For over a quarter-century, the visionary quartet Sexmob has exploded all preconceived notions of what an instrumental jazz band can be. In many cases…. more

Sleepbomb – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Kool Arrow) – No doubt as a “casual ensemble project”, Sleepbomb’s immediately gained recognition in San Francisco for performing improvised industrial experimental scores to German Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and… more

Sudden Voices – Sudden Voices – a London based group mixing ragged space jazz with off-kilter krautrock” although I supect right now, this is mostly the work of one time Union Wireless man Ben Morris, it is a rather beautiful album, a sparse sound that’s way less obcious tha nthat opening line, we featture it back at the end of March – more.

The Bug – Machine One – Okay, it was ony an EP but this sounded massive enough to be a tripple album when it came out back in march. A rather big Organ Thing of the Day today, big in every sense. Any release from The Bug is big, but this one sounds massive, that is a very very big Bug sound, that first track is a monster! Messing with gravity indeed. it lead on to a series of Four EPs throughout te year as owe’re taking that as more than good enough to make our albums of the year – …. more

The Flowers of Hell – Keshakhtaran (Space Age Recordings) – The sixth album from Toronto-London experimental group The Flowers From Hell has just emerged via… more

The Lonely Bell – Ghost Town Burning (Blackjack Illuminist Records) – The Lonely Bell is Ali Murray, a Scottish songwriter and musician from the cold windy Isle of Lewis in the north of Scotland – well it says songwriter here, but these are instrumental pieces rather than songs. Apparently he writes and releases music under his own name as well as this rather dark introspective ambient music that he releases under the name The Lonely Bell… more

The Trudy – Outside Time – Southern English pop band The Trudy have a new mini album, is it a mini concept album? They say it is all designed to be listen to at once, it certainly feel like one piece in seven parts and twenty-one minutes bookended by a definite start and an end… more here

Unstoppable Sweeties Show – Frosted Glass – Okay, so what exactly is going on here? People eating dinner at breakfast time, or was it lunch, Christmas dinner at Easter time? Something like that? Ask Stag Knight? Who’s Stag Knight? Don’t ask us, ask five-piece avant-garde punk slash jazz-prog band Unstoppable Sweeties Show…. more

Wide Scope Protocol – Swan Cake (Modern Obscure Music) — the new project from Barcelona-born composer, film score writer and producer Javier Rodero Villa. Swan Cake, his free-form debut album, will be released through Modern Obscure Music, a collection of works composed of long landscapes, psychedelic passages, and brain dance cuts reminiscent of the sounds of Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Manuel Gotching, Cocteau Twins, Stereolab and Moon Duo…. more

And quite a few tracks from some of these of these albums were played on the radio on New Year’s Eve…