Right then, on with the new year, and well, same as last year, who needs a damn editorial let alone a new one? Who needs what? No time for editorials, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing as last time once again, another five (or so) slices of music that have passed our way recently, five slices of music cherry picked for your delight and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of peaches and here comes the editorial.
Editorial? Well the music is landing, a new Gong single? Nice enough in a mellow medative kind of way but it really isn’t Gong is it. And here comes another band with another covers album, those Dandy Warhols this time, is it now compulsory to cover Cherry Bomb if you’re going to release a covers album? Is that the third time so far this year, or maybe four? As much as we love that song enough with the covers of it already (and anyway, didn’t Sissyfit already take ownership of Cherry Bomb a couple of years ago? The absolutely brilliant Californian punks Sissyfit have now covered Cherry Bomb! “This is great!” said artist Emma Harvey…
Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying swordfish out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Cake oil? Snake oil? Bake the oil, everything must go somewhere and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing, we never should have done and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery.
Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s music further down the page, five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us on these Five pages we reguarly post?
Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, the first five or a new year, this time we start in Manchester and not some place called Mandy in Insiana….
Mandy, Indiana – More fresh Mandy, Indiana, that’s something that’s always welcome around here, they’re sounding as good as ever without just doing what they did last time, they are a glorious challenge, they are one of the best things out there on planet musicright now. A second something from the recently announced upcoming album URGH, out on February 6th, 2026. Here’s those links and the Bandcamp
2: Hey Colossus are threatening a new album, Cannibal Forecast is the first song to be released from that just announced new album Heaven Was Wild – The video was made by Chris Spalton using footage from the London weekender the band played last year; that four gigs in a day thing the band did where they played North, South, East and West London all on one day. Here’s the Bandcamp thing with the album details should you need them. The first taste sounds good from over here so we assume you’ll be wanting the details…
3: Yamila – Another track from the forthcoming album Noor, an album, from the Madrid-based composer, that is out on February 6th on Mexican label Umor Rex. We have featured a couple of pieces from the album already, I expect we’ll feature the whole thing in a moment.
– “In this new work, the Spanish cellist, singer and producer intertwines strings and electronics to sculpt landscapes where listening expands toward territories of dusky beauty. The album was born under the shelter of a secret ecological community. There, among damp meadows and the song of a blackbird, Yamila feels an ancient urge – to sing to the bees. Inspired by ancestral rituals in which sound served as a bridge between species – to summon herds or soothe the trembling sky – the artist listens to the wind and reimagines that lost practice through a contemporary language: titanic harmonies dissolving into fragile microtones, rhythms that pulse not merely as measure, but as breath that stirs the body” and I guess that gives you an idea in terms of where she’s coming from. More in a few days, it is a rather beautiful album…
Here’s the Bandcamp and those previous tracks already released ahead of what is now this year’s album release
4: Winged Wheel and another slice from the soon to be released album we previewed already late last year when we told you that Winged Wheel have a third album, Desert So Green, on the way in January 2026, so far they’ve let out a couple of tracks, you can hear them both on the album’s Bandcamp page.
“Winged Wheel are a creatively and geographically scattered collective, with each player living in a different city and bringing their own unique element to the group’s interpersonal alchemy…” they are Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Circuit des Yeux), Cory Plump (Spray Paint), Matthew J. Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo), Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Lonnie Slack and Fred Thomas (Idle Ray, Tyvek). The band have just announced a European tour for a large part of January, although they haven’t included any UK dates (yet?)
5: Craven Faults have today shared a rather beautifully refined new track Yard Loup, a piece from the forthcoming album Sidings, an album that is due for release on 23rd January on The Leaf Label. At the same time, a live date on 25th March at London’s Royal Albert Hall, supporting Mogwai and for Teenage Cancer Trust concert series, a series curated by The Cure’s Robert Smith, has also just been announced. here ‘s a Link or two in terms of the album and meanwhile, here’s a classic bit of Craven Faults from a couple of years ago…
And while we’re here; not that he needs our support, but that bloke who sang on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has a new single out and you need this information now so you don’t go wrong. Peter Gabriel’s new single is sounding rather good to us..
“Peter Gabriel announces new album o/i and looks to the future on new single Been Undone” shouts the press release. The release, which is the follow up to 2023’s i/o, will once again see him release a new song every time there is a full moon, with the full album set for release by the end of this year we’ve just entered…
And one more…
Previously…
THE ORGAN 