Who needs who? No time for editorials, repeat, replete, reheat, 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 bird seed and…

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? 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? 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 second five of a new year, this time we start somewhere in France…

1: Monsieur Thibault – Something from France, something from the ever rewarding Dur & Doux, something rather mysterious, a rather delightful first taste of an album that’s on the way in April. Here’s the Bandcamp. More when there is more.

2: ronja – Up With The Sun is ronja’s latest cycle of songs: themes first met in wistful dreams, sounding dreamlike all the while, with voice and acoustic guitar as the main vehicle. This is the intriguing title track from the new album, a first taste of something to be released on Präsens Editionen around about now.

Präsens Editionen is the rather interesting Swiss label releasing material from Polish experimental artist Magda Drozd. Magda’s latest release was touch on a couple of days back – ORGAN: Five Music Things – a tasty combination of Only Now and Jaijiu, Dog Chocolate and more from their new album, London’s Scared Little Toaster, Oslo’s Gangar, Polish experimental artist Magda Drozd and the best song The Smiths ever made….

Meanwhile, it a not so peaceful place…

3: Melvins & Napalm Death have been doing things together and making their doings sound both a bit Melvinsish and a bit Napalm Deathy. The two parties come together to release an album called Savage Imperial Death March via Ipecac on April 10th. This is a true collaboration featuring members of both bands actually playing together, not a mere split release.

The album was recorded at the Melvins’ Los Angeles studio, with Buzz Osborne (vocals/guitar) and Dale Crover (drums) joined by Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway (vocals), Shane Embury (bass), and John Cooke (guitar). 

“I have loved the Melvins forever and their outlook on music,” Embury explains. “A chance to make an album of eclectic musical madness with them was truly an honour and a whole lot of fun, which surely is the whole point! Let’s do another one soon.” 

“Napalm Death are one of my favourite bands ever,” Osborne says. “It was an absolute pleasure and a dream come true to do this collaboration with them. We wrote songs together. I would write a riff and we would learn it and record it right there. They wrote stuff and we would learn it immediately as well. It was truly a 50/50 partnership.” 

“Funny how life turns out sometimes… collecting hard-to-find Melvins 7-inches on Bleecker Street in 1989 and then touring twice and doing an album with them within the following 35 years,” Greenway adds. “Had a great time with it all, and nice to work with fellow travellers in the Melvins who also couldn’t care about pandering to ‘demographics.’ I felt myself almost babbling lyrically during the recording, and that alone made for very fun recording times”. 

Here’s the links and the Bandcamp. We’ll resist sharing an image here of the demands made on the Napalm Death rider the last time we put them on, we’ll save that for the book. it was rather ridiculous…

4: The Shits and the locked on menace of their Joyless Satisfaction, something taken from the album Diet Of Worms and well, go speak to your Rocket dealer

5: Microwaves – says here that the Pittsburgh-based experimental band are happy to present the opening single off their upcoming LP – set for release this March 27th via Decoherence Records. Here once again is the Bandcamp

And while we’re here, some classic footage of Hawkwind‘s rather dangerously switched on Hawklords period and one of the few really good bits of film of the Robert Calvert fronting era of the band, brilliant!