The Fat Angel Sings

Curve were an English alternative rock and electronica duo from London, formed in 1990 and split in 2005. The band consisted of Toni Halliday (vocals, occasionally guitar) and Dean Garcia (bass, guitar, drums, programming)  Garcia had played bass guitar as part of Eurythmics’ live band in 1983–84 and on two of their studio albums. Halliday also wrote the lyrics to the songs and they both contributed to song writing. Also an important collaborator was producer Alan Moulder, who helped them to shape their blend of heavy beats and densely layered guitar tracks set against Halliday’s vocals.

The London band Curve, cantered around the duo of vocalist Toni Halliday and multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia, clearly tumbled into a specific groove and never left.

Post-punk was morphing into early “college” and “alternative” rock, including the shimmering reverberations of shoegaze and dream-pop. All of these were also folding back in new wave’s synths and digitized percussion that had taken off-ramps to an array of other club sounds like industrial, rap, and house music. The largely electronic rave movement then extended out from that branch of music’s family tree, as would its intertwined Madchester scene that often relied on more traditional band structures. Acidic keyboards, wiggly earworms, hypnotic grooves, and remixes were everywhere, with Curve deftly navigating these paths as they converged and diverged. 

Not enough people know Curve’s music very well, if at all. they started up in late 1990, first ep came out in march 1991. beats were a big part of their music like MBV, or JaMC from the same time period. JaMC actually shared their drummer, Monti, for several years. both MBV and JaMC, plus Ride and many others, we engineered/produced by Alan Moulder. Alan and Toni were a couple, so he was always hanging out, and playing twisted guitars from time to time. some of the singles had vocal front mixes, and as Toni Halliday didn’t play an instrument at live shows, she was a prominent focal point. more often than not, she wasn’t shy and demure- she would hold the crowd in her left hand and a mic in her right.

They made a great bunch of music. After the first 4 EPs and 1st album, Dean Garcia continued to explore sonics in different areas. he had hints of edgy industrial beats earlier, but on “Cuckoo”, those elements really came out strong.

By their 4th or 5th album, they’d mostly gotten bored with the shoegaze song type ( perhaps also tired of the constant assaults by the Press in the mid-90s of any music that sounded remotely like shoegaze) by the mid 90s, ride and lush had veered towards britpop, Chapterhouse and Slowdive also went towards more ambient and electronic, then broke up. Pale Saints lasted til 95, and threw in the towel.

This band was (and still is) a definition of an alternative rock. Their music combines shoegaze, grunge, techno, breakbeat with even a slight touch of industrial and post-punk. Their texts are full of magical realism which reflects on everyday relationships in a highly allegorical/esoteric sort of way. All of this stuff is reinforced by incredibly insightful vocals of Toni Halliday and very skillful rhythm-section filled with all-consuming energy coming from these multi layered music styles in one place.

Check out their bandcamp page – a lot of goodies stored up there, including fan bootlegs. Curve was the elite. Highlights of Curve’s live career included a performance at the 1992 Glastonbury Festival.

Doppelgänger

As Curve, Halliday and Garcia released three acclaimed and increasingly successful EPs (“Blindfold”, “Frozen”, and “Cherry”) throughout 1991 on Anxious Records. They also made an impact on the UK album charts in 1992 with their debut studio album “Doppelgänger”.

They surpassed all expectations with their debut full-length, 1992’s “Doppelgänger“, which remains their most successful, highly regarded release.  While most of “Doppelgänger’s” songs are massive rushes of energy, the band slows down at the end for the lush ambient drift of “Sandpit,” which might actually be the album’s best song overall. 

Curve would continue making excellent albums and EPs after this one, and would influence countless dream pop, alternative dance, and even goth/industrial groups, but “Doppelgänger” remains their most powerful, essential release, and one of the best alternative albums of the early ’90s.

Moulder and Flood would handle Curve’s first LP “Doppelganger” in 1992, and then engineer, mix, or perform on almost everything Garcia and Halliday released as a duo over the next two decades. So pervasive was Moulder’s presence in particular that he ended up marrying Halliday.

Curve re-released the “Doppelganger” CD as a double album. This release included their first three EPs.

In 1992, the band released the compilation album “Pubic Fruit“, containing their first three EPs and an extended mix of the single “Faît Accompli”. Toni Halliday also featured on two songs (“Edge to Life” and “Bloodline”) from Recoil’s album, “Bloodline“. In 1993, Curve issued “Radio Sessions”, a compilation album of recordings made during their two sessions for John Peel’s show on the UK broadcasting station BBC Radio 1.

The appeal of the band’s early catalogue stretching to at least 1993’s sophomore LP “Cuckoo” stemmed primarily from playing and production that leaned into the sounds of goth, industrial, and shoegaze, their instrumentals and vocals swirling around like dust devils. 

The “Horror Head” B-side “Falling Free,” for example, started off as a drum-pattern-powered workout but infamously got converted to hissing, burping IDM in a later Aphex Twin remix. The duo’s small roster of covers included Siouxsie and the Banshees and Tubeway Army, but their version of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” on an NME charity compilation found their takes on Giorgio Moroder’s classic melody and rhythm fighting through their distinctive fog of echo. The “Superblaster” single also gave us “Low and Behold,” with a spare, bassy keyboard up front in the mix to reinforce its sinister nature—”How we gloat/At others’ misfortune/A nation of reptiles/Given to nothing.” 

The singles and B-sides that started to appear from “Doppelganger” forward showed Curve were comfortable dipping into percussion-heavy and dissonant experimentation. They also managed to create effortless techno synth lines that might have pleased Osborne even beyond his early presence at the duo’s sessions.

Cuckoo – (Expanded Edition)

Curve’s second studio album, the harder-edged “Cuckoo”. Curve have got to be one of the UK’s most unfortunate bands. Emerging out of the shoegazer scene with a new crossover sound that only a small section of the UK scene was ready for, the commercial failure of “Cuckoo” led them to split at the worst possible time. 

Curve’s second album “Cuckoo” is more sophisticated, more seductive, less serrated, even squelchy in places than their debut, “Doppelganger“. A mature, fluent, and literary album, it hit the Top 30 on release in 1993. “Cuckoo” takes the listener from the established hallmarks and runs with them – over the horizon – to many new and rich areas of pop melodrama. Delicate and gorgeous moments sit easily with their simultaneously cool and incendiary sound. A more personal album, it is nonetheless metallic, unforgiving, Loud, clear. As with “Doppelganger” the album was produced by the band with Flood and Steve Osborne, and it was mixed by Alan Moulder. It is home to the lead tracks from singles “Blackerthreetracker” EP and “Superblaster” and is regarded by the band as their best piece of work.

The “Cuckoo” album was also re-released as a double album and included, amongst other songs, several remixes.

The British group went in a darker, moodier direction with 1993 follow-up “Cuckoo“. Opener “Missing Link” is furious and aggressive, coming closer to Ministry-style industrial than the group’s previous work, but other songs are slower, more atmospheric, and a bit more experimental. The songs still contain walls of searing guitar noise and thundering drums, but some of these tracks are a bit more spacious and reflective.

The percolating synths on songs like “Crystal” and “Unreadable Communication” come a bit closer to the then-developing trance style, and the slower songs anticipate the direction Massive Attack (and several other trip-hop groups) would take during the course of the decade. On the gentle “Left of Mother,” the group surprisingly incorporate acoustic guitars and strings, resulting in an earthly yet otherworldly combination which nevertheless sounds distinctly like Curve. “Superblaster” is a bit closer to the poppiness of “Doppelgänger’s” highlights, and was appropriately released as a single, but given that the chorus includes the line

“Have you got anything left to say before I shoot myself?,” it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that it wasn’t a hit. “Cuckoo” is riskier than its predecessor, and not as catchy, but it rewards repeated listening, and still stands among the band’s best work — Halliday has even stated that she considers it to be Curve’s best album.

2CD – 22 Tracks. This expanded 2CD edition includes the album plus the remixes and two previously unreleased tracks, the original versions of “Rising” and “Half The Time“, which have only previously been available in their remixed form. LP – 180 Gram Vinyl with Download. 10 Tracks.

Come Clean

Just as fans were beginning to wonder if the duo Curve would ever return from their self-imposed exile, they returned with their best album to date, “Come Clean“. Still combining largely electronic music with alternative hooks and lines, members Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia returned to a now-popular form of music they helped create years ago. Although the album’s two best tracks had previously appeared on their late-1997 EP “Chinese Burn” (the title tracks from both the EP and the full-length), there are plenty of other strong tracks in attendance.

“Come Clean”. Released in 1997, ”Chinese Burn” in its original form and remixed by the likes of Lunatic Calm criss-crossed IP universes from Marvel to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The song’s smashing breakbeats and klaxon-like guitars from Garcia, paired with Halliday’s fuzzed-out vocals, all struck while The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers were hot. This was followed up by the midtempo “Coming Up Roses,” a ballad that stood out from the period’s aggressive focus on club floors and festival crowds.

Curve received high praise for 1996’s “Pink Girl with the Blues” EP and then arguably earned their broadest mainstream exposure with the lead single from their third album,

“Something Familiar” may be the band’s most melodically accessible track yet, while the extremely overdriven distortion and abrasive tones of “Dogbone” are just the opposite. Unlike many electronic bands, the duo makes it clear that they don’t just go for musical overkill, as evidenced by the slow electronic groove contained in “Killer Baby,” and the mid-paced dance-rock of “Cotton Candy.” “Come Clean” is the welcome return of a band that deserved attention when it first appeared years ago, and may get it in the electro-friendly late ’90s.

Locked in a contract dispute with Universal Music Group after the release of “Come Clean”, Halliday and Garcia would independently post songs to the World Wide Web that would later be gathered on the self-released “Open Day at the Hate Fest” in May of 2001. 

Gift

Curve has had more of their share of ups and downs. Yet even when their career looked its bleakest, the band continued to make great music. When Estupendo/Universal told the band that their album “Gift” would be shelved, they continued to write and record. After posting several mp3s on their website, Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia had enough material to fill another album. As “Gift” was still tied up in legal battles with the major label, Curve independently released “Open Day” at the Hate Fest through their website. As the band enjoyed brisk sales of their self-release, they received word from Universal that “Gift” was put back on schedule and would be released on their Hip-O imprint.

It’s interesting to consider that “Gift” almost never saw the light of day. While it does fit in well with the band’s efforts, it sounds different enough to reveal that the duo has fresh ideas and an ability to write great melodies without recycling old ones. As “Come Clean” kicked things off with “Chinese Burn,” a gritty track featuring slick production, skittering beats, and a dirty, guitar-driven sound, “Hell Above Water” impressively introduces “Gift” with an edgy riff reminiscent of late-’90s Nine Inch Nails. 

“Gift’s” title track follows and reveals one of the band’s slickest choruses, perfectly combining their up-tempo instrumental intensity with Toni Halliday’s sultry vocal work. Seemlessly flowing from menacing tracks like “Chainmail” and “Polaroid” to smoky, electronic-laden ballads like “Perish” and “Hung Up,” “Gift” is classic Curve with modern arrangements and energy. While mixing elements of rock and electronica together is old news for Curve, their songwriting seems more natural on this outing. Perhaps due to their more personal nature, Gift’s ten tracks are among Curve’s best. While bringing together an all-star mix of producers and performers, including Alan Moulder, Flood, Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode, Recoil), and Ben Grosse (Filter), Halliday and Garcia showcase their unique knack for recording songs that feature an underlying darkness, even in their lighter moments. As Garbage and Sneaker Pimps have each scored commercial success with similar blends of female lead vocals, big beats, samples, and electric guitars, Curve shows that they are among the innovators of the form and prove themselves with one of their finest efforts.

The New Adventures Of Curve

“The New Adventures of Curve” isn’t so much different than the old ones. Since Curve’s fan base hasn’t exactly gone through a drastic shift between 1991 and 2002, it’s generally happy with the duo sticking to the same sound, which has shown very subtle variations from release to release. Since the duo’s first single, several groups have attempted to mimic that sound or use that formula — dark dance beats, blurs of grinding guitars, a vulnerable but deadly vocal command — to no good effect. Or, in Garbage’s case, that template has been shrewdly polished and taken to the mainstream to very good effect. Throughout all of this, Curve has retained a very specific sound, and their enduring relevance has also had a good deal to do with the production, which has given their records an up-to-date or ahead-of-the-times feel. Curve has the small market they occupy cornered.

So here’s another web-only exclusive from the group that neither stands up to their best work nor dilutes it. Roughly half of these songs would make a suitable backdrop for a scene in a Gregg Araki film, in which the bodies of two malnourished androgynymphs feverishly tangle. These roaring numbers, as always, are tempered with slower, quieter material. The biggest (possibly only) surprise is what’s stuck at the end of this disc: a strange little rave-up sung by multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia. Despite the fact that their records no longer sound completely unique, Garcia and Toni Halliday continue to please their loyal fan base while the popularity they deserve eludes them.

“The New Adventures of Curve” would tie a bow on Garcia and Halliday’s formal partnership. Initially available only on Curve’s own website, “New Adventures” maintained the duo’s gothy come-hither image to the bitter end. Short on tracks but long on time, it hypnotized listeners for 5 to 7 synth-and-patch-filled minutes at a clip with reverberating sheet-metal percussion (“Nice and Easy”), introspective and methodical riffing (“Star”), jittery EBM (“Answers”), and even Deepsky’s progressive breaks mixed into “Cold Comfort.” It was the encore for the duo’s concert of a career together, referencing and recasting their strengths, influences, and planted seeds.

Producer Alan Moulder was a prominent collaborator who helped shape their blend of heavy beats and densely layered guitar tracks set against Halliday’s vocals. On March 4th, 1991, they released their debut EP “Blindfold” EP. The EP contained four tracks in total, “Ten Little Girls”, “I Speak Your Every Word”, “No Escape From Heaven” and the title track.

The English alternative rock duo Curve was founded in 1990 by Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia. After releasing their debut EP “Blindfold” in 1991, the duo returned after two months with their second EP Frozen. This 4-track set features “Coast Is Clear”, “The Colour Hurts”, “Zoo” and the title track. Just like the previous EP, “Frozen” was produced by Steve Osborne, who has worked with a wide variety of musicians, including Suede, New Order, Elbow, and U2 amongst others. 

In 1991, they released their first three EPs, “Blindfold”, “Frozen” and “Cherry“. All three were produced by Steve Osborne, who also worked with U2, New Order and Simple Minds amongst others. The third EP “Cherry” was also known as “Clipped / Galaxy” and featured four tracks; “Clipped”, “Die Like A Dog”, “Galaxy” and the title track.

Curve released five studio albums in total (“Doppelgänger” in 1992, “Cuckoo” in 1993, “Come Clean” in 1998, “Gift” in 2001, and “The New Adventures of Curve” in 2002),

There has been five compilation albums (“Pubic Fruit” in 1992, “Radio Sessions” in 1993, “Open Day at the Hate Fest” in 2001, “The Way of Curve” in 2004, and “Rare and Unreleased” in 2010), and a string of EPs and singles.

Curve returned to the music business in 1996 with the EP “Pink Girl With the Blues”. 

In 1997, they released “Chinese Burn”, the first single to be taken from their third studio album “Come Clean” (1998). The album is a set of songs displaying a more pronounced influence of electronic music than earlier releases.

Curve’s style described as a “towering monolith of guitar noise, dance tracks, dark goth, and airy melodies”. He also regarded the band’s music as a combination of “shoegazer atmospherics and techno beats”. Halliday cited Patti Smith and Nico, qualifying them as “marble giants”

Curve’s legacy best and brightest is the pair’s well-maintained Bandcamp page, sequestered from the rights and permissions issues of many streaming services. It holds just about every officially available song, rarities that appeared on special-edition physical and digital releases, studio mixes shelved by the band and their regular producers, unreleased remixes 

Halliday has only sporadically re-entered the spotlight since then. She’s been a guest vocalist here and there, sang lead for Chatelaine and their 2010 album Take a Line for a Walk, and released the solo “Roll the Dice” EP in 2020. The Chatelaine music seems just a bit more satisfying overall as a curious slice of gothic chamber pop, while her vocals outpace the shiny synthpop production on her own release.

Garcia’s been far busier with production roles and as a player in multiple projects. His biggest name recognition might have come in KGC alongside members of KMFDM, while his longest-running concern has been SPC ECO, teaming with his daughter Rose Berlin to play loose and fast with shoegaze and various electronica subgenres. All of Garcia and Halliday’s newer outlets absolutely have wildly creative moments; none feel as purposefully in the pocket as Curve did. 

The new Black Crowes album, “A Pound of Feathers”. If you are a Black Crowes fan they work within a very specific lane, but they do it with overwhelming personality. You can hear the Stones, the Faces, and a dozen other classic-rock touchstones, but that kind of swagger and soul can’t be carbon-copied. You either have it or you don’t. The Robinsons have it.

I was so psyched when they got back together (again!) a few years back, and thought 2024’s “Happiness Bastards” was a strong, if somewhat straight-ahead, comeback album. Even better was last year’s “Amorica” box set reissue, a deep dive into what’s arguably their creative peak.

Based on the two songs they’ve released from “A Pound of Feathers” so far—which dropped I’m fully in. “Profane Prophecy” in particular opens with a killer Keith Richards-style riff, features some smoking slide guitar, and finds the band sounding looser and more playful (those call-and-response backing vocals) than they have in years.

In the video for “Profane Prophecy“, the Black Crowes have conjured seven devils (representing each deadly sin) to wreak havoc on this little fairytale world of stark morality and harsh retribution. In creating this world, they leaned into uncanniness with hyper-unrealistic theatrical set pieces and life-size dioramas.

Chris: “We made this record in eight to ten days. Bringing the high and inspiration
from our previous LP ‘Happiness Bastards’ into this album, it was a natural progression.
We experimented more, we wrote on instinct and how we were feeling in the moment. Rich brought a spontaneity to the record that I can’t describe, but it’s the best shit he’s ever done.”

Rich: “This album feels transformative to us. Going back to our roots, we felt that spark
in the studio and how we work together. Lighting a fire that hits harder, more jagged but
is still true to our musical essence.”

THE Black Crowes with brothers Chris and Rich Robinson as the bands prominent members, started their sonic odyssey in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1984. The new album their 10th full-length, called A POUND OF FEATHERS is recorded and ready for release on March 13th.

Aldous Harding has announced that her fifth LP, Train on the Island, will arrive on May 8th via 4AD Records. The news arrives alongside first single “One Stop,” which was released with a music video directed by Michelle Henning. “One Stop” kicks off with an interlocking piano and plucked guitar melody. Harding sings of having met John Cale, which is something I would do, too, if I a) met John Cale and b) could sing like Aldous Harding.

Train on the Island was co-produced by Harding’s long-time collaborator John Parish at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. Wales, where the pair recorded the New Zealander’s previous bodies of work, Party (2017), Designer (2019) and Warm Chris (2022). Joining Harding and Parish on “Train On The Island” were pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte, harpist Mali Llywelyn, synth artist Thomas Poli, drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear) and Huw Evans (H. Hawkline) on bass, vocals, acoustic/electric guitar and organ.

Peter Gabriel has shared the third track in the long rollout for his 11th studio album, o/i. Like 2023’s i/o, which reactivated his recording career after a 21-year hiatus, the iconic singer-songwriter’s new project is steadily unfolding with this year’s lunar calendar, with “Dark-Side” and “Bright-Side” mixes by Tchad Blake and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent to be steadily released on the full moon and new moon of each month.

“Been Undone,” the newly completed track traces its roots back to a fragment from another era of Gabriel’s career, this recalling the 2012 retrospective tour that saw him reviving 1986’s So in its entirety, in the company of the musicians that originally supported the ground breaking record on the road. “On the Back to Front tour, along with Playing for Time, it was one of the songs that was played without words, as a work in progress,” the artist reflected in a lengthy release. “The song actually began with a melody that my son Isaac was playing with and I thought, oh, that’s really nice – I could build that into something.”

“On that tour, we had our wonderful Scandinavian contingent of Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson who was also playing cello. I’d always liked Linnea’s cello line so it ended up on this final recording. John Metcalfe added some other elements for the orchestral sessions in 2022.

There is also more of the magnificent Orphei Drängar choir, another Scandinavian element, who also featured on This Is Home on the i/o record. It’s a very strange mood that they create, powerful and emotional and it’s a great way to start a song – which was Brian Eno’s suggestion. I’ve always liked spiritual, inspirational music because sometimes people get to a different place when they remove themselves and are just present with this feeling of something else out there. Although I’m not religious myself, I definitely have the feeling for it and that’s what I was hoping we would have with the choir at the front, that you go straight away into this other world…

“What Lies Ahead” strikes a ruminative tone over the low hum of the orchestra and choir as Gabriel ascends by inspiration to evoke hope and possibility in tender reaches to falsetto. Six decades into his recording career, the image of the inventor cuts a compelling parallel to his own measured, steady sonic tinkering, with a wisened perspective lending uncommon stability to his curiosity. The unique artwork that Gabriel selected for the third single’s cover is “Birth Tear / Tear”, 1982 embroidered fabric work by feminist artist and educator Judy Chicago.

“‘Birth Tear / Tear’ shows the pain of birth and, clearly, no man will ever have an understanding of what that really is, but giving birth to an idea has many (less painful) parallels,” Gabriel said. “I’m delighted that she was happy to let us use it.”

Wu Lyf have announced their second album, 15 years after their debut. After a flurry of activity since teasing reunion shows last March, the band will release “A Wave That Will Never Break”, produced by Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, on April 10th. Listen to a new song, “Love Your Fate,” below. The band has also added a European leg to the North American tour announced in April; scroll down for the dates.

The band is planning to release the album through its L Y F community, according to a press release. It will not be available on any of the major streaming services. “The vision for the L Y F has been with us since the start,” the group wrote in a statement.

“Way back in 2010 when we first sold the white on white bandana with the Heavy pop / Concrete Gold 12″—We foresaw a community of like-minds that would gather around the flame of our music, and through whose direct support we could operate with freedom, autonomy & the truth; to play our own (infinite) game—alas we were young, foolish, and didn’t have the means or the infrastructure for the impulse to reach its full potential. Now 15 years later here we are—the initial version of the L Y F membership platform has been an experimental proof of concept—we have learnt a lot from it over the past year and behind the scenes we have been building Version 2.0.”

Bill Callahan has built a reputation for intricate lyrics and sparse, richly textured soundscapes. His upcoming album continues that tradition, and lead track “The Man I’m Supposed To Be” is a testament to that.

“Improv/unpredictability/the unknown is the thing that keeps me motivated to keep making music,” the singer-songwriter confessed. On his first solo album in four years, Bill Callahan tapped the touring musicians behind his 2022 album “YTI⅃AƎЯ“—guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, and drummer Jim White—to improvise in the studio.

The resulting 12 songs on “My Days of 58″ are roving journeys, from the driving kosmische folk of “The Man I’m Supposed to Be” to the wayfaring curiosity of “Lonely City.” You can hear Callahan prepared the songs in separate, one-on-one sessions with each musician—part draft, part spontaneity. As Callahan puts it, “a lot of the best parts of a recording are the mistakes—making them into strengths, using them as springboards into something human.”

‘My Days of 58’ is the eighth Bill Callahan album, his first since 2022. The twelve tunes here open uncanny depths of expression as Bill continues to blaze one of the most original songwriting-and-performance trails out there. With ‘My Days of 58’, he applies the living, breathing energies of his live shows to the studio process, sharpening his slice-of-life portraiture to cut deeper than ever before.

“English bands are so hesitant to ever admit ambition, but I am ambitious with this record,” Wolf Alice’s drummer Joel Amey said as “The Clearing” was announced – and sure enough, this was a huge step up and out for a band who were already one of British indie’s biggest. There’s something symphonic about the heft of it and not just because of the string sections, thanks to superb production by Greg Kurstin: the bass and toms are heavy yet warm, the piano pounding yet not overbearing.

Ellie Rowsell sings about suitably big themes, too, from universe-bending love on “Leaning Against the Wall “(“it really, really made the room sing, the way you said my name”), invaluable friendship on “Just Two Girls”, and “The Sofa’s” uplifting manifesto for being wild and indolent instead of toeing the line. 

When critics previewed the new Wolf Alice album “The Clearing” ‘soft rock’ (whatever that means), some fans were surprised. But it contains some of their best work so far, and it also shows just how much Ellie Rowsell has grown as a singer and songwriter. Absolutely lush, ‘The Sofa’ became one of my most played tracks of the year, meditatively on boredom, life and female desire “I wanna settle down/I want to fall in love/sometimes I just want to fuck” .

Her vocal performance is exquisite, and the harmonies spiral to the heavens; the instrumentation is richly drawn, framed in airy strings, and layered with dappling pianos. There is a self-awareness sailing through these words where our dreams meet reality, where our hopes meet our fears, its both wistful and life-affirming at once. American publications may be obsessed with the latest indie rock thing in the states, Wolf Alice had just proved there was reason to look to Seven Sisters rather than LA too…

 “Bloom Baby Bloom” by English alt-rock band Wolf Alice, consisting of Ellie Rowsell on lead vocals, Joff Oddie on guitar, Theo Ellis on bass and Joel Amey on drums. The song is the lead single from their fourth studio album “The Clearing”, to be released August 29th.

April 1975 was an excellent time for fans of unhinged blues-jazz-rock freakouts as Frank Zappa and the Mothers joined forces with Captain Beefheart for a two-month tour of the US. The tour was commemorated by the album “Bongo Fury“, mostly taken from two shows at the magnificently named Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas, on 20th and 21st May 1975 and released in October that year. 

Though Zappa and Beefheart had shared the stage on occasion and worked together in the studio (Zappa produced the Captain’s weird triumph “Trout Mask Replica“, while Beefheart provided snarling and wild-eyed vocals to ‘Willie The Pimp’ on “Hot Rats“), the tour marked the first time the old high school chums had toured together. They were backed by a group of dyed-in-the-wool Mothers – Terry Bozzio (drums), Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax, vocals), George Duke (keyboards, vocals), Bruce Fowler (trombone) and Tom Fowler (bass) – along with newcomer Denny Walley (slide guitar, vocals), a friend of Zappa’s younger brother Bobby. 

Though the original “Bongo Fury” focused on new material, mostly sung by Beefheart, the tour featured plenty of material from the Mothers’ 1974 repertoire – including ‘Florentine Pogen’, ‘Stinkfoot’ and ‘I’m Not Satisfied’ – as well as a few golden oldies, such as ‘Sleeping In A Jar’ and ‘A Pound For A Brown (On The Bus)’, both of which hadn’t been played since 1971. There were also a couple of new songs played on the tour which, till this point, have remained unreleased – ‘The Velvet Sunrise’ and ‘Portuguese Lunar Landing’. Meanwhile, the regular encore was a blast through ‘Willie The Pimp’.

This new anniversary set marks the first time that 1975 recordings of all of these and more have been officially released. The only other song released from the Armadillo shows to date is an early take on “Zoot Allures’ ‘The Torture Never Stops’, released on 1991’s 2CD live compilation “You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol 4”. 

The new 50th anniversary super deluxe edition expands the original album with five CDs of material (roughly 80% unreleased) including studio outtakes and live tracks plus the two Armadillo concerts complete and remixed from the original 16-track masters. The blu-ray features new Dolby Atmos, 5.1 mixes, and high-resolution stereo audio with “bonus surround experiences” from Zappa’s vault. The set also includes a book including unseen photos and sleevenotes from Walley and the Zappa estate’s ‘Vaultmeister’, Joe Travers. 

Vinyl collectors have the choice of a 2LP set – featuring an all-analogue mastering of the original album by Bernie Grundman plus a bonus disc featuring highlights from the super deluxe set – or a single LP featuring the new Grundman master, available on black or ‘orange & black galaxy vinyl’. All vinyl formats include a lithograph print and booklet.

The classic collaboration between Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart during May 1975 resulted in a flurry of new compositions, a tour, and eventually an album.

The album is a memorable addition to the Zappa Catalogue and the last to feature the band name “Mothers” before it was retired in 1976.

This new 50th Anniversary Edition presents 5 CDs of material (roughly 80% unreleased) including studio outtakes and live tracks plus the two Armadillo concerts complete and remixed from the original 16-Track Masters.

This 50th anniversary reissue of “Bongo Fury” is released on 20th March 2026, via UMR.