The Fat Angel Sings

The doyen of the Scottish underground, Emma Pollock returns with her first new album for nine years

Emma Pollock’s “Begging The Night To Take Hold” reviewed: Glasgow indie-rock mainstay unearths interior and exterior truths. How to explain the nine years that have passed since “In Search Of Harperfield”, Emma Pollock’s self-acknowledged “best received” album in her 30 years as the vanguard of the Scottish underground? In her own words: “start at the beginning until you sing sunlight” – an oblique, poetic fragment that at its core captures the essence of a tumultuous journey of self-discovery, captured in all its light and shade on the songwriter’s fourth solo album.

Recorded in the safe spaces around and after pandemic lockdowns, “Begging The Night To Take Hold” was shelved while The Delgados – the band formed by Pollock and three friends in ’90s Glasgow which, through its Chemikal Underground label and studio, continues to underpin much of the city’s music scene – embarked on a triumphant reunion tour, including sets at Primavera in Barcelona and their hometown’s open-air Kelvingrove Bandstand. As she prepared to return to the record and the intense grief of her father’s sudden death that informed much of its writing, Pollock obtained a post-menopause autism diagnosis, and found some answers to the questions she had begun to ask herself about her place in the world

The second single to come from Emma Pollock’s fourth studio album “Begging The Night To Take Hold”, “Future Tree” explores Pollock’s personal world as one constantly frustrated by distracted thoughts. “Rogues and thieves you know, they masquerade as new ideas.” “Too many numbers and not enough poetry” laments the writer, trapped in her own perception of the world whilst struggling to make progress.

The final message; “Can only move by standing still” could be the remedy – to sometimes, simply, stop. This video was made by Emma Pollock using footage taken whilst driving to Sweden and Norway from Scotland on holiday in the summer of 2025. There were many mountains, tunnels, fjords and sometimes goats.

Although working with only a tight-knit group of collaborators – Graeme Smilie, returning from …“Harperfield”, on piano and bass, cellist Pete Harvey of Modern Studies and producer, Delgados bandmate and husband Paul Savage adding drums – this set of songs are Pollock’s richest and most melodic. Her dusky alto voice, once compared to Dusty Springfield, is weighty with newfound wisdom, ushering the listener to come closer where the subject matter shifts from the confessional to more straightforward narrative storytelling.

Described as “a raw and fearless commentary on modern America”, the album was co-produced by Tom Overby and longtime collaborator Ray Kennedy, who recorded and mixed the album at his Room & Board Studio in Nashville. Guest stars include Norah Jones, Mavis Staples and Brittney Spencer.

“Truth is my saviour,” Williams sings on opener “Fruits Of My Labour”, a sentiment that could also double as her manifesto. Always a personal writer, her honesty is at its most immediate on her seventh album, which picks over the bones of her relationship with Ryan Adams’ former bassist Billy Mercer. The live-in-the-studio rawness of the music is more than matched by the words. Tender portraits of a damaged lover (“Sweet Side”, “Righteously”) are weighed against the damage he has caused. If “Over Time”, “Minneapolis” and “Ventura” linger agonisingly over the cooling ashes, on “Those Three Days” the pain and fury is still evident.

Lucinda Williams has today announced that her new album, “World’s Gone Wrong”, will be released by Highway 20 Records on January 23rd.

Bill Callahan continues to open uncanny depths of expression, blazing one of the most original singer-songwriter trails out there. Applying the living, breathing energies of his concerts to this album production, he sharpens his slice-of-life portraiture to cut deeper, releasing a stream of singalong consciousness – poetic, cinematic, novelistic, comedic – and above all, musical.

The core musicians featured on My Days Of 58 are the group that toured for 2022’s YTI⅃AƎЯ: guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi and drummer Jim White. The album also features contributions from Richard Bowden (fiddle), Pat Thrasher (piano), Chris Vreeland (bass), Mike St Clair (trombone), Bill McCullough (pedal steel), Eve Searls (backing vocals), and Jerry DeCicca (tambourine).

“Improv/unpredictability/the unknown is the thing that keeps me motivated to keep making music,” says Callahan. “It’s all about listening to yourself and others. A lot of the best parts of a recording are the mistakes – making them into strengths, using them as springboards into something human.”

Bill Callahan will release “My Days Of 58”, his eighth album under his own name name, via Drag City on February 27th.

These tracks are mostly early iterations of the songs released on “Caroline 2″. Minimal acoustic versions of  ‘Coldplay cover’ and ‘U R UR ONLY ACHING’; an impromptu version of ‘When I get home’ recorded in Peckham Rye park in 2022 ); We have also included a recording of the club track from the first half of ‘When I get home’. This was recorded from the front bathroom of Avalon Cafe and is a track produced by our friends Daniel S Evans and Jennifer Walton.

We have always loved the quality of phone and portable mic recordings: both how casual and informal they feel, but also because they tend to capture freer and more explorative playing in that precious writing stage, before a song congeals into something solid. It feels like there is almost something mysterious at work in these recordings that can never be replicated or mimicked.  ‘greek2go’ – is also a phone recording. It was recorded in what was then the empty shell of a former Greek dark kitchen, but has since become our studio – and is an improvisation with three guitars and singing in an empty, reverberant room. It never made it onto the album but it is a piece of music we are really proud of.”

released November 11th, 2025, , Rough Trade Records Ltd

The Power Station’s self-titled debut album is being reissued for its 40th anniversary in 4CD and 2LP variants.

The band ( a supergroup of sorts) came about during Duran Duran’s hiatus (which also saw Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor form Arcadia) and featured Robert Palmer, Tony Thompson (from Chic) and Duran members John Taylor and Andy Taylor. Bernard Edwards produced the album (with “informal assistance” from Nile Rodgers) which features the hit singles ‘Some Like It Hot’ and ‘Get It On’.

The new 4CD reissue comes in a clamshell box and features a remastered version of the album, remixes, ‘raw instrumentals’ (taken from the original studio sessions) and unreleased live tracks (from The Spectrum in Philadelphia on 21st August 1985, newly remixed by Richard Whittaker) and Live Aid performances.

It should be pointed out that Robert Palmer would only perform with the band live once (‘Saturday Night Live’ in February 1985) and left the band shortly after album came out. They toured with Michael Des Barres who also performed with them for Live Aid – these are the recordings on the reissue.

The box includes a 12 page booklet with a new interview with John Taylor and Andy Taylor (by John Earls).

A 2LP black vinyl edition features the remastered album, single remixes and Live Aid recordings. Both formats will be released on 23rd January 2026.

Drop Nineteens are working on their follow-up to great comeback album “Hard Light”, but meanwhile singer/guitarist Paula Kelley has announced her first solo album in 20 years. It’s titled “Blinking as the Starlight Burns Out” and will be out March 27th 2026 via Wharf Cat.

The first single from the album is the dreamy track “Party Line,” and Paula says it “made me think of Spiritualized with Telescopes doing the vocals. It’s the requisite post-Cold War influenced track.” She adds, “When the song came to me it presented nearly fully formed- a pedaling bass line, a four part vocal harmony, an expansive soundscape. Sometimes songs sound great in your head but then don’t translate well into reality. I was lucky with this one. As I was recording part upon part, it felt as though the song was writing itself. It’s a dreamy song about dreams—not the kind that come during sleep, but rather wishes, anxieties, projections—as a way to work through and reconcile an unhappy past.”

Drop Nineteens have a few live dates in November,

Aussie alt-rock greats The Church were supposed to be on The Singles Tour this summer, but the tour got postponed to 2026, Meanwhile, The Church have shared a new single. “Bleak and yet beautiful, ‘Sacred Echoes (Part Two)’ is unlike any previous Church song ever with its almost orchestral climaxes and its sombre mood,” says frontman Steve Kilbey. “The lyrics and voice are the weariness at the point where hope and hopelessness merge. The music is by turns delicate and sparse turning into a churning monstrous racket. Intense, forlorn and exultant!”

“Bleak and yet beautiful, ‘Sacred Echoes (Part Two)’ is unlike any previous Church song ever

FEATURING LABEL FOUNDER MARTIN MILLS PLUS GARY NUMAN, TIM BURGESS, BRIX SMITH, BILLY DUFFY, ROBERT FORSTER, DANIEL ASH & MANY MORE
Listen here: https://pod.link/1836129705

States of Independence is a new music podcast that explores the hidden histories of the world’s greatest independent record labels with the people that know them best – the founders who built them and artists who grew them.

Hosted by music journalist and podcast producer Rob Fitzpatrick, Season 1 goes deep into the story of one of the world’s leading record companies, and the last truly great punk-era independent label still in existence: Beggars Banquet. Two years in development, this is a huge story told over 13 episodes. It begins with the one person without whom none of this could have happened, the founder and chairman of the Beggars Group, Martin Mills.

States of Independence launches with episode one on September 11th, with guests Martin Mills, The Lurkers, and Gary Numan.

Beggars Banquet’s first superstar came in the form of Gary Numan, who gifted the label a number one single with ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ in 1979.

“With Gary, it felt like the Beatles,” says Mills, but success left the tiny label scrambling to learn on the job. “There definitely was no instruction manual.” Nor was there one for the 21 year-old Numan. “I thought it was gonna be more fun, I didn’t expect all the hostility that came with it… You know, people writing things about you as if you’ve just done the most evil thing.” That first brush with mega stardom would set the template for many of Beggars Banquets’ now iconic acts: The Cult, The Fall, The Go Betweens, The Charlatans, Peter Murphy, Bauhaus, Love And Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel, Buffalo Tom, The Bolshoi and more – all of whom appear in States of Independence Season 1.

States of Independent host Rob got a job at the Beggars Banquet Records shop in Kingston, Surrey when he was 20 years old, calling it “the most incredible musical education”. He left in 1996, to make and write about music, but he’s always remained fascinated by – and, he’d be the first to admit, curiously emotionally attached – to the label.

Beggars Banquet began life as a West London record shop in 1974.  ”We had 2000 pounds each,” says founder Martin Mills. “It got us a lease in Earl’s Court. It got us some stock. Steve [Webbon] knew how to buy new records. I knew how to buy old records, and Nick [Austin] knew how to bullshit.”

With the arrival of punk in 1976, their second shop, in Fulham, found its powerful remit. ‘“Suddenly it was all about going down to Red Cow and getting spat on,” says Mills.

In the spirit of punk rock opportunism, Mills and Austin launched the Beggars Banquet label with the debut release from The Lurkers  – “a very good two-chord punk band. Though they learned a third chord eventually.”

Today, the Beggars Group of labels includes iconic imprints like 4AD, XL, Matador, Rough Trade and Young – a veritable indie empire. But this is a story marked by both triumph and turbulence, with the label staring down the barrel of extinction at multiple points during its five-decade history. Of The Cult, and their explosive run of 80s and 90s hit albums, Mills remembers: “They were the band that literally stopped the cheques from bouncing.”

Episode List

EP 1: Martin Mills, The Lurkers, Gary Numan [Launch Sept 11th]

EP 2: Martin Mills, Gary Numan, Peter Murphy (Bauhaus/Solo), John Rocca (Freeez) [Launch Sept 11th]

EP 3: Martin Mills, Billy Duffy, Aki Nawaz [Launch Sept 18th]

EP 4: Martin Mills, Jay Aston (Gene Love Jezebel) [Launch Sept 25th]

EP 4a: Michael Aston (Gene Love Jezebel) [Launch October 2nd]

EP 5: Martin Mills, Brix Smith (The Fall) [Launch Oct 9th]

EP 6: Martin Mills, Tim Burgess (The Charlatans) [Launch Oct 16th]

EP 7: Martin Mills, Lindy Morrison (The Go Betweens) [Launch Oct 23rd]

EP 7a: Robert Forster (The Go Betweens) [Launch Oct 30]

EP 8: David J  (Bauhaus, Love And Rockets/Solo) & Daniel Ash (Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, Love And Rockets/Solo) [Launch November 6th]

EP 8a: David J  (Bauhaus, Love And Rockets/Solo) & Daniel Ash (Bauhaus, Tones On Tail, Love And Rockets/Solo) [Launch November 13th]

EP 9: Martin Mills, Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) Natasha Atlas (Transglobal Underground/Solo), Aki Nawaz (Southern Death Cult/Transglobal Underground/Fundamental Records) and Trevor Tanner (The Bolshoi) [Launch November 20th]

EP 10: Series Finale – with Martin Mills and more [Launch November 27th]

Buffalo Tom’s 1990 J Mascis-produced breakthrough still burns with heart and volume

I’ve been enjoying the new podcast States of Independence, which in its first season shines a light on the record label Beggars Banquet — the goth-leaning label that struck early gold with Gary Numan and became one of the coolest UK indies of the ’80s and early ’90s before evolving into an empire as the Beggars Group, home to 4AD, XL, and Matador.

This week’s season penultimate episode featured an interview with Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom, one of the first American groups to sign with the label, which made me want to revisit their second album — also their first for Beggars Banquet.

With a raging, fuzzy, and deafeningly loud guitar attack, Boston’s Buffalo Tom earned the affectionate nickname “Dinosaur Jr Jr” in the late ’80s — not least because J Mascis produced their first two albums: 1988’s self-titled debut (released on SST) and this one, their 1990 college radio smash “Birdbrain“. While there was a definite sonic kinship with Dino Jr’s ragged squall, Buffalo Tom hit from the heart, with Janovitz writing deeply affecting songs like “Skeleton Key,” “Fortune Teller,” and “Enemy.”

This and the first album are like 2 peas in a pod. Both have that Dinosaur Jr Jr thing about them. Both where co-produced by J Mascis, although he doesn’t play on this one, and both have that bruised battered and smashed guitar sound with the broken vocals of Bill Janovitz lashed over the top.

This is a headier ride than the previous excellent album adding a few more twists and turns; especially with the barnstorming opener of “Birdbrain” with it’s abrasive jagged riff and obscure lyrics about hanging out in bushes etc. The brakes are instantly put on to great effect with the next song, “Skeleton Key”. It is here where you can hear the sparseness of the production and really hear the quiet in the songs.

“Caress” carries on with more of the same, drums, bass and vocals before a jangly guitar joins in. It is so simple but it works so well. More like Nirvana in their simplicity than say, Dinosaur Jr. The solos are still absolutely blistering, just like the first album, and this is probably where the tag comes from, the solos made with waves of distortion and bleeding notes. They’d go on to make more nuanced records like “Let Me Come Over” and “Big Red Letter Day”, but “Birdbrain” collision of noise and emotion makes it an all-timer — one that might’ve been even bigger if it had landed just a year or two later, after “Nevermind” broke.

Buffalo Tom – “Birdbrain” (Beggars Banquet, 1990)

A Greek detour inspires Westerman’s breezy, transportive third album, Will Westerman’s third album was inspired in large part by his “failed attempt” to move from London to the Greek isle of Hydra. In a couple of instances, it’s quite literal: the rolling, synth-powered “Adriatic” sounds like someone aboard a schooner, riding the waves and in awe of where they call home. It’s also an album he made almost immediately after his second, “An Inbuilt Fault”, a record he feels he took too much time with.

As good as his previous album is, the looser, breezier nature of the quickly recorded “A Jackal’s Wedding” feels like a breath of fresh seaside air in comparison, reflecting the brief five weeks he spent in Hydra.

Produced by Björk collaborator Marta Salogni, it features drummer Stella Mozgawa and Big Thief’s James Krivchenia (who also produced “An Inbuilt Fault“). Guitar-based songs like “Mosquito” and “Nevermind” are lovely, but it’s the synthesizer creations — including “PSFN” and “Weak Hands” — that are the most transportive.

Westerman has since relocated to Milan; we’ll see how the fashion capital of the world influences his next chapter. Westerman’s third album release, “A Jackal’s Wedding”, became a document of leaving and arriving, on going transformation, and the liminal spaces between shadows and the lights that cast them. The collaboration with producer Marta Salogni (who mastered “An Inbuilt Fault“) created a woozy and dreamier work than the two previous Westerman albums. Recorded in a 17th century mansion, converted into an art space on the island of Hydra; the album reflects the chaos and limits of the space and uses it as a collaborator.

Westerman‘s new album A Jackal’s Wedding is out November 7th and here’s the second single from it

Meanwhile, Westerman has shared a new single from the album, “About Leaving,” which is both melancholic and groovy. “I wrote the lyrics in different places: London, America and Greece,” he says. “They were always written in a fleeting way, and that became an animating principle of what kind of imagery is contained. There are different ways of looking at that, right? You can look at that from the perspective of loss, or you can look at it from the perspective of opportunity, or you can look at it from the perspective of excitement or fear. I tried to play around with all of those things in an enveloping way. I was reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner over and over and I had an image of this person on the sea, not understanding where they’re going and not in control of anything, but unlike in the poem, finding that exciting and enjoying it for what it is.”

“A Jackal’s Wedding“, out November 7th, 2025 on Partisan Records