Back catalogue: All genres

Review: It's hard to miss the forward motion running through New Pagans' work. The Belfast group have this way of crafting sometimes jagged, sometimes rolling, but always direct and propellant riffs that cut a fine line between a kind of Neo-punk and classic indie rock. Their tracks can simultaneously sound DIY and soaring, big room but intimate, which is no mean feat at all.

Making A Circle of Our Own is a fantastic case in point - packed with energy and ideas, it hits hard. But movement runs through much more than instrumentation and arrangements. As an outfit, they're as concerned with starting conversations about some pretty big issues, for example equality and the perversion or distortion of history, alongside smaller, more personal themes. Relationships, self-identity, and belief. Quite the package, then.

Review: Most people will remember the New Radicals from their international hit single (well, certainly UK and US hit single) 'You Get What You Give' - a Waterboys-esque slice of emotionally charged indie with rousing message about how putting in is the only real means of receiving anything good. Releasing just one album - this one, from which that song was taken - diving into the full record now, 24 years on, is intriguing.

While that statement track might have convinced many otherwise, newcomers will find that Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too is actually a pretty wild ride through psychedelic-leaning poppy rock. Or rocky pop, it's hard to know which order to punt for. Fundamentally, though, this is a way more complex and fascinating outing than That Big Anthem would have you expecting, nodding to early-Aerosmith, INXS and more.

Review: First released in 1997 as his sixth and final LP project, Colin Newman's Bastard came to the innovative "post-everything" label Swim a good while after the Wire member and electronic experimentalist had already made several splashes in the mitts of the infamous Cartel, the arch-distributor and de facto trade guild giving rise to labels like 4AD and Beggars. Keeping in close knit to such sonic romanticists helped propel Newman's sound into dreamier realms over the years, and this seven-tracker functions as the pinnacle of this tendency. First coming across as a more convincing analogue to contemporaries like Lush, Newman's sound here is less polished and thus more "authentic"-seeming, basking in militant breaks and techstep entrainments and which come blent with incredible pad and amped-up guitar washes. In the in-betweeny moments, we're also met with trip-hop delights resting on the lower-ends of the spectrum; the alien middle finger on the cover says it all, a veritable "fuck you" gestured by an early subject of dance music, a genre that Newman recalls was a misunderstood, much-maligned genre at the time.

Review: The last album by Colin Newman, Bastard came almost a full decade after his establishing panhandle of albums, released across Beggars Banquet, 4AD and Crammed Discs. A driving left turn into dance music, Bastard hears Newman come into his own, not only hearing him embrace then-emergent styles like trip hop and breakbeat for the first time, but also breaking through as the first full-length effort for his very own record label, Swim, established after a parallax-shifting abandonment of conventional song formats and welcoming a new, largely minimal/ambient electronica posse; the likes of Lobe and Silo. The tracks on Bastard reflect an early embrace of dance music in a time of ambivalence towards the arch-genre as a whole, reflecting the wilful keeping-ahead-of-the-curve that Newman and his partner Milka Spigel had by then cultivated.

Review: For all her otherworldly talents, even hardcore fans of Joanna Newsom will likely be relieved to hear that 'Divers' marks a very slight move back from the artistic brink compared to 2010's 'Have One On Me', an exhausting triple-album embarrassment of riches which few ever made it though in one go. Yet there's no hint of compromise on the deliriously thrilling 'Divers', despite its slightly more concise approach - the elegant yet baroque wordplay, ornate and innovative arrangements and Newsom's unique voice are all present and correct - yet more, these emotive and engaging ditties may mark the most accessible thing this iconoclastic and mercurial artist has thus far summoned from the ether.

Review: As part of a new looking back on German art rocker Nico's esteemed career by the indie label Domino, Desertshore chronologically follows The Marble Index, and is her third album, following the prior project's establishing her as an avant-garde artist with one foot in the mainstream, in stark defiance of the the prejudiced poo-poohs that followed her first (baroque pop) album, Chelsea Girl. Desertshore is more of a reconciliation of her prior two projects, bringing back the initial western pop sensibility while now firmly basking in a newfound weirdness-and-she-knows-it. From the opening dark waves of 'Janitor Of Lunacy' to the piano-balladic injection of sadness that is 'Afraid', this is another avant-garde masterpiece by the musician, never justifiably passed over.

Review: Nico's Marble Index was the first album to establish the German musician's home in the avant-garde; the story of the fashion model turned "legitimate" artist is as old as time, yet is rarely told today. In contrast to her first album, Chelsea Girl, which consisted almost entirely of pop chansons, Nico's sophomore LP here tracks nicely with her working introduction to John Cale in his harmonium era, drawing inspiration primarily from modern European classical music, not three-minute hookcraft. Long out of print, this slow-burner of a critical classic now hears a worthy reissue via Domino.

Review: The only album Nico gave us that didn't feature John Cale was a visionary piece of work. Not for a moment suggesting the absence of her regular collaborator improved things, but Drama of Exile certainly saw the iconic German musician, singer and songwriter move in some different and very new directions. Enlisting the help of Philippe Quilichini, a Corsican bassist, and introducing a Middle Eastern rhythm section definitely helped, but ultimately you can't help feeling this was an album she was always supposed to make. That voice, once described by the critic Richard Goldstein as sounding like "a cello getting up in the morning", was perfect for what had come before, but as the focal point of experiments in coldwave, synthwave, goth and new wave, it seems to take on new resonance and power. A thing of obscure beauty that deserves every bit of this repressing.

Review: The highly respected Northern English music journalist John Robb once described The Nightingales as "the misfits' misfits". In a small part, this is probably owing to the relentless changes in lineup the group have experienced since forming in Birmingham in 1979. However, that's really quite a reductive reading of the statement. Realistically, the post punk outfit just don't quite match their peers, with a take on the genre that incorporates elements of folk and gypsy rock.

Or at least that's our reading. Agree or not, In The Good Old Country Way was the outfit's third studio album, and at the time of its original release (1986), was recognised among their most polished and refined work. Nevertheless, it still sounds like a raw and rather uncompromising workout, sweat-soaked and dirty, experimental but really just aimed at making you spill your drink.

Review: "NINE INCH NAILS' GROUNDBREAKING DEBUT ALBUM
REMASTERED AND RE-RELEASED

Fans can now revisit the conception of Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor's Null Corporation has teamed with UMe/The Bicycle Music Company to release Pretty Hate Machine: 2010 Remaster on November 22, 2010. After completing the score for David Fincher's The Social Network, Reznor oversaw the digital remastering of Pretty Hate Machine from the newly unearthed original tapes with engineer Tom Baker (whose NIN credits include The Downward Spiral, Broken, The Fragile, With Teeth and Ghosts). This remastered version includes an eleventh track, a cover of Queen's ''Get Down Make Love,'' originally the B-side to the ''Sin'' single and produced by Al Jourgensen. Rob Sheridan, NIN's longtime art director, has also re-imagined the packaging of Pretty Hate Machine under Reznor's supervision.

As a young musician in Cleveland, Ohio, Reznor took a job at a local recording studio and employed unused studio time to develop his own material. The nascent album was later recorded with his favorite producers including Flood/Mark Ellis (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey), John Fryer (Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil), Adrian Sherwood (Ministry, Cabaret Voltaire) and Keith LeBlanc (Tackhead). The result was the first Nine Inch Nails album, 1989's Pretty Hate Machine. All songs were written, arranged, programmed and performed by Reznor. The album featured the breakthrough singles ''Sin,'' ''Down In It'' and ''Head Like A Hole,'' and ultimately sold over 3 million copies, reaching Triple Platinum sales status. In the wake of the album's initial underground success, NIN soon developed a reputation as one of the best live acts in rock and joined the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in 1991. NIN have since sold more than 18 million albums, collected Grammy® Awards and headlined arenas, amphitheaters and festivals worldwide.

The Bicycle Music Company acquired the rights to Pretty Hate Machine from a division of Prudential Securities in the spring of 2010. It was Bicycle's intention from the onset to enable Reznor to regain some control of this lost piece of NIN's legacy, resulting in this artist approved 2010 reissue of one of music's most groundbreaking and influential albums.

Reznor is currently working on new music as a member of the group How To Destroy Angels, continuing his Nine Inch Nails efforts and composing for future film score projects.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Head Like A Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down In It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want To
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. The Only Time
10. Ringfinger
11. Get Down Make Love"