Back catalogue: Indie/Alternative

Review: Nacho Marco and Garen Moreno have not released much music as Jet Hammer - just two singles in a decade, in fact - but what they have put out is genuinely superb. Their latest EP, an expansive collection of retro-futurist gems inspired by 12" mixes of the 1980s, is similarly impressive. For proof, check opener 'Last Night', which sounds like the missing link between Italo-disco and the Cure; the Bobby Orlando-era Pet Shop Boys meets New Order wonder of 'How It Started'; and 'On Your Side (Instrumental Version)', which adds an early UK acid house veneer to the shimmering, club-ready extended synth-pop jams of the late '80s. Throw in an alternative new wave/post-punk style '1981 Mix' of 'Last Night', and you have an indispensable package.

Review: It's hard to untangle this hopelessly sad anthem from the equally tragic death of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, but if we had to put a bet on it we'd say it would still be hailed as the masterpiece it is now without those unfortunate events. Coming, as it did, after the two albums from the band, it's the perfect half way house between their powerful, guitar-powered sound and the futuristic synthesiser waves that informed New Order not long after. Plus, it's a heartbreakingly brilliant song with lyrics that have spoken to subsequent generations without fail.

Review: Warner has worked on a run of Joy Division reissues this month and after their most famous "Love Will Tear Us Apart" comes "Transmission" which is not far behind. A 2020 Digital Remaster reboots the sounds but retains the grit and urgency of the original, which is a surging post-punk anthem filled with angst but also a sense of vulnerability and melancholy that makes it so much more enduring. "Novelty" on the flip has a broken beat line, gauzy guitar riffs and is underpinned by an excellent insistent baseline that never lets up.

Review: All of Joy Division's biggest hits have been remastered and reissues by Warner this month. This particular heavyweight wedge of 12" vinyl offers "Atmosphere", which interestingly enough was first put in March 1980 by the Sordide Sentimental label as a France-only single under the title "Licht und Blindheit". Like "Transmission" or "Love Will Tear Us Apart", it is an essential tune with a real moodiness in the production rom Martin Hamnett. Curtis's vocals have a sense of finality to them that was to prove all too real when he committed suicide not long after recording it. 1979's "She's Lost Control" is an other archetypal, angular groove with the jittery drums that made the band so essential.

Review: No matter how many times you hear it, you just cannot resist air drumming and foot stomping to Joy Division's most famous hit. It's a track that resonates through the ages, and when you know the story of lead singer Ian Curtis it always takes on extra sombre resonance. Here it gets a special remaster and is served up with the alternative Pennine version which sends the drums into overdrive and mad echo and distortion all make the track that bit more frenzied, intense and essential. The short but sweet, hard hitting post punk banger "These Days" is also included on this heavyweight 12".

Review: The upcoming collaborative studio album between Liam Gallagher and guitarist John Squire is set to shine a refreshed light on the current state of Britpop. Consisting almost entirely of round-bellied rock, leading the charge is the arresting 'Just Another Rainbow' - here the pair are heard in neat unison, painting a picture of unfazed Gallagher-esque nonchalance in the face of a promised utopia - and 'Mars To Liverpool' - concerning the experience of realising a relationship is over before it's too late. Squire and Gallagher make for an exciting pairing, their synergy fleshed out by the album's stellar, full-bodied mix.

Review: Melbourne-via-Blue Mountains singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin's new album Pre Pleasure was recorded in Montreal with co-producer Marcus Paquin, who has worked with the likes of The Weather Station and The National. Her reputation as a fine - and direct - lyricist is cemented now and together with bassist Ben Whiteley and guitarist Will Kidman, she's made an album that further enhances it. Having been penned after getting back from her latest giant tour, it perhaps understandably addresses relationships and work-life balance. both featureing. Plenty of new terrain is explored making this another fine record.

Review: Jay Wobble is the former bassist with Public Image Ltd of course, but is also a visionary in his own right. This new album finds him revisiting some old ground: it takes him back to influential PiL 1979 album Metal Box, which he wholly reinvents with a load of new and sophisticated dub takes with all new and mind expanding production. Alongside the original tunes are two bonus cuts which are new versions of originals from the first ever PiL album. It adds up to a timelsss fusion of new and old indie and dub from this masterful guitarist.

Review: Critically acclaimed artist The Japanese House has finally dropped a long-awaited second album, In the End It Always Does. Fans will already know it for lead single 'Boyhood', and might know that the record is all about contradictions - beginnings and endings, falling in and out of love, the mundane and the obsessive. It is four years since the hugely venerated debut and finds Bain not only one in more on her signature sound but also heading into more of a pop realm away from the indie and rock she emerged playing. This exclusive version comes on limited yellow vinyl.

Review: Baby Buddha is the experimental new wave duo of Charles Hornaday (vocals, guitar, electronics, drums) and David Javelosa (vocals, electronics, clarinet). Born from late night improvisations of San Francisco synth-punks Los Microwaves with a rotating cast of musicians. Live shows would include music, projections, dance and performance art in both clubs and gallery spaces. In 1980, Howie Klein's 415 Records released their first single of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man". In 1981, 'Music For Teenage Sex' was their first full length album released via Poshboy Records. It featured Los Microwaves' Meg Brazill, Poshboy boss Robbie Fields, and Kathy Peck as "Tammy Why-not", who later went on to found H.E.A.R (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers). In January 1983 Kathy, Charles and David went into the studio with a couple of Kathy's original "country" songs and began working on a sophomore album. They also incorporated songs from a live multi-track recording of a concert at the Graffiti Club on June 6th 1984. The album titled 'Everyone Is My Age' sat unreleased until 1987 due to relocation to Los Angeles and eventually found a home on David's Hyperspace Communications, the original label for the first Los Microwaves singles. For this first time reissue we've added a previously unreleased bonus song "What's Going On," a Kathy Peck original. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in the original jacket featuring a collage by David Javelosa and includes an insert with lyrics, photos and liner notes.

Review: Jim (James Baron) is a UK producer making his brand of Balearic, folk and rock music. Generally, pushing the boundaries of Balearic, this double pack compilation houses remixes of tracks from his most debut album 'Love Makes Magic'. The lineup of producers lending their talents to this double pack is quite impressive. Uk house music legends X-press and Chris Coco just to mention two. This release encompasses a wide array of styles including downtempo, dub as well as house music all keeping the folk and Balearic soul of the originals. A true remix packet that brings these originals to different heights.

Review: Among that coterie of visionary artists who left their bands to fly solo on the cusp of abundant riches and fame, John Foxx flew from Ultravox in 1980 to pursue his own creative vision. He quickly cemented his own style with albums like Metamatic and The Garden, but arguably delivered the fullest iteration of his sound on this 1983 album. The Golden Section straddles synth-pop and pop rock with ease, and it stands shoulder to shoulder with the greatest of the era. From his former band to Duran Duran and even moire niche concerns like Freur, this is the sound of the new dawn for pop music in the UK as the vast possibilities of synthesis were finally being understood.

Review: There's multi-talented, and then multi-talented. John Foxx is credited as singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer, first making a name for himself up front of the new wave pioneers Ultravox (eventually handing the reigns over to Midge Ure), he presided over a period in the band's history that was less commercially successful, but incredibly forward thinking musically. This desire to keep pushing boundaries has rung true across Foxx's entire - and extensive - oeuvre, as Annexe, one of his solo efforts, goes to show. A pervading sense of darkness carries many of the tracks 'Dance With Me' being just one example, which contrasts the polished, highly synthesised productions, veering from the complex percussive patterns of 'Wings & A Wind' to the sparse, ghostly, near-spoken word operatics of 'A Woman On A Stairway'. Coldwave, some might call it, others would just say John Foxx.

Review: Kathryn Jospeh has been on a super run of album form that started with her Scottish Album of the Year award winning debut in 2014 and carried on through 2018 follow up From When I Wake The Want Is. She now completes the hattrick with For You Who Are Wronged. It is a record about fighting to keep hold of love and was recorded at The Lengths Studio in Fort William with producer Lomond Campbell. Anyone who enjoys Lana Del Ray, Kate Bush or Erland Cooper is sure to lap this one up, not least for its fantastically long and evocative track titles.

Review: What is left to be written about the debut Joy Division album that hasn't been written already? Well, not much except to say if you've never heard it, you must. This is the more raw of the two studio albums, powered mainly by the foundations laid down by bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. But although the rudimentary electronic experimentalism of its successor Closer are missing - with the possible exception of 'She's Lost Control' - Martin Hannett's production job creates an uneasy world of magical reverbs and echoes that lure in the listener. From its iconic, Peter Saville sleeve to classic songs like 'Shadowplay' and 'Interzone' - which started life as a cover of Nolan Porter's Northern Soul cult hit 'Keep On Keeping On' - this is the template that effectively launched a thousand bands, from indie and post punk to goth and beyond.

Review: Just Mustard's second album is her first for Partisan Records. It is a coherent but widescreen exploration across 10 tracks that all add up to a great whole. Her magic vocals, scything guitars and brooding rock drums all make for intense and scintillant listening. Tracks like 'Seed' roll up and down on lumpy drums with gauzy guitar textures, while there is a more ethereal sound to 'Early' which floats up amongst the stars. 'In Shade' has a catchy post punk rhythm and 'Sore' is dense and caustic shoegaze style rock that drags you with it into a world of questions.

Review: When members of mega-bands work with relatively obscurer artists, we're always intrigued. But a potential trapping factor is in thinking Jarak Qaribak, for example, is more of a Jonny Greenwood album than a Dudu Tassa one, when in fact the exact opposite is the case. Tassa, an Israeli singer-guitarist who fuses Middle Eastern stylings with contemporary rock, lends a challenging structural terrain to the Radiohead member's electric guitar licks, with the former's Arabic and Hebrew lyrics moving atmospherically against them. A star cast of fellow Israeli artists accompany the pair, as serene vocal beat-driven movements plod and swell away in an appealingly nu-proggy fashion.

Review: Music From Dreams is a label that never fails to live up to its name. Next to soundtrack your gentle passage from awake to whatever comes next is The Zenmenn and John Moods. The Zenmenn debuted on this label back in April 2021 with Entry The Zenmenn which showed off their beat-making credentials. Not much else is known about them and the same can be said of John Moods. What we do know is that they make superbly horizontal music together as is demonstrated here. These are lush instrumental tracks that lean on folk, soft and yacht rock to help you empty your mind of all woes.