Song of the Day: Maruja - Trenches

August 30, 2025 Peter Kimpton

Maruja’s single Trenches is the latest to herald their debut album *Pain To Power*

Song of the Day: Influenced by Rage Against The Machine, a seething, menacing new track by the Manchester jazz-punk band, one they describe as “a call for revolution in the face of the oppressive,” with searing, combative lyrics by vocalist Harry Wilkinson and interweaving sax by Joseph Carroll, heralding their debut album Pain to Power, out on 12 September via Music For Nations

Song of the Day: Yussef Dayes - Black Classical Music

May 2, 2023 Peter Kimpton

The cover of Yussef Dayes’ forthcoming album, Black Classical Music

Song of the Day: A whirlwind of brilliant dynamism, energy and invention by the British jazz drummer with the title track of his forthcoming debut solo album, out on Brownswood Recordings, Warners and Cashmere Thoughts Recordings

Song of the Day: Nubya Garcia - The Message Continues (Mark de Clive-Lowe Remix)

March 23, 2021 Peter Kimpton

Cover art for Nubya Garcia’s album – Source

Song of the Day: With a brilliantly bold melody, added developed rhythm and carefully crafted keyboards, an addictive new arrangement of the original instrumental from 2020 album Source by the Camden-born jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader

Song of the Day: GoGo Penguin - Atomised (and Machinedrum remix)

March 16, 2021 Peter Kimpton

Machinedrum, aka Travis Stewart, left, remixes Manchester trio GoGo Penguin

Song of the Day: Intricate, pace-changing and with beautiful narrative arcs, two versions of the recent piece by the Manchester experimental jazz trio of pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka, and drummer Rob Turner with a new dance remix by American producer Travis Stewart

Billy Taylor Trio / Nina Simone – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

October 10, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Moving on to another TV theme, best known for the original Barry Norman BBC TV film review programme that began in 1972, this wonderful jazz piano piece was originally associated with the 1950s civil rights movement

Roy Budd – Get Carter theme

October 7, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Get Carter (1971) starring Michael Caine, with soundtrack by Roy Budd

Song of the Day: Resuming a thread of film soundtrack music that transcends their original source - this time the classic thriller starring Michael Caine and directed by Mike Hodges from 1971

Clara Smith – It's Tight Like That

September 5, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: After yesterday's sprinkling of tragic and dirty songs by Bessie Smith, let's get a little filthier courtesy of the so-called Queen of the Moaners from South Carolina who actually had a chirpy, perky, high voice

Bessie Smith – Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out / Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl / Blue Spirit Blues

September 4, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Bessie Smith, carrying more than weight on her famous shoulders

Song of the Day: After a series of early bluesmen, it's time to sprinkle some attention on the first true star of of the blues crossing into jazz, who not only mixed a little dirt into her powerful voice, but also into her lyrics

Rotary Connection – I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun

March 27, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Rotary Connection, featuring Minnie Riperton and Charles Stepney (right).

Song of the Day: How to move from bluesy road tunes to this elaborate jazz-soul number at the peak of the psychedelic movement? Partly because this band also backed Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters

Funny Valentine? Chet Baker – Let's Get Lost

February 14, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: The world wide web will be awash with Valentine's songs today, so here's one too - a jazz standard but with a darker edge, embellished with extraordinarily beautiful trumpet and voice of Chet Baker

J Dilla – Two Can Win / The Sylvers – Only One Can Win

February 3, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Maybe nine can win? Fabulous family band The Sylvers

Song of the Day: After yesterday's Ty Segall/Hot Chocolate cover comparison, more material playing on the topic of who or may not be the winner in a relationship from the brilliant hip hop and jazz producer and the 70s funk and soul family group

Moondog – Lament I, Bird's Lament / Moondog Monologue

January 28, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: After Captain Beefheart, could there be any musical figure more influential, eccentric, strange and innovative? Louis Thomas Hardin, aka the Viking figure who for years silently stalked New York's 6th Avenue, is a strong contender

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Moonlight On Vermont / Tropical Hot Dog Night

January 26, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Captain Beefheart, aka Don Van Vliet – musician, artist, visionary.

Song of the Day: With the recent passing of The Fall's Mark E Smith, and all the songs, tributes and stories that have followed, it now seems only appropriate to follow up with music Smith loved by one of his major influences

Hugh Masekela - Grazing In The Grass / Khauleza / Soweto Blues

January 23, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: A triple tribute to the sadly departed but hugely influential South African trumpeter, composer, singer, cornet and flugelhorn player, and leading anti-apartheid campaigner

Amy Winehouse – Tears Dry On Their Own / Back to Black

January 13, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: The voice, the lyrics and the timing – tears don't get much more moving than this – a double from the much missed singer who had many downs, but undoubtedly hit the heights with her Back to Black album of 2006

Weather Report – Birdland

January 6, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: The opening track to the jazz-funk fusion band's 1977 album Heavy Weather is not only a tribute to the legendary New York jazz club inspired by Charlie Parker, but a wonderfully evocative instrumental conjuring up sights and sounds of the city streets

Frank Zappa – Peaches en Regalia

January 5, 2018 Peter Kimpton

Frank Zappa: masterful, mischievous invention

Song of the Day: How could there a more joyful, eccentric, evocative and infinitely inventive opener than this, on album described by Zappa as "a movie for the ears" – 1969's Hot Rats?

Mel Tormé – Comin' Home Baby

December 27, 2017 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: For those facing what is often an arduous, weather-affected journey, travelling home after a Christmas visit, or waiting for their beloved to return with this 1962 classic

RJD2 – A Beautiful Mine (Mad Men theme) / 1976 / Let There Be Horns

November 8, 2017 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: Echoing yesterday's great drum break, let's now celebrate the work of the Ohio multi-instrumentalist and hip-hop artist, who is behind the theme tune to Mad Men, and so much more

Nat King Cole – Nature Boy

October 30, 2017 Peter Kimpton

Song of the Day: The opening vocals and style of yesterday's 3WW by alt-J, "There was a wayward lad" may spark a musical echo, this beautiful 1948 recording by the jazz pianist and singer, written by the original 'hippie' eden ahbez

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celery sticks in guacamole dip

New Albums …

Featured

Apr 29, 2026

Sam Grassie: Where Two Hawks Fly

Apr 29, 2026

New album: Beautiful debut LP by the London-based Glaswegian fingerstyle folk guitarist and singer-songwriter, with added saxophone, double bass, flute, clairsach and clarinet in a release of mostly the traditional, covers, sung or instrumental, and supported by the Bert Jansch Foundation

Apr 29, 2026

Irmin Schmidt: Requiem

Apr 29, 2026

New album: A strangely mesmeric, avant-garde and analogue-ambient, field recording-based experimental release by the last surviving founding member of experimental ‘krautrock’ band CAN, who, approaching the age of 89, has also written over 40 TV and film scores

Apr 29, 2026

Apr 28, 2026

Gia Margaret: Singing

Apr 28, 2026

New album: Gently profound, and full of wondrous, mesmeric, slow, delicate experimental songs, this simple title has a powerful resonance – it is the Chicago artist’s first vocal album since 2018’s There’s Always Glimmer (there have been two instrumental LPs since), having suffered and recovered from a severe vocal injury, she returns with a delicate, candid, whispery but hauntingly beautiful delivery

Apr 28, 2026

Angel In Plainclothes by Angelo De Augustine.jpeg

Apr 28, 2026

Angelo De Augustine: Angel in Plainclothes

Apr 28, 2026

New album: A beautiful, delicate fifth LP from the Los Angeles singer-songwriter, friend and collaborator with Sufjan Stevens with whom he shares a stylistic resemblance, here with themes on life's fragility, second chances, and picking up the pieces after an undiagnosed illness forced him to re-learn basic abilities

Apr 28, 2026

Carla dal Forno: Confession

Apr 28, 2026

New album: This lo-fi, darkly minimalist but also oddly candid fourth LP by the Australian, Castlemaine-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist centres on the conflicted, obsessive feelings about “a friendship that became emotionally charged in an unexpected way”, and “an album about closeness that arrives late and unexpectedly. About stability rubbing up against desire.”

Apr 28, 2026

Apr 26, 2026

Friko: Something Worth Waiting For

Apr 26, 2026

New album: Passionate, powerful, dynamic indie rock in this sophomore LP by the Chicago-based quartet that gallops forwards with a driving momentum, some elements of early PJ Harvey and Radiohead, and is produced by John Congleton

Apr 26, 2026

White Denim: 13

Apr 26, 2026

New album: This 13th LP in two decades by the Austin, Texas rock band fronted by James Petralli has a particularly mischievous experimentalism, spreading styles far beyond breathlessly paced prog rock, with wrily humorous, surreal, personal and passionate numbers across heavy funk, dub, soul, psyche, country, dirty blues and more, joined by host of outstanding extra musicians

Apr 26, 2026

Asili ya Mama by Hukwe Zawose Foundation.jpeg

Apr 24, 2026

Hukwe Zawose Foundation: Asili ya Mama

Apr 24, 2026

New album: Wonderfully evocative field recordings release of Wagogo, Waluguru and Wasambaa Tanzanian women singing traditional songs in their villages, rarely heard outside of their own circles, the title is translated as The Origin of Mother, rich in stories and capturing the place where song is first learned, first felt, first shared

Apr 24, 2026

Apr 23, 2026

They Might Be Giants - The World Is To Dig

Apr 23, 2026

New album: Four decades since their self-titled debut, Brooklyn alternative rockers John Flansburgh and John Linnell return with their 24th LP, packed with of punchy, pacy, wistful, whimsical, clever wordplay and indie rock-pop, buoyantly satirical and also a little world weary at times, they remain oddball, lively commentators on the ongoing absurdity of life

Apr 23, 2026

Apr 22, 2026

Eaves Wilder: Little Miss Sunshine

Apr 22, 2026

New album: After 2023’s Hookey EP, a strong, passionate indie-dream-pop-shoegaze full debut by the London singer-songwriter, whose breathy voice intertwines with strong, stirring riffs and textured sounds, themed around cycles of nature aiming to explain and celebrate the mercurial nature of human emotional weather

Apr 22, 2026

Honey Dijon: The Nightlife

Apr 22, 2026

New album: The irrepressible, prolific and charismatic London-based Chicago DJ, musician, producer and vinyl lover returns with a flamboyantly fun celebration of club and queer culture through the prism of dance music from disco to house, with a wide variety of guest vocalists

Apr 22, 2026

Apr 21, 2026

Tiga: HOTLIFE

Apr 21, 2026

New album: Montreal’s acclaimed electronica/techno/dance artist Tiga Sontag returns with his fourth album - inventively packed with head-nodding, toe-tapping, oddly itchy, infectious grooves, cleverly crafted retro sounds recalling Kraftwerk to acid house and electroclash, insistent bold beats and synth riffs, with lyrics of the existential, droll and surreal

Apr 21, 2026

Apr 20, 2026

TOMORA: Come Closer

Apr 20, 2026

New album: A striking, dynamic collaboration between Norwegian experimental pop sensation Aurora and Tom Rowlands, one of half of Chemical Brothers, with a sensual, otherworldly energetic fusion of mystical, sensual ambience, and block-rocking dance beats

Apr 20, 2026

Jessie Ware: Superbloom

Apr 20, 2026

New album: Following 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? and 2023’s That! Feels Good!, as well as the successful food podcast Table Manners she hosts alongside her mother, the British pop singer continues to ride the 70s disco ball train, catering to the clever, kitsch and catchy with an ironic wink, adding also a luxuriant garden metaphor

Apr 20, 2026

new songs …

Featured

Apr 29, 2026

Song of the Day: Metric - Crush Forever

Apr 29, 2026

Song of the Day: Uplifting, effervescent electro-disco-pop by the Toronto indie rock band, with a song vocalist/keyboardist Emily Haines describes as “my love letter to strong girls in this world”, taken from their recently released 10th album, Romanticize the Dive, out on Metric Music via Thirty Tigers

Apr 29, 2026

Jim Ghedi - The Hungry Child single.jpeg

Apr 28, 2026

Song of the Day: Jim Ghedi - The Hungry Child

Apr 28, 2026

Song of the Day: Dark, gripping, visceral folk by the Sheffield singer-songwriter, with a striking number based on an early 19th-century German poem about the fatal story of a child pleading for food, and, following last year’s acclaimed album, Wasteland, also out on Basin Rock, it heralds his upcoming soundtrack for the Hugh Jackman film, The Death of Robin Hood.

Apr 28, 2026

holybones with Baxter Dury - SLUGBOY.jpg

Apr 27, 2026

Song of the Day - holybones (with Baxter Dury) - SLUGBOY

Apr 27, 2026

Song of the Day: Dark, unsettling, sleazy and strange, this is arrestingly vivid new collaborative single between the clandestine London electronic collective and the downbeat, deep-voiced poetic Londoner, out on Promised Land Recordings

Apr 27, 2026

Apr 26, 2026

Song of the Day: Hand Habits - Good Person

Apr 26, 2026

Song of the Day: Gentle, droll, humorously self-deprecatingly, and also delicately beautiful, this new experimental folk single by the moniker of Los Angeles singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Meg Duffy addresses the love-hate relationship with making music, out on Fat Possum

Apr 26, 2026

Apr 25, 2026

Song of the Day: Pigeon - Miami

Apr 25, 2026

Song of the Day: Catchy, sunny, upbeawt indie synth-pop with an African twist by the Margate band fronted by Falle Nioke, with flavours of William Onyeabor, Hot Chip and New York 70s disco, heralding their upcoming album OUTTANATIONAL, out on 1 May via Memphis Industries

Apr 25, 2026

Apr 24, 2026

Song of the Day: Tricky - Out of Place (featuring Marta Złakowska)

Apr 24, 2026

Song of the Day: A pulsating fusion of beats, orchestral strings and the Bristol trip-hop pioneer’s distinctive, deep, croaky voice, with an emotional reference to his daughter Mina Topley-Bird (1995–2019), and heralding his first solo album for six years, Different When It’s Silent, out on 17 June via False Idols

Apr 24, 2026

Apr 23, 2026

Song of the Day: Beck - Ride Lonesome

Apr 23, 2026

Song of the Day: Beautiful, simmering, slow, melancholy and reflective, a surprise single and welcome return by the acclaimed US artist, evoking the haunting, sun-bleached landscapes and musical textures of his 2015 Grammy winning album Morning Phase, out now on Iliad Records/Capitol Records

Apr 23, 2026

Apr 22, 2026

Song of the Day: Gelli Haha - Klouds Will Carry Me To Sleep

Apr 22, 2026

Song of the Day: Described appropriately as somewhere between Studio 42 and Area 51, eccentric, effervescent, spacey, catchy and eclectic disco pop by the Los Angeles artist (aka Angel Abaya, co-written with Sean Guerin) out on Innovative Leisure

Apr 22, 2026

Apr 21, 2026

Song of the Day: LEENALCHI 이날치 - Here Comes That Crow 떴다 저 가마귀

Apr 21, 2026

Song of the Day: Wonderfully catchy, funky, psychedelic and quirky new work by the seven-piece Seoul-based Korean pansori band led by bassist Jang Young Gyu with the title track of their new EP, out on 12 June via Luaka Bop, and heralding a European and North American tour

Apr 21, 2026

Apr 20, 2026

Song of the Day: Jesca Hoop - Big Storm

Apr 20, 2026

Song of the Day: Catchy, quirky experimental indie folk-pop by the innovative Manchester-based California artist, featuring a clever video that old footage and Hoop in various vintage guises, heralding her upcoming album Long Wave Home, out on 1 May via Last Laugh / Republic of Music

Apr 20, 2026

Apr 19, 2026

Song of the Day: Gia Margaret - Alive Inside

Apr 19, 2026

Song of the Day: Delicate, dream-like, reflective experimental folk-pop by the American singer-songwriter and producer from Chicago, heralding her upcoming fourth album, Singing, out on Jagjaguwar

Apr 19, 2026

Apr 18, 2026

Song of the Day: Prima Queen - Crumb

Apr 18, 2026

Song of the Day: Catchy, playful, gently humorous, self-deprecating experimental indie pop by the inventive transatlantic duo of Louise Macphail and Kristin McFadden, with a number about having a fragile crush on someone, and their first new music of 2026, out on Submarine Cat Records

Apr 18, 2026

Word of the week

Featured

Apr 23, 2026

Word of the week: throstle

Apr 23, 2026

Word of the week: An archaic, evocative noun with two connected meanings, originally for the song thrush, then later a textiles industrial frame for spinning, twisting and winding machine for cotton, wool, and other fibres simultaneously

Apr 23, 2026

Apr 9, 2026

Word of the week: undine

Apr 9, 2026

Word of the week: It might sound like the act of abstaining from food, but this noun from derived from undina (Latin unda) meaning wave, refers to mythical, elemental beings associated with water, such as mermaids, and stemming from the alchemical writings of the 16th-century Swiss physician, alchemist and philosopher Paracelsus

Apr 9, 2026

Mar 27, 2026

Word of the week: veena

Mar 27, 2026

Word of the week: This ornate, curvaceous, south Indian classical instrument, the saraswati veena, is a special bowl lute with a rich, resonant tone, has 24 copper frets with four playing strings and three drone strings, and is used for Carnatic music

Mar 27, 2026

Mar 12, 2026

Word of the week: wallfish

Mar 12, 2026

Word of the week: It sounds like the singing finned picture ornament Big Mouth Billy Bass that became popular in the late 1990s, but this is a much older noun, derived in Somerset, England, pertains to the climbing gastropod that can slowly climb up any surface

Mar 12, 2026

Feb 25, 2026

Word of the week: xiphias

Feb 25, 2026

Word of the week: Get the point? This is the scientific name for the swordfish, in full Xiphias gladius (from the Greek and Latin for sword), that extraordinary sea creature with the long, pointy bill. But what of it in song?

Feb 25, 2026