27th April 2025

Titus writes:

You may remember when Lex very kindly let Anne & I compile a guest playlist a few weeks ago, that we chose a Fuzzrider track.  Well, it was Anne actually, but I was well impressed with their work.  There’s not a lot of readily available information on them, but I have found out that they are described as a heavy blues trio from Athens, Greece.  The band was formed by Jim Lord, a.k.a. Lord 13 and also Madleaf, and he’s on guitars and vocals.  Nick Giannoulis, a.k.a. One Man Drop, Blame Canada, and Nochnoy Dozor plays bass guitar, and Brian Velentzas a.k.a. Captain Brian, plays drums.

 

You can’t just walk into say an H.M.V. shop and buy their records.  They sell their music via their web site, and apart from a 12” limited vinyl edition of ‘Evergreen’, their music is mainly streaming via the free Bandcamp app,  and downloads in MP3, FLAC and more.  Needless to say that 100 pressings of the limited edition 12” has sold out.   As far as I know, they have only made one album which is self titled, and the tremendous track from this LP that we chose a few weeks ago was ‘Black Snake Boogie’.  The album is available on CD, but again only from Bandcamp and other online sources.  The ’Streaming & Download’ digital album costs 5 Euros or more, and the C.D. around twice that price.  I have listened to all eight tracks, and believe me, they’re pretty darn good.

 

I now move from faraway Greece to Scotland.  The youngest of four daughters, Emily Atkinson a.k.a. Fourth Daughter, has always found her sense of escape in music.  She creates her own brand of euphoric electro from Edinburgh, gaining influence from Rufus Du Sol, Sylvan Esso and Jamie XX.  She produces  lush, textured music paired with emotional lyrics & narrative which are a joy to listen to.  Her Dad was a synthesiser fan, and his CD collection inspired a young 7 year old Emily who began playing piano at that age.   She eventually became classically trained, and whilst attending university, tried playing synths herself, discovering on Pro Tools,  “a World of open possibilities”.

 

If you’re like me – or even if you haven’t heard her -  you’ll find her music very relaxing, with frontline synths, beautiful soundscapes, plus her own lovely vocals.  It’s been said that listening to Fourth Daughter “feels like bathing in the Balearic sun”.  Be careful of that Balearic sun – I fell asleep and got horribly sunburnt once!  Fourth Daughter took to headlining her own show in 2023 at both Glasgow and Edinburgh.  She also bagged a slot at the BBC’s ‘Introducing Live’ section of the Edinburgh Festival.   It is said that she wears her soul on her sleeve, but she has an undeniable talent as an artist, producer and writer.  I love electronic music, and find her one of the rising talents of that genre. Emily has released two EP’s - ‘Deja Vu’ and ‘Full Bloom’ and caught attention from Radio One with last year’s ‘Higher (Just a Feeling)’ being deemed as the station’s track of the week at the end of September 2024, and, you lucky devils, you can find that track right here.

26th April 2025

Downloading & replaying is discontinued. However, tracks played on Friday evening, broadcast from Casablanca, were:

Racey - Some Girls
Major Lazer ft. Mr. Vegas & Jovi Rockwell - Can't Stop Now
Japanese Breakfast  - Mega Circuit
Jacob Alon - Liquid Gold 25
The Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock
jasmine.4.t  - Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation
Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot
Emilia - Sbarka Adresa
Adwaith - Coeden Anniben
Buc Tuong - Con Duong Khong Ten
Molly Sanden & Victor Leksell - Lost and found
Shaboozey - A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Six Magics - Falling Angels
Os Mutantes - A Minha Menina (extract thereof)
Lucy Dacus - Best Guess 

18th April 2025

Titus writes:

Adwaith translates as ‘Reaction’, and they are a Welsh language indie band from the town of Carmarthen in West Wales.  The membership consists of Hollie Singer (vocals & guitar), Gwenllian Anthony (bass, keyboards & mandolin), and Heledd Owen (drums).  They have made three albums, all on Libertino Records – ‘Melyn’ (2018);  Bato Mato (2022); and ‘Solas’ (2025).  The first two LP’s both won the Welsh Music Prize for best album in their release year, making Adwaith the first act to receive the award twice.  Their home town doesn’t bring back many happy memories for Anne & me, in that last year we were trying to find the nearby Gwili Steam Railway, which had relocated its headquarters from Bronwydd Arms to Abergwili Junction, on the outskirts of Carmarthen.  The sat nav took us to Matalan, on a retail park, which clearly didn’t seem right. After asking various people directions (one of whom was a Police Officer), and also getting lost again in the town, we missed our booked train, only to find that we weren’t the only ones!

 

Singer and Anthony grew up together in the Welsh town and have known each other since pre-school age.  They formed a band as a duo, but recruited Heledd Owen at their first gig.  A guy called Gruff Wyn Owen, who is Head of Libertino Records,took the trio on.  Singer and Heledd Owen study music at Universities in South Wales & London respectively, whilst Anthony is employed by Carmarthen venue The Parrot. In the daytime, this venue has a well stocked bottle shop of beers & ciders, a cafe, and a vinyl/CD store.  At night, the venue changes into an entertainment emporium, with live music, poetry, comedy, art and plays.  I mentioned earlier in this blog that the Welsh word Adwaith actually translates as Reaction – in a recent interview, Hollie Singer said “One of our mothers asked what ‘reaction’ was in Welsh, and we just thought ‘Oh that would make a cool name!’”

 

Adwaith first appeared on the Welsh language music scene at Womanby Street’s Castle Emporium in 2017, and since then have played a host of venues such as ‘Festival No. 6 in Portmeirion;  the Swn Festival in Cardiff;  Ty Pawb in Wrexham;  Cardigan Castle;  and the Green Man Festival in the Brecon Beacons.  The band have performed at ‘Wales goes Pop’ and ‘Future is Female’ Festival, plus they started their own ‘Femme’ nights (named after their single) intended to offer a safe space for women.  In 2022 Adwaith performed at the Glastonbury Festival on the BBC Introducing Stage, and in 2024 recorded their third album ‘Solas’ in West Wales, Lisbon and the Outer Hebrides – the  album was released in February of 2025, and to coincide with this, the band are taking part in a U.K. and European tour.  They are supporters of Welsh independence, believing that Britain is relying on Westminster and England too much.

 

Had he lived on past 2004, I am sure that legendary DJ John Peel would have championed the cause and the music of current Welsh Bands, just as he did during his lifetime with bands such as Anhrefn, Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Llwybr LLaethog and of course Melys from Betws–y–Coed, who not a lot of people know, attained Number One in 2001’s ‘Festive Fifty’ with ‘Chinese Whispers’.  I still play the track via its original C90 tape!  The track that I have asked Lex to play is from the ‘Solas’ album and is called ‘Coeden Anniben’, which can be found here.

17th April 2024

Downloading & replaying is discontinued. However, tracks played on Thursday evening (don't ask, because I don't know) broadcast from Casablanca were:

Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now
Thy Catafalque - Piros kocsi, fekete éj
Sasami (feat. Clairo) - In Love With A Memory
Devil Doll - duet with Charlie Overbey - Ballad of the Rearview Mirror
Chinese American Bear - Dim Sum
Oliver Gallegos - Jackin Me Hard
GAZZI & Nidia - Tus Ojos
Rosal - Fiesta en el Vacío
Panda Bear - Ends Meet
Hachiku - Fun For Everyone
Devil Doll - The Girl Who Was Death (1989.v)
Prefab Sprout  (Peel Session 18th August 1985) - Lions In My Own Garden
Bucovina - Duh
'Til Tuesday - The Other End (Of The Telescope)

11th April 2025

Downloading & replaying is discontinued. However, tracks played on Friday evening (broadcast from Casablanca) were:

CASALEX - Balcony Beats
Julia Mestre - Sou Fera
Ismeros Arcok - Ígéret
Chloe Slater - Sucker
Poppy - New Way Out
Kim Deal - A Good Time Pushed
Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven
Étienne de Crécy feat. Sports - Take It Back
The Black Keys - The Night Before
SKIIFALL  ft. Jorja Smith - Her World
Riverside - Cybernetic Pillow
Pearz feat Kuntessa - International Lovers
Devil Doll - Bourbon In Your Eyes
Dominia - Behind the Universe
Salif Keita - Tassi 

9th April 2025

Titus writes:

Mannequin Pussy (where DO they get these names from?) are an American punk and indie rock band.  They hale from Philadelphia, and whilst they were originally formed in 2010, the current line up only dates back to 2021, and consists of Marisa ‘Missy’ Dabice (vocals & guitar), Kaleen Reading (drums), Colins ‘Bear’ Regisford (bass & vocals) and Maxine Steen (guitar).  On live performances they are joined by multi-instrumentalist Carolyn Haynes.  They have released four studio albums since formation, but just one with the current line up, which is ‘I got Heaven’, plus an EP called ‘Perfect’.  In 2021 the band released the EP and 2 singles were taken from it, which were ‘Control’ and ‘Perfect’.  No lesser person than ‘Pitchfork’ journalist Arielle Gordon gave the record 7.2 out of 10, and noted that it introduced subtle shifts in sound and structure.

 

A major setback happened at the start of an Autumn tour, when the band members awoke to find that their 2012 Econoline touring van, with trailer attached, had been stolen and in excess of $50,000 worth of equipment had gone with it.  The tour was forced to continue with borrowed equipment from other bands. A couple of years later, in August 2023. Mannequin Pussy bought back the rights to their masters from their former label Tiny Engines, and then announced their own company, Romantic Records, which releases records on Epitaph!.  This is where it gets slightly confusing – the band released what was to become the title track of forthcoming LP ‘I got Heaven’ as a single well before the album’s release, which is unusual in that it’s generally the other way round, i.e. you release an LP, and a single is THEN taken from it.  To make things even more confusing, the band, after forming their own Romantic Records label, reissued their second album ‘Romantic’.

 

Mannequin Pussy toured the United States, Spain and Portugal in the Fall of 2023, and the band finally announced that their LP ‘I got Heaven’ would be released in March 2024, on the Epitaph label, just like their EP previously.  It was formatted as a digital download, CD, vinyl and streaming.  The band also released the song ‘Pledge’ on their own YouTube Channel, and Dabice said “So many times in our life, we find ourselves being influenced from the outside.  People try to control us, our beliefs, our movements, our identities, our dress”  The video sought to narrate a woman’s experience where her movements are controlled by a man by the others that surround her and the powerful declaration that she is able to make to herself, when she can free herself of the people who seek to conform her.

 

I am guessing that you, dear reader, if you’re already a fan on Mannequin Pussy, will be aware of most of what I have written, and you enjoy their music.  For those of you that haven’t come across them yet, they may sound like many other girl-led bands.  All I would say is give them a chance.  Give them a few listens and there are plenty of music videos now available online.  Personally, I’m a fan of the title track of the ‘I got Heaven’ album, and I’m asking Lex to play the version that was live on KEXP, which can hopefully be found here.  I say hopefully, because as I type these notes, Lex is on his way to Casablanca and I’m unsure as to when he’ll be fully “set up”.  I’m really looking forward to his show, because as you know, he’s had thoughts of broadcasting from the balcony of the Casablanca flat!

4th April 2025

Downloading & replaying is discontinued. However, tracks played on Friday evening were:

The Rolling Stones - (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66
Groove Armada - Hands of Time
Sleeper - Inbetweener
James - Laid [Orchestral Version, 2023]
Marina Zispin - Penthouse Samba
METALEX - Jade
Honeyglaze - Ghost (See blog by Titus below)
Momma - I Want You (Fever)
Machine Gun Fellatio - What The Fuck
Lucy Dacus - Ankles
couchgagzzz - GoSports!!!
Gnonnas Pedro and His Dadjes Band - Tu Es Tout Seul
Coheed and Cambria - A Favor House Atlantic
Julien Baker & TORRES - Sylvia
Nyron Higor & Bruno Berle - São Só Palavras
Coco Zaragoza - La Carta Más Bonita
Tame Impala - Elephant

In the absense of Clumpton, the show continued until 10pm. If you want to know what other tunes were played, give me a shout. Next week's show comes from Casablanca, inshallah!