When I started reading Patrick Radden Keefe's new book, London Falling, it says 'This is a true story.'

I think there's a story to be heard here; a true story, not the true story. The subtitle of the book is 'a mysterious death in a gilded city and a family's search for truth'.

Manic Street Preachers released This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. The title says a lot.

What is truth?

Merriam-Webster define truth partly as

the body of real things, events, and facts. also the real facts about something

As any old quantum physicist and philosopher could tell you, truth is subjective unless it is defined; when truth is defined, it can still be interpreted differently by different people. Hard to come to terms with at times.

Underworld have started releasing what I think are new versions of old songs. First this, 'Kittens', today there's 'Pearl's Girl' which isn't available to share. Underworld are one of my favourite electronic-music bands. When I saw them live in the mid-1990s, I had to choose between taking the last bus home or spend the night under the stars. I danced to their gig, left happy, found a t-shirt-selling Englishman who'd overdosed on cannabis, then spent the night in his and his mate's t-shirt-filled tent.

I've also spent the morning listening to Sepultura's wonderful album Chaos A.D.. I discovered the greatness of Sepultura in 2025 and I'm making up for lost time. Their debut album, Beneath the Remains, is a thrash-metal masterpiece.

Let's not forget Nathan Micay. His soundtrack for TV-series The Industry, season 4, sometimes bests what Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never) did with his soundtrack for Marty Supreme and what Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did in their soundtrack for, mainly, The Social Network and also the one for Challengers.

#music #soundtrack #philosophy #Underworld #NathanMicay #DanielLopatin #TrentReznor #AtticusRoss #MusicTips

This is the best neoclassical-cum-electronic album I've heard since... Jon Hopkins' last album? Or the album that Floating Points did with Pharaoh Sanders?

From the Bandcamp page:

Hand of Thought is the first full-length release by Indian composer Sanaya Ardeshir under her own name – introducing a parallel practice that exists alongside her work as electronic producer Sandunes. The album examines matrilineality – the tracing of kinship through the female bloodline – and its manifestation as intuition and wisdom through the trans-generational currency of music and her primary instrument – the piano. The album title is inspired by Kosho Uchiyama's Opening the Hand Of Thought – a seminal work in the development of Buddhism throughout East Asia.

#music #MusicTips

I love The Go! Team since way back.

Musically, the band combines indie rock and garage rock with a mixture of funk and Bollywood soundtracks, double dutch chants, old school hip-hop music and distorted guitars. Their songs are a mix of live instrumentation and samples from various sources.

I fucking love The Go! Team. I love Ian Parton, the person behind the band, although it's a collective effort, it's clear that he holds the reins.

'Buy Nothing Day' rocks. 02:35 in, there's lightning; how can a band like this sound like a marching school orchestra and carry a groove that otherwise only people like Sly Stone and Funkadelic could push out?

I just let this wave roll over myself. There's something that The Go! Team do that no other artist does. No other fucking artist. The joyous atmosphere by this Brighton, UK band kind of epitomises what came from the USA in the 1970s and then enhanced it. I can't put my finger on it and I leave it be so.

The vocals are by Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast, who've at times been truly great. Just as with The Go! Team proved by making albums that at times topped their debut, Best Coast did the same thing.

Bonus songs:

#music #MusicTips

The median age where I work is quite low. Terrific! On the other hand, there's rarely talk about music, books, art, culture, film, or getting your rocks off in any way, you know?

The most experimental stuff I've heard people mention at work is Radiohead and The Strokes. So no, not a lot of experimental stuff.

From The Guardian:

At the end of their set at the second weekend of the California music festival, the band performed their 2016 song Oblivius in front of giant LED screens that showed a montage of world leaders whose death or ousting the CIA has either been a proven or suspected party in, as lead singer Julian Casablancas sang the lyrics: “What side you standing on?”

The montage showed Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo, who was executed in 1961 by a Congolese firing squad with the backing of Belgian military. Lumumba was killed amid a separate CIA conspiracy to assassinate him due to the threat he posed to western control over Congo’s mineral resources, though it was Belgium that admitted “moral responsibility” and apologised for his murder in 2002.

The montage also showed Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz, who was overthrown in a CIA-engineered plot in 1954; and Bolivian president Juan José Torres, who was ousted in 1971 and then kidnapped and killed five years later.

Also shown was Chilean president Salvador Allende, who killed himself during the 1973 CIA-backed coup that toppled his socialist government and brought in the brutal military dictator Augusto Pinochet. Though some still believe the US also played a role in Allende’s death, a scientific autopsy in 2011 confirmed there was “absolutely no doubt” he died by his own hand.

Other leaders shown in the montage included Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, whose removal from power in 1953 was exposed as a CIA-orchestrated coup in declassified US documents in 2013; and Martin Luther King Jr, who was assasinated in 1968 after years of surveillance by both the FBI and the CIA. However, US government involvement in his killing has never been proven and a department of justice investigation in 2000 found no evidence of a conspiracy.

Also shown were Panamanian military leader Omar Torrijos and Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, both of whom died in separate plane crashes in 1981 that were officially attributed to pilot error.

The Strokes’ montage closed on footage stating that more than 30 universities in Iran have been destroyed by US-Israeli airstrikes since they began earlier this year, followed by footage of the demolition of al-Israa University in Gaza, the last standing university in the Strip before Israeli forces destroyed it in 2024.

Casablancas told the audience he was “tempted to come out tonight with a laptop and show you guys some of those Iran Lego videos”, referring to the viral AI-generated clips made and distributed by pro-Iranian groups to ridicule Donald Trump’s administration.

“More facts than your local news. But they were taken down,” Casablancas said, blaming “fucking YouTube or government or whatever” before adding: “Land of the free, am I right?”

The Strokes go a long way at times. Their latest single sounds like drab shit though and it's unfortunately produced by Rick Rubin, but at least The Strokes have done some great stuff in the past – not to mention 'Oblivius' at Coachella. I dig how Casablancas's voice sounded when dragged through autotune.

And yes, there is loveliness about a band that has more chutzpah than most Swedish political parties.

#TheStrokes #protest #music #MusicTips #dissidence

In one breath:

Elliott Smith met a French girl and spent a couple of weeks with her and then they 'broke up' even though she had a boyfriend at the time and he misunderstood what she'd said so it ended without having ended.

This is an unreleased song. Place Pigalle was the working title for the album Figure 8.

Place Pigalle is a public square in Paris, France.

The girl and the boy met in New York City and went around town.

For more details on the story and the song, I urge you to get a hold of Jamie Fisher's coming book about Elliott Smith, Nobody Broke Your Heart. The book will be released on 25 August 2026.

#ElliottSmith #JamieFisher #music #MusicTips #passion

Boards of Canada are about to release their new album, Inferno, the first album in 13 years. It's out on 29 May. Bleep have registered 'overwhelming demand' and I see why.

Boards of Canada is a mysterious band, like some other artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre.

Here's my favourite song of theirs, 'Dayvan Cowboy'.

#music

'Motown Junk' is Manic Street Preachers' second single.

A while back I read 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure, a song on every Manics song that's been released since their start. James Dean Bradfield—singer, guitarist, composer—still thinks it's their best song.

Bradfield is such an underestimated guitarist.

I think there's something about the song that only fervour and youth can mix and capture. On the other hand, lyrics like these can only be written by thoughtful, inventive, explosive, and young provocateurs:

Never ever wanted to be with you The only thing you gave me was the boredom I suffocate in Adrift in cheap dreams don't stop the rain Numbed out in piss towns just want to dig their graves

Motown, Motown junk I laughed when Lennon got shot 21 years of living and nothing means anything to me

Motown junk a lifetime of slavery Songs of love echo underclass betrayal Stops your heart beating for 168 seconds

#music #ManicStreetPreachers

On 10 July, Will Sheff—who fronts Okkervil River—releases his second solo album, Extra Mile.

'Funny Feeling' is the first single. This is a dreamy, flowy track. An amalgam of Will's project named Lovestreams...highlighting lovely song. The percussion and synths bring a kind of 1970s Donny Hathaway feeling to the track, that turns different four minutes in. Will got his groove in! This track carries a bunch of components, all nice.

I've not seen Will in years. I know his and Beth's companion, Larry, recently died. That is harrowing. I remember when my wife's and my little love, Blixa, died. I suddenly remember Blixa Bargeld—yes he's the source of our Blixa's name—writing 'How Did I Die?', a song that is part of the Einstürzende Neubauten project and album LAMENT is infused with World War I. Does anything ever end? Does war ever end?

---

Lyrics from 'How Did I Die?'

Now there is only that sinister brown belt, a strip of murdered Nature. It seems to belong to another world. Every sign of humanity has been swept away. The woods and roads have vanished like chalk wiped from a board; of the villages nothing remains but gray smears where stone walls have tumbled together. A confused mass of troubled earth. Columns of muddy smoke spurt up continually as high explosives tear deeper into this ulcered area.

How did I die? I fell from the sky or didn’t I?

I filled my mouth with water so the bullet could secede

How did I die? How did I die? Did I die by my own hand? Or didn’t I? How did I die? Or didn’t I die at all?

How did we die? Or didn’t we? Didn’t we die at all? We didn’t die We didn’t die We are back with a different song

We didn’t die We didn’t die We’re just singing a different song We are back with a change of weather Ein anderer Wind, ein neues Lied

#music #WillSheff #EinstürzendeNeubauten

It was a sound bath, alright.

I felt that he started out with a simple idea and built on that; Simon, my friend who I saw the gig with, said it was 'all harmonics' and I think he nailed the description.

For some recorded Alessandro, check this out.

It felt like Alessandro Cortini was similar to Sunn O))).

#music #live #instrumental #drone

If you've not yet heard Sunn O))), you're in for a treat.

They've just released SUNN O))), a new album. Get ready for droned-out fuzz:

MRRRROOOOMMSSHHHHHHHHHZZZZZZZZ

I'm transported to the core of the Earth from listening to this music for long. It's a vast, vast ride.

#music #drone