(for Drowned In Sound, July 13th, 2009) Love language. To the point where you wonder where it stops and you begin. Realise where you stand. Not in relation to the record but in relation to the record business. You’re something less than the shit crapped out by the maggot that…

(Piece for CollapseBoard, March 5th, 2015) What kind of music am I into? Well… good music! Proper music, y’know? Not the chart stuff so much. I have lots of favourite songs by all kinds of bands and artists but basically I like songs from the heart. Songs about holding on…

Two pieces, one rejected, the other printed, about kids telly and music. (Rejected piece, 2010) Inside the earth you hear music. November is the month of sacrifice. You wait next to your dead lord under the hill. You will accompany him to the afterlife. That was the dream I had…

(from 2013, originally written after HMV prematurely announced its closure) Don’t you dare look like you’re not having a good time. Modernity won’t stand for it. Nostalgia is only tolerable these days if effectively neuteured into the eye-twinkling safety of much-missed sweets, ephemera, a dim halcyon chortling at a time…

Bored as I’m sure you are with lists of ‘impactful’ records in peoples’ lives minded to instead look at those sacred cows of the cannon that could do with negative reappraisal. Unifying factor? They’re all fucking BORING as shit. BTW — the inevitable come back to this is ‘but when…

Nick Drake Bryter Layter Boxset (Commercial Marketing) “I think that’s one of the problems with Nick’s legacy, if there is a problem. I get sent tapes just by people out there who have a guitar and want to write songs, and they are very touched by Nick Drake and they…

(originally published on The Quietus, 2010) ONE. I’ve put our uniforms in the wash. We’ve got a few hours to get ready. Aww love. I hope you get banished from pop soon. You’re in a bad way. Fatally estranged from your soulmate Death, starved of the real Romance that negotiates…

(Album review, Melody Maker, 14th September 1996) KULA SHAKER ‘K’ (Parlophone Records) I’ve just been informed by that porridge-faced wanker, Simon Mayo, that Kula Shaker are “the next Oasis”. Of course, the obvious questions don’t even get asked. Dissent is useless. Oasis are so big, such a huge commercial fact…