In the summer of 2026, synth pop act Oui Plastique shared ‘Linger’, a single which straddled a cold mood and a melodic heart, making no secret of a love for early 80s Ultravox. As a preview of an upcoming album, it was hugely effective, presenting a very familiar sound in such a way that any obvious recycling – both from the band’s influences and their own past recordings – felt as if it could still be inspiring.
It’s astonishing to think that the release of the three track ‘Want It Bad (The Pep Talks and Playing Fields of Old England)’ comes five years after Colin Moulding shared ‘The Hardest Battle’, but the XTC man has never been the most prolific of recording artists.
After forming in 2021, Girl With A Hawk took a rather casual approach to promoting themselves, sharing a number of digital singles over the next four years. Although these quick musical hits gave some indication that this Boston band had a lot of potential, hearing them in three and four minute bursts didn’t quite showcase their full talents effectively enough, even if a “record and release” approach to working seemed far better suited to keeping the interest going in a digital realm and in a world of increasingly short attention spans.
Deardarkhead whip up a superb sound on ‘Letting Go’. Building from a solid bassline, the number takes a mid tempo groove and layers that with a soaring guitar that shares a very lyrical sounding melody. The lead guitar tone is beautiful, bringing a pinch of very commercial goth to an already great sound. A key track on an instrumental album, the music here is so strong that a vocal really isn’t missed, despite Deardarkhead sharing something that would typically find space for a spacey, studio treated voice to bring an extra layer of atmosphere. In and out in a little over three minutes, this number relies on absolutely no padding, and as the last notes fade, you might feel a definite urge to hit the repeat button… This is an absolutely stunning track, and it turned out to be perfect way to advertise ‘The Pendulum Swings’ via a pre-release since, although the rest of the album is quite varied, it often resembles this track in a way that really doesn’t disappoint.
Andrei Tarkovsky has long been considered one of the most important figures in the history of Russian cinema. He died in 1986, at the age of 54, following a battle with cancer which left fans of world cinema forever wondering what he could’ve achieved had he lived a full and rich life. Nevertheless, his 1983 film ‘Nostalgia’ is something that, once seen, is never forgotten. The slow climax featuring one of the lead characters slowly traversing an empty swimming pool mightn’t be one of the big screen’s most epic scenes, but it shows perfectly how Tarkovsky was a man who was fully aware of how much tension could be gleaned from something so relatively mundane.