TANYA DONELLY – Lovesongs For Underdogs

5014436700828Best known as frontwoman for Belly and sometime member of Throwing Muses, this first solo outing by Tanya Donelly is everything you’d expect. Issued on 4AD records in 1997, ‘Lovesongs For Underdogs’ does not always sound like great departure from previous work with Belly; but while not greatly different, it manages to pull together the soft sounds of that band’s ‘Star’ and rockier parts of ‘King’ on one release.  In that respect, it could be viewed as Donelly’s most “complete” record.

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STEPHEN LAWRENSON – Obscuriosity

lawrensonSomewhere behind the retro childrens’ book artwork and drab brown packaging, Stephen Lawrenson delivers ten pieces of relatively sunny adult power pop on his debut release for Kool Kat. Fans of the genre will undoubtedly have fun in spotting the dozens of influences this particular singer-songwriter has twisted into his own vision, but while, by the time of its closing notes, ‘Obscuriosity’ has found its feet to become a great piece of work, it doesn’t actually start off too impressively…

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KEVIN AYERS: 16th August 1944 – 18th February 2013

Born in in the 1940s in Herne Bay, Kent, Kevin Ayers had become a cult figure on the UK music scene by his twenties when, via a Canterbury based band called The Wylde Flowers, he founded (The) Soft Machine.  While never as commercially successful as Pink Floyd’s ‘Piper At The Gates of Dawn’, their self-titled debut album is now considered a cornerstone of psychedelic music.

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Frank Turner to return to US for live dates in March

Popular troubadour Frank Turner will return to the US in March 2013 for a run of dates to promote his new album ‘Tape Deck Heart’, released in April.

The seven US dates are sandwiched between dates in Europe and Australia with Dropkick Murphys.

All of Turner’s confirmed dates for 2013 (so far) can be seen below.

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