This is a 2020 release during lockdown by Euros Childs, once frontman of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. He’s released close to 20 albums solo since he left Gorky’s and set up his own “National Elf” label with a pay as you can model. He’s startlingly prolific and truly independant and original. He’ll put out an album on average just before Christmas and they vary between pop, psychedelic folk (The lovely Thrips) and exteremely odd electonics. He’s awesome and I’m a huge fan.

This album is a lost psych/garage gem from Chile. Released in 1967 and considered one of the best garage/psych albums from the whole of South America. The album was released only in Chile on RCA Victor. The music is heavily influenced by the Beatles but they managed to give it a bit of their own identity. Nice arranged songs. The lyrics are in Spanish and English.

An almost incomprehensibly great final salute to Tim Smith who was damaged by a stroke when he started this record in 2007. The incredible effort by the band to complete this is not just your standard posthumous album. It’s a genuine masterpiece. How they will do this in March 2026 (I have tickets) will be an incredible thing to see.. The loyal and fanatical fan-base have of course lost their minds over this since it was released fully on the 19th September.

‘I Trawl the Megahertz’ was originally released as a solo record by Paddy McAloon in 2003, conceived and recorded after he was diagnosed with a medical condition that seriously affected his vision. Not surprisingly, the album is a testament to the healing power of music. It is comprised of nine compositions: the lengthy 22-minute title track, a series of shorter instrumental pieces and a couple of songs originally intended to accompany a short film. Though the record was originally released as a solo album, it seemed fitting to re-classify it as a Prefab Sprout project.

Bobbie Gentry’s second studio album and her masterpiece. The Delta Sweete is a concept album based on modern life in the Deep South. Gentry wrote eight of the album’s 12 tracks, which detail her Mississippi childhood and includes vignettes of home and church life (“Reunion” and “Sermon”), as well as recollections of blues and country hits she heard as a youngster (“Big Boss Man” and “Tobacco Road”). The song “Okolona River Bottom Band”, accented by a sophisticated horn chart and breathy strings, used the same basic cadence as “Ode to Billie Joe”.