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”.

Blind Owl Wilson - Compilation Blind Owl Wilson was a truly great guitarist and vocalist whose deep wellof psychedelic blues songs were buried amongst the catalog of major label rockin’ blues band Canned Heat. Blind Owl served as Canned Heat’s guitarist and would chip in a song here and there as a front man. A couple of those songs became huge hits in the 60’s – “Going Up The Country” and “On The Road Again”. Blind Owl’s songs for Canned Heat stood in stark contrast to the bands blustery blues rock – his was a gentle and nuanced voice and the themes of his song were all about personal heartbreak, grasping for cosmic understanding, and ecological justice.

LThe Mummies are an American garage punk band formed in San Bruno, California, in 1988. Exhibiting a defiantly raw and lo-fi sound, dubbed “budget rock”, the Mummies’ rebellious attitude and distinctive performance costumes exerted a major influence on garage punk and garage rock revival acts later in the decade, as well as in the 1990s. Their recorded output was intentionally completed with poor, cheap equipment, including their first and only studio album Never Been Caught, which was released after the group’s initial break-up.