I first heard of Kathryn Williams when this album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, and I vaguely recall a TV appearance on...

Wire's 'difficult' second album followed a year after their debut, and was always going to be a tough act to follow. And while it isn't...

Back in school days, I visited a friend, and we listened to some records. Her brother owned this strange artifact, and we listened to it,...

Weather Report, jazz fusion supergroup, weren't the sort of thing young cool kids were listening to in 1977, yet a good friend lent me...

Hot on the heels of their first album last year, there's a second House Of All album out. This one's a recent birthday present from my...

I really enjoyed the jazz infused early Everything But The Girl albums, but never really took to their more dance-based music. But I...

It's time for another early Tom Waits album (his second), picked up along the way. No real story here, I've already mentioned my...

This one is a complete cheat, breaking all the rules. I don’t own this album. I don’t own any Beatles albums nor any of the Fab Fours’...

This is an odd one. I saw the words 'Bigband' and 'Zappa' on the cover (along with the price tag of £1), and had to give it a go. I was...

This CD was a Christmas present, many years ago. I've mentioned these tribute albums before, and my hypothesis that the most successful...

I first heard many albums from the early 1990s after borrowing them from Deal Library or the DVD rental shop in the High Street. I'm not...

I'd heard the 13th Floor Elevators mentioned as a cult 1960s US Garage Rock band, and was aware of Julian Cope's love for them, so on...

This is another album bought in a charity shop, on the strength of it being on Peter Gabriel's Real World label, and probably only played...

I picked this out of the jazz section in a charity shop for a quid. I wasn't sure whether this was a side project from the You've Got A...

I've already mentioned how Tangerine Dream were already there in the 1970s, and while I heard bits, it never quite got to me. Only now...

I first heard this album when it came out, and didn't get it. I didn't really get David Byrne and Talking Heads until quite a bit later,...

In the early 1990s, Robert Fripp wanted to revive King Crimson for a third time and asked David Sylvian to be the band's singer. Sylvian...

You must listen to Sun Ra, they said, so I picked this up in HMV on a punt. I was aware of the album, but had never heard it and had no...

Nowadays, Sting is generally regarded less than favourably, as a Bono-like figure of fun full of his own self-importance. I don't know if...

SLF were yet another band who passed me by at the time, and I only really became aware of them from a punk compilation with Suspect...