This is a classic purchase of mine - "I must have some Billie Holiday (or insert other great) to see what all the fuss is about." So, for...

I first encountered Holdsworth on Gong's Gazeuse! album, then later playing with Bill Bruford's band. In fact, he seemed to be the go-to...

As ever, late to the party, I picked this up in a charity shop for a quid about ten years after release, more out of boredom than any...

I'm not sure how this escaped my attention at the time, but I wasn't aware of this album until after Hillage's second album, L, was out....

There's an unwritten rule (except I'm writing it now) that compilation albums won't be eligible for the coveted 5* status. But if there's...

As a teenager, I was an avid consumer of anything put out by the fledgling Virgin label. Keen not to pay out any of the Tubular Bells...

In 1977, I'd just started university and my ears were opened to this new noisy punk rock, and the punkiest thing from across the Atlantic...

I was lent this album by a school friend about two years after its release, and was immediately hooked. Totally unlike anything I'd heard...

During my one year at Sheffield University I helped out on the Entertainments Group, basically swapping days of setting up for events for...

I suspect I borrowed this album from Deal Library soon after it was nominated for the Mercury Music Award, then some years later saw it...

Possibly better known for his later jazz-funk albums, Hancock was an accomplished jazz pianist in the 1960s, coming to attention as part...

Some celebrity deaths resonate more than others, that's only natural. Joe Strummer's passing hurt me, but I wasn't prepared for just how...

How many Bad Seeds does it take to make the Bad Seeds? Obviously more than three, since this album featuring Nick Cave alongside Warren...

I first heard Grid on Real World's A Week In The Real World and really enjoyed what I heard, so felt comfortable taking a punt on seeing...

John Greaves, erstwhile bassist with Henry Cow and National Health, is a lovely bloke (or at least he was in 1978 when he took the...

So, I was in the old HMV in Canterbury (before it moved to new premises and became an overpriced vinyl and shite merch shop for...

It's 1976 and the Pot Head Pixies have departed the Planet Gong in their flying teapots, leaving only drummer/percussionist Pierre...

Is this Britpop? I never really bought into the Britpop thing. Like most 'scenes', there's good and bad and of all the new British bands...

I'm unsure what first attracted me to Gogo Penguin, apart from the name, possibly hearing them on 6Music, possibly a recommendation from...

So I picked this album out while shopping in Falmouth, and the proprietor reached under the desk and pulled out a 5CD set of Ayers' first...