BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA’S REVIEWS ROUNDUP – INSTANT REACTIONS.
The Conspiracy ‘VI’
Album (Metal Postcard Records) Released 10th March 2026
The Conspiracy are a fine band: have I have already written on many occasions about how under the radar they are, and that they deserve much more attention than they get. Why, I never know. Well actually I do, it’s all down to finance and the mechanics of getting featured in the larger blogs and magazines and appearing on the major radio stations as if the label/band can afford the pr and plugger fees you are much more likely to reach the audience. If you are willing to pay for an advert in a magazine you are more likely to get a review in said magazine. The music business like life is unfair and sometimes the more talented and deserving get overlooked.
But onto the album. VI is a long album, and if issued on vinyl would be a double at least. 18 well written songs that sparkle and rock and chime with the history of the great British bands: be it the Kinks or Billy Childish or Julian Cope or XTC or many others. The Conspiracy don’t hide their influences, just cherish them. They emit a wonderful aural montage of the psychedelic: “Rainbow Prism” if released on the Fruits De Mer label would have picked up many a play on BBC 6 Music evening shows no doubt when released as a single some months ago, post punk the catchy as hell “Tick Tok” part Fall part XTC another song that deserves to be lighting up national evening radio. The wonderful song “England” has the spirit of Ray Davies running through it. VI is an album that is full of songs of songwriting suss and love and really does deserve to be given a chance to be heard by a wider audience.
Stephane C. Cotti ‘A Love Absolute’
Album (Wool Recordings) Released 8th April 2026
Without sounding like an Amazon, Spotify or YouTube recommends thingy, but if you like Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and John Martyn you might very well enjoy this lovely album of mostly acoustic loveliness; an album of lostness and wholesome sadness, a beautiful album of warm folk delight.
A Love Absolute is one of those albums that the more you play the more you will sink into its invitingness and will soon become one of those albums that will soon settle into your regular routine of soundtracking your evening of basket weaving or playing chess or playing Pacman (I’m at the cutting edge of video games as you can tell; are they still called video games?!|). Anyway, however you spend your evening this album will only add to it in a good way.
Dewin ‘Dan y Dderwen’
Album Release 1st May 2026
Derwin weave together a rich tapestry of pop, psych, folk, jazz and Rock to give an enjoyable if unusual listen and comes across like a strange Welsh musical. I not being able to speak Welsh have not a clue lyrically to what is going on but that does not in any way spoil the album for me as the melodies adventure and music more than makes up for it. And let’s be honest, Welsh is just a beautiful sounding language; it really does not take anything away from it, and anyway, the lyrics could be shit and that could spoil the listening experience. I have also discovered that Cheesy Nibbles in Welsh is in fact Cheesy Nibbles. So, you live and learn.
Ex Norwegian ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight [live]’
Single/Video (Think Like A Key) Released 29th March 2026
What I like about this single is the old time good old-fashioned band playing a cover in the bar/club vibe, which is probably because that is what it is and that seems to be becoming more of a thing from the past as venues and bars close at a frightening rate. How far away are we from an AI band playing in a virtual bar I do not know, but Ex Norwegian, a band who have written many a fine song in their time, return with this fine rendition of the Richard Thompson classic showing that there is still joy and excitement to be found in real people picking up real instruments and soundtracking a good night out.
Frog ‘Dark Out’
Single (Audio Antihero) Released 17th April 2026
Dark Out? It certainly is. In fact, it’s dark in and out. We are surrounded by clouds of darkness that engulf us like a mythical sponge of darkness. These are the darkest times I can remember but at least we have the rather lovely new single from Frog to tap our toes to; a quirky stroll through McCartney-like melodies. In fact, has darkness ever felt so light?! Dark Out is like submerging yourself in a bath filled with your favourite flavour ice cream and watching yourself sink in the mirror with a smile on your face.
Peanus ‘Peanus EP’
EP (Metal Postcard Records) Released 1st April 2026
Imagine if you will Flight Of The Conchords overdosing on Julian Cope’s masterwork that is the Skellington album and playing it to Royal Trux in an ironic manner. If you cannot imagine such a thing then just listen to this fine three track EP and it will do the imaging for you. Yes, fun abounds on this short and sweet exploration into the realms of lo-fi and rock ‘n’ roll musical thrift store sounds for the clinically disadvantaged.
Robertson ‘Robertson’
Album (Futureman Records) Released 20th March 2026
Robertson is the debut album from the father and son duo and is a rather splendid musical affair; harmonies, chiming guitars and melodies float on a breeze of pure nostalgia. For my dear friends, 60’s folk rock and psych collide in the most perfect way, embracing 50’s pop and 80’s/90/’s indie guitar pop exuberance and even the Flying Burrito Brothers like country rock on the rather lovely “Sticking Around” and wrapping them in a warm comfort blanket of hope peace and light in these days of hate and war.
Robertson once again proves the magic and power of the greatest of all art forms, to turn off and escape real life and surf the stream of unconscious bliss especially when performed with a true love and grace for the music songs they have written and performed so skilfully.
St Johns Wood Affair ‘Memory Lane’
Track (Think Like A Key) Released April 3rd 2026
“Memory Lane” is a fine slice of nostalgic aural pie, a song of sixties melodies and chiming guitars and wistful tear-stained john Lennon spectacles. A song taken from St Johns Wood Affairs rather excellent second album “St Johns Wood Affair 2” and an album to put on your albums to listen to list and indeed Memory Lane is a rather wonderful place to wander down.
Xqui ‘Nocturnal Drift’
Single (Wormhole Records) Released 24th April 2026
If Moody introspection atmospheric drone is your thing, then you could do worse things than check out this ltd 7inch single from Xqui as it is one of those things that lives up to title, ‘Nocturnal Drift,’ as it sounds like one is drifting nocturnally or in fact nocturnally drifting. It’s a track that is as far removed from a rerun of Top Of The Pops as one can imagine, so if you yearn a Doolies rehash with shiny jump suites and tinsel filled memories of yester year then maybe this is not for you, or then again it could well be as I am more than fond of Doolies like behaviour and am somewhat taken with this atmospheric drone beauty.
Our Daily Bread 646: Alien Eyelid, Eamon The Destroyer, Frog, Pelts…
September 15, 2025
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Reviews Roundup – Instant Reactions. All entries in alphabetical order.
Alien Eyelid ‘Vinegar Hill’
Album (Tall Texan) 5th September 2025
Psychedelic country-soul is a rather beautiful thing, especially when performed with such heart and soul. Alien Eyelid have a wonderful laidback all-consuming warmth with a hint of baroque-ness that at times remind me of the wonderful Left Banke, especially on beautiful psychedelic ballad “Blue”. The title track “Vinegar Hill” could have walked straight from Basement Tapes with its Dylan and The Band feel, until it goes all early King Crimson on us, and is one of those rare things, a ten-minute track that does not overstay its welcome.
This Alien Eyelid debut is a gem of an album, and one of the finest things I have had pleasure to listen to this year.
The Beths ‘Straight Line Was A Lie’
Album (ANTI-)
I seem to be writing a lot about indie guitar music at the moment; there has certainly been an influx of the stuff appearing in my inbox and long may it continue if it is all of the quality of this quite lovely album of guitar indie pop/rock. The Beths of course write songs of verve and heart, and this new album is no different. Straight Line Was A Lie is an album ram jammed with catchy choruses and heartfelt lyrics all wrapped in fine melody and radio friendly hooks and jangly guitar chimes, as all good indie pop/rock should.
Eamon The Destroyer ‘The Maker’s Quilt’
Album (Bearsuit Records)
You can never be disappointed when a new release by Bearsuit Records appears. There is always a tinge of adventure, as you know it is going to be a trip hop and skip and a jump of musical exploration. The Maker’s Quilt is no exception; an album that brings together dance, psych, 60’s like spy soundtracks with a tinge of folk and rock/pop… all sometimes in the same song. At times it reminds me of what the Wicker Man soundtrack might have sounded like if it was set in the late 80’s early 90’s in a village just outside Manchester when the acid house explosion was happening. There is a joy and a magic and a melancholy madness that is just impossible to resist and resist you shouldn’t.
Frog ‘Bitten By My Love Version XI’
Single taken from Album The Count (Audio Antihero) 19th September 2025
“Bitten By My Love” is a rather lovely single, but what else could you expect from the marvellous Frog. Six minutes of undiluted late summer breeze love, a heavenly stroll through the textures of late-night radio; a song that sends my mind spinning back to the days when songs like this would haunt and confuse and engross in equal measures. A sexual healing for the social misfit.
The Jack Rubies ‘Are We Being Recorded’
Single (Big Stir Records) 19th September 2025
I don’t think I have written about any releases on Big Stir Records for a while. So here I am putting it right, for here we have the new single by The Jack Rubies, a band that once again takes me back to my youth. The days when I spent the hours of 9 to 5.30 working (or not working) in various record stores, and I remember The Jack Rubies album Fascination Vacation being unloved and unsold in the record racks, which is a shame as I remember it being not a bad record. And thirty-seven years down the line here I am listening to the latest release by same band. And how little changes for once again it is indeed not a bad record and sounds like it could have well been released back in the days when the pubs shut at eleven o’ clock. It has the air of a record that thinks a lot of itself, and that always appeals to me…call me strange. Link (no examples available yet to hear).
Ike Goldman ‘Kiki Goldman In How I Learned To Sing For Statler And Waldorf’
Album, 10th September 2025
I love this album so much that I’ve just bought a copy on CD: do I need say more. Well, I will, apart from it having the best album title I have come across in a long time, it’s such a lovely beautifully happy/sad album full of melancholy and magic. It may be the closest one can get to rediscovering the joy of The Beach Boys Friends and Smiley Smile era without actually listening to the said albums. Plus, anyone who mentions Stephen Sondheim in his influences is certainly someone who deserves giving a listen to, and once you have given a listen to downloading or streaming or buying his CD.
Noisy ‘Grenadine’
Single
“Grenadine” is a song that is swathed in a beautiful melancholy, a melody that will haunt and play bellringers pontoon with your heart; a pure and unadorned example of why pop music can save your life and make even the bad times bearable. One of the only plus points about growing old is that you have the joy and innocence of your youth to look back on, and this single brings that joy flooding back with a tearful smile and fading caress.
Pelts ‘Swimming’
Single (Fika Recordings) 10th September 2025
Here we are again with a track of post-punk indie-guitar-pop: Am I becoming a man who only reviews indie post punk guitar meanderings? Am I revisiting my teenage years of being totally enamoured with the indie scene of the 80s, or is it just that I am being sent loads of fine new alternative guitar pop/rock? Well probably a bit of all the aforementioned. For the Pelts ‘Swimming’ is indeed a fine tuneful guitar thrust of angular melodious alternative pop skew wifferty (not to be confused with 60’s psych cult band Skip Bifferty). Yes indeed, another fine track and one you will find on their forthcoming 4-track EP, released on the excellent Fika Recordings label. So, seek and buy my old chums or forever hold somebody else’s codpiece.
SCHØØL ‘I Think My Life Has Been OK’
Album (GEOGRAPHIE)
There are a few questions this debut album throws up. One, are they a French band that sings in English? So do they, in rehearsals, talk to each other in French and then sing the songs in English or to get in the mood? Or do they talk in English? Also, when they play in France, do they sing the songs in French or English? Apart from those burning questions this is actually a quite catchy album of alt guitar rock/pop and very late eighties and early 90’s indie rock: early Blur, Ride, Chapterhouse and the like all spring to mind. I would certainly advise any indie guitar music fans out there to give this a listen, as it is very good indeed.
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Quarterly Playlist 2019: Part Three: Snapped Ankles, Danny Brown, Trupa Trupa, Matana Roberts, Repo-Man…
September 26, 2019
Playlist
Compiled by Dominic Valvona with contributions from Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Gianluigi Marsibilio.
Graphics by Gianluigi Marsibilio.
Reflecting the Monolith Cocktail’s tastes and favourite choice tracks from the last few months, the Quarterly Revue is a diverse musical journey; an eclectic international playlist of discoveries. This is a space in which you are as likely to find the skewered Gary Wilson meets Brian Wilson stained-glass psychedelic songwriting of the Origami Repetika creative hub as you are the conscious transportive jazz of Horace Tapscott. Brand new tracks appear alongside reissues and recently uncovered nuggets as we move through funk, jazz, hip-hop, post-punk, shoegaze, desert blues, techno, psychedelic, acid rock, space rock, and the most experimental of musical genres.
Behold…part three…
Tracklist::
Snapped Ankles ‘Three Steps To A Development’
DJ Shadow ‘Rosie’
Kid Acne/Nosaj/Spectacular Diagnostics ‘Crest Of A Wave’
Gang Starr/J. Cole ‘Family and Loyalty’
Danny Brown ‘Best Life’
Bronx Slang ‘More Grief’
SAULT ‘Let Me Go’
clipping. ‘Nothing Is Safe’
Bloke Music ‘Everything On’
Seaside Witch Coven ‘Splutter’
Trupa Trupa ‘Remainder’
Stereo Total ‘Einfach’
Los Piranas ‘Palermo’s Grunch’
Baba Zula ‘Salincak In’
Abdallah Oumbadougou ‘Thingalene’
Grup Dogus ‘Namus Belasi’
Taichmania ‘See Ya at Six or Seven’
Kota Motomura ‘Cry Baby’
Baby Taylah ‘Reclaim’
House Of Tapes ‘Melted Ice’
Camino Willow ‘Hollywood’
Callum Easter ‘Only Sun’
Junkboy ‘Waiting Room’
Elizabeth Everts ‘Contraband’
Bloom de Wilde ‘Soul Siren’
Badge Epoque Ensemble ‘Milk Split on Eternity’
Chrissie Hynde/The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble ‘Meditation on a Pair of Wire Cutters’
Swan/Koistinen ‘Diagnosis’
Sirom ‘Low Probability of a Hug’
Koma Saxo ‘Fanfarum for Komarun’
Matana Roberts ‘Raise Yourself Up/Backbone Once More/How Bright They Shine’
Die Achse/Ghostface Killah/Agent Sasco ‘Baby Osamas’
U-Bahn ‘Beta Boyz’
Occult Character ‘Half-Wits and Cultists’
Asbestos Lead Asbestos ‘Shrimp Asmr’
Repo-Man ‘Evan The Runt’
Issac Birituro & The Rail Abandon ‘Kalba’
Nicolas Gaunin ‘Vava’u’
Mazouni ‘Daag Dagui’
Mdou Moctar ‘Wiwasharnine’
Aziza Brahim ‘Leil’
Resavoir ‘Resavoir’
Purple Mountains ‘All My Happiness is Gone’
Babybird ‘Cave In’
Adam Green ‘Freeze My Love’
Catgod ‘Blood’
Frog ‘RIP to the Empire State Flea Market’
Pozi ‘Engaged’
Roi ‘Dormouse Records’
Origami Repetika ‘Winged Creatures’
Horace Tapscott ‘Future Sally’s Time’
A Journey Of Giraffes ‘September 11 1977’
Jodie Lowther ‘The Cat Collects’
Equinox/Vukovar ‘Lament’
Kandodo 3 ‘King Vulture’
Our Daily Bread 342: Frog ‘Count Bateman’
July 31, 2019
ALBUM REVIEW
Words: Gianluigi Marsibilio
Frog ‘Count Bateman’
(Audio Antihero/Tape Wormies) 16th August 2019
Frog are a kiosk by the sea, on a suburban beach.
The essence of their work is gathered in a search for intimacy that is expressed in DIY and lo-fi passages; a very successful sound universe touched by Bon Iver, Daniel Johnston and other such sacred monsters.
Their flame is lit on Count Bateman. The new album in fact captures the peak of a clear path and placed lo-fi sound. The interweaving of stories on this record are a safe place that puts us at peace and in dialogue with the idea of Frog’s music.
The ability of the work is to go down, and at the same time transcend, in a strongly psychological dimension, but there is no Freud or Jung, but simply a dose of sharpness and freshness that make us feel good, almost inexplicably.
The guitar landscape of songs like ‘It’s Something I Do’ or ‘Black Friday’ is uncontaminated, a walk with Christopher McCandless. The sound is light; it’s a wave of fresh water, an immersion in a style very close to that of Daniel Johnston.
In Frog there is the rediscovery of a low profile attitude, which must be understood and studied in the light of a historical moment in which the ability to remain in the dark, with the light off, has been lost, even in more indie environments.
Frog are like Matisse, painters of windows and fixtures that open in an expanse of neighborhoods, cities and stories. Count Bateman is an open window from which air enters and often there is also a hurricane breeze; in fact the second part of the record is full of unusual sounds and more driven, electronically, for the duo.
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