Beth Jeans Houghton: Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose (album review)
Produced by Ben Hillier, the inexplicably-named Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose finds Beth Jeans Houghton, a talented lyricist and multi-instrumentalist, and her Hooves Of Destiny cutting a distinctive path through modern music's more folksy places, paying little heed to how a female singer should sound. [read more]

Complex Industrialist: Douglas McCarthy (interview)
One of the two most important electronic acts to emerge from Essex in the Eighties, Nitzer Ebb surprised a lot of fans by reforming in the 2000s, not just for shows but also to record new material. With Nitzer Ebb now on downtime after a couple of intense years of touring, including a powerful slot at Mute's Short Circuit festival at The Roundhouse in London last year, Douglas McCarthy has recorded his first solo album, Life Is Sucking The Life Out Of Me. [read more]

Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree (album review)
To brand Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree as something of a departure after the over-sexed electro-glam pop of Black Cherry and Supernature would be a huge understatement. Even Felt Mountain, the duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory's frozen debut album, provides few clues to Seventh Tree's psychedelia. [read more]

Colin Newman: We Means We Starts (single review)
Released as a 7" by 4AD in 1982, 'We Means We Starts' was recorded in the same sessions as those that produced Colin Newman's Not To album. The song is a nice, mostly upbeat pop track that doesn't sound a million miles away from the sleek sound that Wire would produce during their second coming. 'We Means We Starts' features an alternative version of 'Not To' on the B-side. [read more]

Barry Adamson: I Will Set You Free (album review)
Barry Adamson released his confidently-titled ninth solo album on his own Central Control International label at the tail end of January 2012. The release followed an intense three years of shifting directions for Adamson, culminating in the inventive leftfield rock of I Will Set You Free. [read more]