Category: Weekly New Wonders Playlist !

I don’t think a week has gone by in the past century that I haven’t listened to at least one Olivia Newton-John song (with “Sam”, “A Little More Love” and her duet w/Cliff Richard “Suddenly” topping the playlist). As with most Gen X-ers, she was a constant pop presence through most of my childhood and teenage years. It wasn’t Grease that hooked me, or her brilliant string of AM radio hits (though I did love them) but her 1978 album “Totally Hot” where for the first time, she began to ROCK (not too hard mind you, this is Olivia Newton-John we’re talking about). I can’t adequately explain how jarring her sonic transformation seemed at the time, how back-alley dirty “A Little More Love” sounded compared to everything else she’d ever done. I recollect being kind of shocked (I was an unworldly child). Up until then, she’d been “sweet Olivia” and her tough girl persona had just been a performative thing in a movie. To a kid who’d only known that side of her, it was very “scary” indeed…scary exciting. It turned out Olivia wanted to “rock”, just like me, who freakin’ knew? I was all in after that.

When she passed away this week, it hit a particular nerve with me (as it did with a million other people) and so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge her awesomeness and reiterate how she was so much more than Grease. ONJ forever.

It is now time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have crossed our path this week. They are weird and wonderful to the last. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. And HEY, there’s a little treat following the playlists so please mr. please keep scrolling 😉

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Bonus beats!

PuR pal Ed Zed of the band Strange Flesh (formerly known as The Casual Sexists) wrote us a review of the new album by New Zealand radio legend Stinky Jim, called Spacial Awareness, which he has been seriously digging and wanted to share with all you adventurers. Lay it on us hero Ed…

The venerable Stinky Jim – now into his fourth decade of bringing much of the world’s finest new music to the listeners of his Stinky Grooves radio show on Auckland’s 95bFM – is back with a brand new album to remind us that he too makes utterly corking music of his own.

Spacial Awareness is a reggaematical kaleidoscope, encompassing dancehall, dub, roots, and even a skeletal smattering of reggaeton. But what makes it so hypnotically compelling is the fusion of these elements with Jim’s unique avant garde electronic sensibilities that truly know no bounds.

The album is festooned with vocal fragments, which often feel like instruments in their own right, and on other occasions hint tantalisingly—dubwise style—at whole vocal tracks that might exist elsewhere. 

The one fully fledged vocal performance on the album is the truly spectacular ‘Steam Fish’, featuring Kingston dub poet Nazamba, whose gravelly baritone carries the ominous beauty of a summer thunderstorm.

This luscious opus is out now on Bandcamp. Get involved, good people.

Gonna keep it (sugar) light today and give us all a break. The first time I ever saw a 48-pack of Pop-tarts in real life was during a trip to a Florida Walmart while visiting my Mom. I was both thrilled, as I had never seen one in NYC, and horrified at its “density”. While I’m pretty sure I consume more than 48 Pop-tarts in an average year(!), I thought to myself, “what kind of psychopath would buy a 48-pack?” I thought I had “mastered” Pop-tarts because I only bought the standard 8-pack every few weeks. I refused to accept my addiction and had been actively trying to trick myself for years by buying smaller doses (“See? You’re not addicted”), which is some seriously delusional bullsh*t. And here I am, right now, ordering hard-to-find flavor Banana Crème Pie Pop-tarts online because I can’t find these little bastards in NYC…and praying for the day they start offering them in a 48-pack. Sick.

Hey, it’s time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs we’ve heard over recent days. It’s 2 weeks’ worth ( the rough equivalent of a 25-pack Pop-tart box) and is full of ridiculously fine songs by fab, foxy people and brimming with loads of lustrous-shoegazey-countrified-soul deep-spaced out punkiness and beachy beauties. Meet them below on Soundcloud or Spotify 🍌🍌🍌

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When life feels out of control, I like to look at this Tube-nosed fruit bat. The globe-sized eyes, Dr.Seuss-style nostril arrangement, and delicately whiskered upper lip are just love personified. Fruit bat’s benevolent expression says two things to me: “this place is very f-cked up and weird” and “I love you”. And so I figured I’d share it today, in case anyone is in need of emotional intervention or reassurance.

And hey, it’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the best new songs we’ve heard over recent days. It’s a pretty mellow group this week, all embraceable, softly whiskered, and heart-squeezing. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. And a Happy Fruitbat to you all my pals…

p.s. For those who care, we’ve been toiling away on a BIG feature for PuR and it should be coming your way in mere heartbeats! Can’t wait to share it!

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When I was a kid, my dream was to become an album cover artist when I grew up. And I have many favorite covers including the one you see above of Billy Preston’s 1973 album The Kids & Me. Before acquiring this record as a child, I’d only ever owned Disney and Sesame Street soundtracks, so this was also one of the very first “grown-up” albums I ever owned.

And now forgive me for what I am about to do, but don’t think it’s fair that I should have to experience it alone. This week I saw one of the most disgusting pieces of album artwork I’ve ever seen. I found it so repulsive, that I felt a need to save it in my downloads so I would have it forever. Then the next day, without describing it, out of the blue, a friend asked if I had seen it. It had shaken him too. We both agreed that it was unforgettably disgusting and maybe, possibly, sort of perfect.

And with that, here is the cover of the forthcoming album by genuinely fab post-punkers Dry Cleaning.

Cover art is important. It can be the determining factor as to whether you give an album a spin or not. I know when I see a baby picture or childhood vacation photo used as a cover I immediately recoil in horror. I want adventure, weirdness & hand-made dreamscapes, not a kid in a hotel pool with f-ing mouse ears or holding a toy guitar on Xmas morning. A cover photo like that tells me “this album is not going to change your life” and carries the insufferable side message of “look how cute I am”. Whereas that Dry Cleaning album you have just seen is unquestionably an album that wants to fuck with you and destroy all your previously held perceptions of the world. And that is the kind of thing I wanna hear.

Is everyone okay? Maybe this will bring you back to consciousness. Here are the greatest new songs we have heard over the past seven days aka the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST. Lots of absolute stunners in here so please, just shake it off, close your eyes and immerse yourself. And please be polite and rinse off the soap okay? Other people have to use it 😉

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Just a quick one this week if that’s okay! We have been working day and night on a forthcoming discographic deep dive (!) on a legendary artist (you’ll see!) and so have been devoting all attention in that direction ( coming this very month!). And, AND, there is a forthcoming monster-sized piece coming on musical website Cover Me for someone’s birthday later this week which I will alert y’all to once it’s posted ( it’s massive and also freakin’ nuts). But enough excuses, please enjoy the latest installment of the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new music that has crossed our path this week. This week has blessed us with a lot of tuneful, tear-jerking, lush, heart-squeezing anthems for driving and/or walking away from things. Don’t look back, a new day’s breaking…

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Love this pic by late photographer Chauncey Hare taken at San Francisco’s Playland Amusement Park in the late ’60s. Whatever this lady is feeling, I f-ing feel it too. Ride that tiger girl. Plus when I was a kid when it came to the carousel, I never, ever wanted to sit on a horse, I always gravitated to the weird nonsensical creatures that couldn’t be ridden in real life ( the rabbit at Jolly Roger’s Park on Long Island was my main squeeze for years). This is just one of those pictures that feels like life.

Time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST showcasing the finest new songs that have crossed our path over recent days. There is an unusually high concentration of familiar names in this week’s countdown hence it is extra welcoming, wisdom-filled, and super old-school handsome. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify.

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I am a nerd. Earlier this week I walked all the way over to the west village to the cool magazine store to buy a special edition mag about the f-ing Eagles, a band I like and hate in equal measure. When I got there I was excited to see they had the mag displayed in the window (pic above, plus look at that superhot Winston Churchill mag) but I couldn’t go in to get it because something was being filmed in the shop and it was packed with crew people. F-ing New York City. And so I trundled back home empty-handed. I went back the next day to get it because now the nerd had to have it on principle. And here I am today listening to Eagles guy Don Henley ( whom I like and hate in equal measure) sing “The Boys of Summer” ( which I only got love for) for the billionth time and thinking of a particular day about five years ago. I was at work and having an absolutely crap afternoon. “The Boys of Summer” started playing over the sound system and all of a sudden I felt the urge to cry. I literally had to hustle to the bathroom to hide. As I was lightly losing it, I remember thinking something to the effect of, “damn, this song is so good, it’s so poetic and well-constructed”. Even in the heat of human emotion, I couldn’t stop being a f*cking nerd.

It is now time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST starring the finest songs we have had the pleasure of meeting over the past two weeks. It is hefty with melodic amazingness. It is full of swoon-inducing magnificence. What I’m trying to say is that there were a lot of wondrous songs that joined the world over the past couple of weeks and I hope you find one to adore. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. I feel it in the air…

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As a teenager in the ’80s, I admit I was kind of in love with New York City, most especially its myriad of wonderful downtown record stores (oh I was a freakin’ nerd). Nearly every day after school, whether I had money in my pocket or not, I would catch the Broadway bus downtown to embark on my patented-customized-fantastical-magicalistic-obsessively over-indulgent record store safari. I followed the same routine every time, beginning my journey at Tower Records on 4th street then working my way over to the West Village to the myriad of awesome shops over there. Even while I was rumbling through the bins in one place, I would be in an absolute fever to get to the next one, always worried someone would get something I wanted before I had a chance. And so yes, NERD, but oh my God, did I looove them record stores.

The ballpoint drawing above is me (as a much cooler than I actually was) bird in NYC in the ’80s, amongst the neon and manhole smoke, on a record run. While I didn’t have a crazy Bowie jacket like the one in the pic, I did wear a little pin depicting him in his pointed Pierrot hat from the “Ashes To Ashes” video for years, that I wish, wish, wish I still had ( I lost it decades ago and it is truly my Rosebud).

Okay, enough indulgent rambling, because hey it’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs that have surfaced over recent days.They are wistful, wondrous, dirty ‘n’ beautiful and you can listen to them below on Soundcloud or Spotify. Let’s dance…

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Last week I was sitting on my bike in Central Park in my usual spot making a playlist (nerd) when I heard some rustling next to me. When I turned to see what it was, I saw this lady in the picture above, foraging in broad daylight. To be honest it scared me for a second as I wasn’t sure if she was going to climb over the fence. Last year a brazenly bold squirrel hopped this same fence and planted himself on my bike tire, then stared me down hoping to will some snacks out of me, so you never know with these NYC creatures. Anyway, lady raccoon stuck to her guns, digging and ignoring both me and the mounting chaos around her. Yeah, it wasn’t long before everyone took notice of this daring daytime raccoon cameo and swarmed to the spot to take pix. Okay, I took pix too, but look, I was already sitting there so uh, yeah. I worry about animals in the city, even ones with bad reputations like raccoons, and so here’s hoping she’s doing okay.

Right enough raccooning, it’s time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs that have crossed our path over recent days. It’s two weeks’ worth and so is overflowing with awesome fabulousness. Subtle f*ck you anthems, lustrous hook-filled heartbreakers, and sundown twangers await you below. Raccoon On…

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