Life Elsewhere Music Vol 356

DaddyMother – Out Of The Deep End You’ll immediately get why I included this cut from the Matriz LP by DaddyMother – it’s cool, quirky and you’ll want to hear it again. Pierre PapaMere out of Detroit and Lehkie from Asheville, NC have offered up a fascinating collection with distorted vocals, off-kilter instrumentation and at times disturbing lyrics as catchy pop songs from another world. On…

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The Art Of Editing. A Deliciously Dark Whodunit. Exceptional Music.

What is the role of a book editor? Do editors make suggestions to improve characters, pacing or plot? Can editors make sentences flow better? We asked these and more questions of Ann de Forest who is an editor, a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Ann enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to explain the art of editing. With fascinating stories of her various editing work,  Ann also…

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The Complexities Of Families

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 355

Crushed – Waterlily In the PR blurb for Crushed’s Extra Life album, the lovely people at Ghostly International (which happens to be a tip-top label) you’ll find a lot of information on how Bre Morell and Shaun Durkan got together to form Crushed. Plus you get a lot of genre-checking, which is fine of course, except we think this LA-based duo don’t need any “sound-like” references. Them appear to…

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Conspiring To Confuse

Conspiracies theories are everywhere. In mere moments after the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse wild speculation erupted. It was terrorists. It was a government plot. Five days after the massive steel truss bridge was hit by an equally massive cargo ship the conspiracy theorists are having a field day, despite the obvious facts. In the aftermath of the horrendous Crocus City Hall…

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 354 - A Conversation With Pete Astor

Pete Astor – Tall Stories & New Religions 2024 marks 40 years of Pete Astor making records, a suitable anniversary point at which to take stock and double back on songs that first appeared on records by Astor-fronted combos such as Creation Records trailblazers The Loft and The Weather Prophets and Matador recording artists The Wisdom of Harry, as well as selections from solo albums that…

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A Reluctant Heir. Bad Manners. Emotive Music.

Allen Bratton – Henry Henry  About Henry Henry his extraordinary new novel, Allen Bratton writes, “London, 2014. Hal Lancaster – twenty-two, gay, Catholic, chops lines of cocaine with his my Waitrose card – is the reluctant heir of his father Henry, the sixteenth Duke of Lancaster. Henry is half tyrant, half martyr, with an investment in his eldest son that has grown into an obsession. While Hal…

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 353

Lily J – Tide (Arovane Remix) Lily Jordy is a French American instrumentalist, singer, sound designer and electronic producer who releases under the name Lyli J. Her new LP is titled, Majji which is Lily’s phonetic spelling of ‘magie’ – the word for magic in French. She says it is dedicated to the breathtaking landscapes of the Alps and how hyperreal they can appear to the naked eye (she lives…

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 352

Bob Vylan – Makes Me Violent Try typing “Bob Vylan” to see how many times that amazingly annoying wonder of Spellcheck will stubbornly correct your effort to Bob Dylan. Which of course, is all the more reason to be partial to the music of Bob Vylan, a duo out of London. Their new album, Humble As The Sun is garnering some favorable reactions in the blogasphere. We selected Makes Me Violent for…

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26 Essays On Walking. Vote For Our Planet.

Ways Of Walking – Edited by Ann de Forest Ways of Walking brings together 26 writers who reflect on walks they have taken and what they have discovered along the way. Some walk across forbidden lines, violating laws to seek freedom. Some walk to bear witness to social injustice. Still others engage in a subtler subversion—violating the social norm of rapid, powered transportation to notice what…

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 351

Vulcara – Looping In Love From the amount of cool releases that come our way from Melbourne, it would seem that that Australian city is a hive of incredible music talent. Vulcara are no exception with their excellent Emerge EP. On Looping In Love, Fynn Michlin, Finan McLaren and Charlie Clark take us on a laid-back, yet effervescent love story. So well crafted. Plus,fascinating sleeve artwork by…

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Two Important Books On American Women’s Lives

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 350

Split System – Dave These lads from Melbourne tackle their obvious  passion for retro punk sincerely. All too often a band will have a go and then end up sounding daft, lukewarm, insipid. I would line up Jackson Reid Briggs, Arron Mawson, Ryan Webb, Deon Slaviero and Mitch McGregor alongside early Dammed if we were able to go back in time. Split System’s new LP, Vol.2. is a fully fledged romp…

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The Ultimate Reggae Legends

Writer Richie Unterberger agrees there have been scores of books written about Bob Marley and The Wailers, while the new book he has edited and compiled is certainly, The Ultimate Illustrated History. Packed full of photos and memorabilia from all phases of their journey, Bob Marley and The Wailers illuminates the lives and times of the man and his collaborators. Indeed, The Wailers are one of…

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Racial Capitalism. The Language Revolution.

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Two Exceptional Writers, Richard Price & Nicholson Baker

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Life Elsewhere Music Vol 348 Not The Best Of 2023

On average, with almost one volume of LEM every week, we have calculated that we introduce you to about 420 new releases every year. All of the releases you hear are of course, the best. As it’s impossible to squeeze that many cuts into a one hour show for this final show of 2023 we have selected some of the most-played cuts on the LE gramophone at LE Tower. This could be considered a playlist of…

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