Robyn Hitchcock - Tromso, Kaptein

With little fanfare and virtually no prior warning, Robyn Hitchcock has a fantastic new LP "Tromso, Kaptein" out on the Norwegian Hype City Label. Having purchased the CD and digital download yesterday I'm pleased to report that his first LP backed by his English Band, including lovely cello by Jenny Adejayan, is just great. It looks like a low budget release and is described as a limited edition CD on Robyn's website but the quality of Paul Noble's production is top notch. I'm loving this LP. It's an absolute delight. Quite Egyptiansesque (!?) which is a good thing as far as I am concerned. Light Blue Afternoon could slot right into Element of Light. Elsewhere, Old Man Weather, Erasing Your Life, August In Hammersmith and The Abyss are as good as anything he's done.I would highly recommend that you buy it right away!

"In the late summer of 1982 I first visited Norway. A yellow van containing the London band Motor Boys Motor, my own rock trio, a sound engineer and our tour guide set off from Oslo up to the Sognefjord, down through Lillehammer, back to Bergen and through the Sognefjord again, and returning again to Oslo. We played in fallout shelters to AC/DC fans, in small town festivals in the rain, in beautiful wooden hotels by the water's edge, and sometimes in actual clubs. Our yellow van drove through endless tunnels that finally emerged onto fjord-side roads with 1000-meter drops to the water on one side, and cliffs that vanished in the clouds on the other. Ferries took us across stretches of water where the rain seemed to be falling up into the sky. Mist and alcohol were everywhere. One morning I was wakened by a man who was wearing nothing but an air pilot's cap and clutching a glass of moonshine. It was 7.42 by his watch.

Since 2005 I've visited regularly, making new friends in Bergen and beyond. In Egersund, I met Frode Strømstrad whose band I Was A King were playing there. He very kindly offered to release a record of mine in Norway on his Hype City label. So I went home and disappeared into myself, as if I was roaming the fjords; I let one side of myself argue with the other, as if I was roaming the fjords with a therapist. I let the songs come out of me, and here is the result - sung in English for Norwegian ears."

Robyn Hitchcock
London, 2011

Robyn Hitchcock - Light Blue Afternoon by Hype City Recordings

Mellow Drunk - One Thousand Lights

One Thousand Lights is the third, currently unreleased LP by Mellow Drunk. Recorded in 2005/2006, it is only available as a podcast on Podbean and Itunes. It is such a rare treat these days for me to get excited about a new record but I discovered this band towards the end of last year and this is just great. I can't believe that they don't appear to have a record deal. Looking at leader Leigh Gregory's site seems to suggest that he's moved on from Mellow Drunk but it would be a crime if this brilliant recording wasn't put out by someone.