Spotlight

They were once called the new Lennon and McCartney. In their commercial and artistic heyday of the late 70s and 80s, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were a super melodic, and sublime songwriting partnership, that while nowhere near as commercially successful as the Fab Four, magically evoked the spirit and times of their South London roots and upbringing, many of their songs up there with the best of John and Paul. Songs such as 'Cool for Cats', 'Up The Junction', 'Take Me I'm Yours', 'Another Nail In The Heart', 'Is That Love', 'Labelled With Love' and 'Hourglass' were highly melodic, clever, and distinctly British pop gems, that rode the new wave era, when records were selling by the boat load. With roots in council estate South London, and featuring the lyrical nous of Difford along with musicality of Tilbrook (as well as Jools Holland, a school mate of Tilbrook's, and founder member of what became Squeeze), the band were pop sophisticates, where Tilbrook's music often brilliantly interpreted and elaborated on the literate and engaging story songs of Difford.

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Sometimes I feel a little sad for those born, say, 1995 onwards. They've been brought up in the age of the internet, mobile communications, computing, social media, and super-fast instant gratification. They hardly know what a landline is, have never had much use for the post office, and little need for notebooks or personal organiser, or things like cassettes… In this day and age (at least as far as the communication rich West is concerned) where almost everything is almost everywhere, the notion that you had to spend much time searching out the things you wanted and/or liked is a little quaint, perhaps even hard to fathom…

 

According to the founder of legendary UK label 4AD, Ivo-Watts Russell: "Journalist Martin Aston passed on a tape that Mark Eitzel (of American Music Club) had given to him. Every morning and evening, driving to and from work, I would start at the beginning, '24' (I know, I know, what more do you need to hear, right? What a song.), but only get about half way through that and whatever the second song on the tape was before arriving home/at 4AD. When I finally did listen to the full 90 minutes I called young Mark K. and left him a message. I learned later he was sitting in the bath listening to me talk. It was a perfect time for me to hear that brilliant band."

Electronic Music has been one of the biggest things to influence the music world in recent times, with everybody dipping their toe in the genre (even Coldplay). The once underground sounds of Electronic Music have now become big business and understandably there has been a growing amount of music conferences popping up all over the world to provoke networking and innovation in the genre; Electronic Music Conference in Australia, Winter Music Conference in USA, Amsterdam Dance Event in Netherlands, and the International Music Summit which takes place in Ibiza, China, Singapore and USA. With the UK being a main hub for the development and progression of the electronic genre as well as the birthplace of some of the most celebrated electronic artists in the world (including The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Pete Tong, Four Tet, , Massive Attack, Shy FX, Orbital, Richie Hawtin, Jamie XX, Underworld, Judge Jules, London Elektricity, Leftfield, Goldie, Skream, High Contrast, Carl Cox, Squarepusher, Burial, The Orb, Calvin Harris, Sacha, Rusko…. it could go on and on) it was only a matter of time before UK had its very own conference for the genres glitterati to converge.

One of the great jazz (nay, music) albums of all time, John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' is the perfect title for this three day festival, now in its third year, that takes place in the grounds of Glynde Place, just a few miles east of Brighton. Filling a long overdue gap for an actual outdoor/camping jazz festival. The first two years featured the likes of Jamie Cullum, De La Soul, Bryan Ferry and Chic, establishing itself as a quality event that attracts music lovers from all over the UK and even abroad. Jazz is just the anchor though, for Love Supreme covers funk, soul, R'nB, hip hop and loads of other associated genres and many of the acts are making their debut UK festival appearance. When the weather is fine, it's a glorious place to be…

Two geeky looking technicians called Willgoose and Wrigglesworth, looking uncannily like the current Q in the Bond franchise – Ben Whishaw – but hopefully without his irritatingly arrogant disdain for 'field agents', have risen from the anonymity of their musical laboratory experiments to become unlikely minor pop stars, usurping the more telegenic and youthful looking amongst the vogueish indie brigade. Well, that's how it looks… In practice, mssrs J Willgoose Esq and Wrigglesworth are both musicians and audio technicians, and since their formation seven years ago, have released two highly distinct albums, that fuse together film and audio of the past with beats, live instrumentation and electronica of the present, producing an end result that works equally well via their studio recordings, and on the live stage.

 

While their debut album Inform-Educate-Entertain was successfully conceptualised around British and American propaganda and public safety film and audio of the 30s-70s, the follow up album The Race For Space employed a mix of the propagandist and 'live' audio captured in the control room of Houston, as it attempted to trace this historic 'race', conducted at the height of the Cold War, between the arch enemies of the USA and USSR. "It was the result of working on The War Room EP (the precursor to their debut album) and wondering where to go next after that," say J Willgoose from the back of a van, as PSB and crew traverse Europe on a tour, promoting said album. "The space race suggested itself for a number of reasons, not least the fact that I’m very interested in it.