Jon Spencer - Songs of Personal Loss & Protest (Shove)

As a huge fan of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, I approached this one with the same trepidation I have for all his subsequent releases. A fear of abandonment always seeps into my consciousness when it comes to my favourite artists. I'd never been disappointed yet but, having encountered some reviews that suggested he's toned down his abrasive style for this one, I pressed play for the first time with something approaching dread.

It was totally unwarranted: Spencer has produced one of the albums of the year. If the style is really less abrasive, I'm not hearing it or, at least, any melodic interludes are no different than what this master of the fretboard has produced before. Besides which, Spencer is hardly a stranger to adventures into new musical territories: it underpins his work from Pussy Galore, through the Blues Explosion years, his R.L. Burnside collaboration all the way to the celebrated Sick of Being Sick! in 2024.

But it's all underpinned by that trademark blues-punk collision and that's still the overriding influence here. Sometimes you want your favourite artists to move into new areas and sometimes you just want them to stay the same. Jon Spencer, over more than forty years, has always managed to do both.

You can hear tracks from the album in my latest Dandelion Radio and FSK shows.

Get it here. 

Vert:x/VX

Following yesterday's foray into the world of The Chasms, it seems appropriate to follow that with a journey into another fascinating world, that of their sometime collaborators Vert:x.Vert:x recorded four sessions for my show in 2010, 2018, 2019 and 2021 and VX, the solo offshoot of main man Neil Whitehead, have recorded two more and there was also a joint session with The Chasms in 2012.

Basically, listening to the show means Vert:x beoome difficult to avoid, and why would you want to? Like The Chasms, there's a krautrock foundation to what they do, sprinkled with lashings of psychedelic guitar and electronica, the latter very much the focus of the VX project. If you have somehow managed to miss them, their fascinating series of albums, including a couple of great collaborations with Pete Hope, can be found here. 

A couple of those sessions are available there too. 

If that's not enough - and why would it be? - you can get all the VX material on their bandcamp site.

In my Dandelion show this month, I'm featuring the extraordinary Full Fathom Five, from the 1947 album that was released on my Unwashed Territories label back in 2018. I only had time to play the radio edit in the show but you can still get hold of the full release here or at the Vert:x site, including the full 15.56 version which made the Festive Fifty that year.