Country Life UK May 01, 2019

“The funny thing is,” Neil Hannon tells Apple Music, “for all my high-minded objectives in lyrics, I'm really just trying to sing in tune most of the time. You'd be surprised how hard it is.” Self-deprecation has been at the heart of The Divine Comedy’s appeal since Hannon emerged in the late 1980s. But 11 often exquisite and always arch indie-pop albums in, the band is a low-key national treasure. Hannon’s 12th Divine Comedy offering is “roughly based around the nonsense that goes on in the workplace”—and the irrepressible rise of machines. “The machines thing is really born out of my frustration with my own inability to communicate with them,” Hannon says. “They literally don’t like me.” Negotiate Office Politics here, with his track-by-track guide.

UK six CD set including book of lyrics and an A2 fold out poster. Packaging – 6 discs housed in a hard back book with outer slipcase. This box includes Ronnie’s 4 solo albums – Anymore For Anymore (+ singles), Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance, One For the Road and the cruelly underrated See Me. In addition it features tracks from Ronnie’s Mahoney’s Last Stand album with Ron Wood and Rough Mix with Pete Townshend. The final disc of the set focuses on Ronnie’s time in the US with live highlights and studio tracks never previously released. The set also featured lots of rare and unreleased material – be prepared to here fantastic cover versions of The Wanderer, Rocket’ 69 and The Joint Is Jumpin’ as well as unheard Ronnie compositions plus live recordings, tracks for the BBC and highlights from a legendary Rockpalast concert. The set is curated by long time musical associate of Ronnie’s, Slim Chancer musician Charlie Hart. Comprehensive sleevenotes focus on Ronnie the musician, the songwriter, the collaborator and split the post ’73 period into three distinct parts . Writers are Paolo Hewitt, Kris Needs and Kent Benjamin covering Ronnie’s Austin years.

Filmed over a year, this series captures Wales's varied wildlife and stunning landscapes, from the rugged mountains of the north to the seabird colonies off the west coast.

DO NOT PANIC, Hawkwind fans! This incredible project brings together a host of former members and associates of the Hawkwind family including longtime bassist Alan Davey, co-founder Nik Turner, original bassist Lemmy Kilmister, drummer Ginger Baker, violinist Simon House, original guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton, Paul Rudolph and many more! Features a new version of the Hawkwind spoken-word classic "Sonic Attack" with a special guest appearance by William Shatner!

“Once Upon A Time In Middlesex…” So begins one of the most original, smart, idiosyncratic, infectious, often confounding, always entertaining, British debuts of recent years. Against all odds, The Rhythm Method have finally made it official. After a stream of ante – and sometime eyebrow – raising singles, appearing on publications including The Observer, Q, i-D, The Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Notion and Mixmag New Artist Tips across roughly three years, numerous shows and tours throughout the UK, the duo of Joey Bradbury and Rowan Martin will release their hotly anticipated, long overdue debut album How Would You Know I Was Lonely? on June 21st on Moshi Moshi. The announcement arrives with majestic Railway replacement service anthem ‘Sex And The Suburbs’ – an encapsulation of the ecstasy and the agony that makes The Rhythm Method such a uniquely addictive proposition.

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is the ninth studio album by Elton John. The album is an autobiographical account of the early musical careers of Elton John (Captain Fantastic) and his long-term lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy). It was released in May 1975 by MCA in America and DJM in the UK and was an instant commercial success. The album reached number 1 in its first week of release on the US Billboard 200, the first ever album to do so, reportedly selling 1.4 million copies within 4 days of release, and it stayed in that position in the chart for seven weeks. In 2003, the album was ranked number 158 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list.

The anthropologist A. David Napier took aim at one of the most fundamental beliefs of modern times when he wrote his book The Age Of Immunology in 2003. He said the assumption that we can only survive by the elimination of ‘the non-self’ was a central idea which had spread catastrophically outwards from the world of medicine, infecting everything in its path.

Less is more’ is somewhat of a cliché but just ask Diagonal whether that rings true. Seven years on from 2012’s The Second Mechanism – the group’s second LP following their eponymous debut – they return as suddenly as they seemed to disappear, with arguably their finest effort to-date, Arc. It’s a record that maintains their effortlessly chameleonic shifts through Canterbury scene-indebted progressive rock, pulsing motorik and the spaced-out jazz expression; but where it really thrives is in its sense of spontaneity, imbibed from the quick and organic way that it came about.

Allan Clarke, one of the most distinguished voices in British music history, makes a dramatic return to the musical frontline — and no one is more surprised than Clarke himself. Clarke's place in pop-rock folklore is unshakeable. As co-founder and lead vocalist with the mighty Hollies, he was the frontman of such indelible singles as 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother,' 'The Air That I Breathe,' 'I'm Alive’,'Long Cool Woman’ and dozens more. Between 1963 and 1988, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees amassed an incredible 18 top ten and 30 top 40 UK hits and sold scores of millions of singles and albums all over the world. As a soloist, Clarke recorded eight greatly admired studio albums between 1972 and 1989 which enhanced his reputation both as a composer and an astute interpreter of other writers.