Mad Little Island

Novelty Island follow up their stunning debut ‘How Are You Coping With This Century?’ with ‘Wallsend Weekend Television’ via Nine x Nine Records and Think Like A Key Music. Novelty Island is the bizarre-pop project of Liverpool-based songwriter / producer, Tom McConnell.
‘Wallsend Weekend Television’ is an album that has been a long time coming. His body of work started taking shape through various incarnations and projects over the years. In 2018 he made the ultimate pilgrimage from his native north to Abbey Road Institute with all of these songs in hand. This is where Novelty Island was born, inspired by classic pop, woozy electronica and northern wordplay…

Mental Train: The Island Years 1969-1971 is a deep dive into the wild, wooly years before Mott the Hoople discovered glam. In other words, it's Mott the Hoople before they had anything resembling a hit but were still one of the hardest, heaviest, and weirdest rock bands to roam the land – and one of the most prolific, too. This six-disc box set covers a mere three years, but it was three years where they released four albums, piling up B-sides and other strays along the way. Mental Train rounds up what seems to be every surviving scrap and adds them as bonus tracks to Mott the Hoople, Mad Shadows, Wildlife and Brain Capers, and presenting two discs of non-LP material: a disc of unreleased music and a disc of live material…

The Best of the Island Years is a 4-disc digest version of last year’s, definitive 18 disc set covering John Martyn’s classic years with Island Records between 1967 and 1987. All 56 tracks on the 4-disc edition capture Martyn at the height of his creativity on the label; all of them have been chosen from the out-takes, unreleased songs and rare live recordings that were first included on The Island Years 18CD Box Set. This collection features the best of the rarities from The Island Years and creates an exceptional collection of recordings for fans who have everything but the complete box set.

For a few years, I got to travel with these bands—they included me—a dream come true. I’ve tried to take you on a trip with me and Art and the bands while reliving all of it a little—in writing it, in pictures I took, scenes and conversations I recall. And in the music Art asked me to record. About which I feel absolutely safe in saying it: That’s it. That’s jazz.

This is a great collection of rare and hard to find tunes compiled by Jeffrey Glenn. Hundreds of odds & ends by little known groups, famous singers, and famous singers before they became famous.