Life's Turned Upside Down

The brilliant Leon Rosselson is underrated only because his ideological leanings don't conform with the mainstream. He has been recording since the early 1960s, and this 4CD overview offers a superlative selection of his oeuvre, including material from vinyl albums that, unfortunately, are ever likely to be reissued in any other format. As a British songwriter, Rosselson is unequalled in the past half century. Much of his oeuvre is in the French chanson mould of Brassens, although he is invariably categorised, not surprisingly, as a folk singer. He surfaced in the early 1960s as Britain's answer to Tom Lehrer – but with a great deal more gravitas.

Trojan Horse are one of those bands who defy easy categorisation. One week they’re playing progressive rock festivals sharing bills with the likes of Mostly Autumn and The Enid, the next week they’re supporting post-punk legends The Fall. To quote their own bio, the Salford-based quartet aim to drag 70s progressive rock kicking and screaming through all the subsequent decades, and their second full-length album “World Turned Upside Down” sees them do precisely that.
Instrumental opener “Jurapsyche Park” jump-cuts between manic surf guitar and the intricacies of Discipline-era King Crimson to end in a frenetic climax of duelling Hammond organ and abrasive guitar that recalls the live jam at end of Deep Purple’s “Space Trucking”…