The feud between the still awesome former JD/NO bassist Peter Hook and his former colleagues in JD/NO stems from a bitter 2007 split over band finances, branding, and royalties.
The dispute culminated in a 2015 high-court battle where Hook sued his former bandmates for setting up a separate company behind his back, drastically reducing
his royalty share. The tension has played out in the public eye through legal battles, competing memoirs, and ongoing press wars.
Tired of his limited role with Massive Attack, trip-hop bigwig TRICKY (born Adrian
Nicholas Matthews Thaws in Bristol, UK, 58 years ago) wanted to do his own thing.
So, 31 years ago (I know, sounds like ages), he
left MA and started his significant solo career.
Press info: “‘Different When It’s Silent‘ follows a prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s ‘Fall to Pieces’ LP, Tricky has released music under several different guises, all via his own label, ‘False Idols‘. Yet returning to an album under his own name took on a different shape. For Tricky it was another side project, until his manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.’
TUTV: The longtime trip-hop master didn’t/doesn’t change his sonic palette for the past
few years/albums. Not necessary whatsoever to my satisfied ears. His tense and tenebrific trademark synth-grooves, mostly mid-tempo, still have a transfixing and chilling effect.
This time it’s young, riveting Bristol voice Mitch Sanders who co-stars for the greater
part with Tricky‘s whispering vocals in the back, engendering the familiar, spookish twilight atmosphere. Again Tricky makes you feel comfortable in his cliffhanging cosmic space.
Standout Tracks: Singles Because I Don’t Know and I’m Yours / Paris Maybe / So Cold / Piano / Frontier Town and Out Of Place.
British rockers MUSE have more than 3 decades on their clock. Impressive.
The band fronted by singer/guitarist/songwriter MATT BELLAMY
released their 2nd LPORIGIN SYMMETRY on 17 July 2001, today 25 years ago.
The album title derives from the 1994 book Hyperspace by the theoretical
physicist Michio Kaku, which suggests the title The Origin of Symmetry for a
future book about the discovery of supersymmetry.
#3 in the UK.
NME – 2001
Bellamy said: “Everyone’s been writing about the origin of life
so now they’ll start looking at the origin of symmetry; there’s a
certain amount of stability in the universe and to find out where
it originates from would be to find out if God exists.”
BOB DYLAN, arguably the greatest singer-songwriter ever, started
his so-called Never Ending Tour ages ago. Even at 85, he doesn’t like
to sit in a lazy chair at home. He thrives on playing live like no one
else (I know).
He’s in the middle of another extensive world tour. ALL DATES HERE.
Every day of this summer we go back to the same summer day somewhere in history
16 July 2026
On July 16, 2007, today 19 years ago, THE WHITE STRIPES entered the record books
by playing the shortest-ever live gig when they appeared at a Newfoundland venue
called George Street during a Canadian tour.
They played just a single note with a cymbal crash (no encore, I suppose) before
exiting the stage. The “concert” was recognized by the Guinness Book Of World
Records in 2009. Unfortunately, the book’s compilers dropped the category a year
later after being swamped by applications for similar record-breaking attempts.
No expiration date for Liverpool‘s indestructible
post-punk-pop rockers ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN.
On 18 September they will launch their 13th LP,
their first in 12 years, named Apples For Isaac.
No idea who that guy is.
Press info: “The Bunnymen have recorded an album that is as bold as it is vulnerable, that perfectly captures the essence of what makes the Bunnymen so great. All but one of the tracks features the late drummer Clem Burke, who sadly passed away during its creation.”
On the first single, frontman, big mouth and big voice Ian McCulloch explores
the ghosts and characters of the Belgian capital haunted by World War 2. As a
fanatic E&TB fan, I know they played Brussels countless times, but the last time
I was in Brussels (I’m Belgian), about two weeks ago.
But you never know these days.
Can you hear me, Ian? You can
run, but you can’t hide.
Whatever, this new single confirms that longevity isn’t always
a negative, getting boring, factor for artists. BRUSSELS IS HAUNTED
is, er, a haunting, sha la la home run.
British synth pop champs OMD, abbreviation for Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark,
have been entertaining people since 1978. In 2006 they took a deserved 10-year hiatus. Ten years later, in 2006, they returned and never looked back.
They recorded/released 14 LPs thus far, with Bauhaus Staircase from 2023 as their most
recent one.
Californian experimental duo XIU XIU deliver their second LP honoring the iconic filmmaker David Lynch (1946-2025), with their musical vision of his first pitch-black, surreal fantasy movie Eraserhead from 1977. It tells the story of a bizarre man who
tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child.
Press info: “In 2016, with the blessing of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, Xiu Xiu released and toured the surprisingly successful album Plays The Music Of Twin Weaks.
Now they return with Eraserhead Xiu Xiu. A new live concert with accompanying film
and full-length album that uses field recordings, concert specific homemade instruments, organ, modular synths, vocals, flashlights, electrical interference, and elements of musique concrete to express the bizarre emotionality, conflicted sexuality, relentless darkness, and singularly unsettled moonscape of this most incredible of midnight masterpieces.
The album itself is a masterpiece in sound collage and experimentation, shifting
from minimal auditory sensations to a clobbering, grotesque cacophony.”
TUTV: XX’s hallucinatory sonic odyssey is as outlandish, Kafkaesque, and
phantasmagorical as the movie. You need to take time, separate yourself from
your surroundings, dim the light, and sit down to immerse yourself, with your
earphones on, in the petrifying, distorted sound disturbance spread across
7 trance-like (long and short) tracks.
