Pete Kosanovich | Beauty Within You

Pete Kosanovich: Beauty Within You (Big Soul Recordings) CD | DL | Stream Out Now BUY HERE Singer songwriter Peter Kosanovich plunders heartfelt emotional depths with a real sense of honesty and compassion as he closes out 2025 with his new solo album, Beauty Within You. And with its sound very much fashioned on vintage acoustic guitars, this is a collection of self-penned songs which harks back to the heyday of some his primary influences as it fuses…

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Tributes paid to Belfast punk musician

Petesy Burns RIP: Tributes paid to Belfast punk musician Louder Than War were sad to read the news that Petesy Burns from Belfast passed away on 1st January 2026. He played in seminal Belfast Anarcho-punk bands Stalag 17 and F.U.A.L. and was involved in the Warzone Collective who created a non-sectarian space, Giro’s, for punks to meet, organise and play music during the Troubles.  As he put it in Ian Glasper’s Trapped In A Scene book “What was…

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Peter Gabriel new album

Saturday, 3 January, 2026 – the first full moon of the year, the Wolf Moon, and Peter Gabriel releases the first new song from his forthcoming album o\i. Been Undone was written and produced by Peter Gabriel and recorded at Real World Studios, Bath and The Beehive in London. This is the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake. ‘I’m delighted to say that tonight, at the full moon, we will be beginning another year of full moon releases under the name…

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YUNGBLUD and The Smashing Pumpkins collaborate on new version of his Zombie single

© Tom Pallant Today sees the release of an exciting new collaboration between The Smashing Pumpkins and YUNGBLUD. YUNGBLUD first came into contact with Billy Corgan in Birmingham last July during the Black Sabbath farewell concert, Back To The Beginning, where both artists performed in honour of Ozzy Osbourne. In a 2023 interview with Allison Hagendorf, Corgan spoke openly about YUNGBLUD’s career trajectory, noting, “I can tell where he’s going, and if I’m right, we’ll be talking about…

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Aitor Ochoa & Mad Mule: Off The Grid

Aitor Ochoa & Mad Mule: Off The Grid (Milana Música) Out now   Aitor Ochoa returns with his second Mad Mule album, another record brimming with his love of Americana-infused rock. This album feels like it has been a long, long time coming. The gestation period, the writing, the recording, the drummers that have been through the ranks in the seven years since the release of their debut have been marked by increased expectation and frustration. It has…

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European Sun: School Report – single review and Interview

Single Review / Interview European Sun  School Report (Skep Wax)    DL / CD released 30 December 2025 School Report, by European Sun is a 17-minute pop song in which a diary of an anxiety-ridden day is punctuated with readings from the singer’s school report: the acid, dismissive remarks made by uncaring teachers years ago echoing cruelly down the years. An epic, free-wheeling, Sister Ray length song that encapsulates “what it’s like to live in my head for…

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Post genre Rosalia and Aya create different future/now visions

Post genre and the resurrection of future music with Rosalía and Aya Pop culture can be so many things – it can be a place of comfort and order with its many high decibel revolutions tidied up into neat alphabetical record collections. It can be new artists doing their version of an old music, or it can be cosy fireside talks on genre-bending moments from Bowie to the Sex Pistols.  There is a place for everything and a…

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Strawberry Studios Forever – Book Review

Strawberry Studios Forever by Peter Tattersall and Peter Wadsworth Empire Publications Out Now Buy Here Strawberry Studios Forever is an in-depth history of the famous Stockport Recording Studios by Peter Tattersall and Peter Wadsworth. How did a major recording studio, which attracted some of the biggest names in music, end up being based in a humble town seven miles outside Manchester? Strawberry Studios, 10cc & the Birth of Manchester Music (to give it its full title) is a…

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Birkenhead Punk Festival 2026 announces line-up

Birkenhead Punk Festival 2026 announces line-up Organisers of the Birkenhead Punk Festival have announced the line-up for the 2026, in addition, as a result of the success of the 2025 inaugural event the festival has been expanded to a two-day event with the headliners being confirmed as Ruts DC and Girlschool. The festival takes place at both Molly’s Chambers, and The Northern Powerhouse, which are situated in the Rock Quarter, Birkenhead which has excellent transport links via the…

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Public Image Limited the imperious emperor and pied piper of punk

Public Image LimitedThe Ritz, Manchester28th December 2025 All photos by Helen Millington   There he is the most difficult man in pop culture. The imperious emperor and pied piper of punk singing his heart out like a manic, distorted, intense opera singer who refuses to be pigeonholed and takes great pleasure in telling you to ‘fuck off’ whoever you are and whatever you think. Yet live, he is still a compelling spectacle, turning a strange left field music into…

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Johny Brown: Dream A Memory Of Home

Album Review Johny Brown Dream A Memory Of Home (Skill)   CD/DL released 24 Dec 2025 Band of Holy Joy’s irrepressible frontman Johny Brown returns with his second solo album, – a vivid, orchestral drift through the streets, friendships and formative moments of his North Shields youth. Dream A Memory Of Home is a reflective, tender excavation of growing up in the 60s and 70s – a time of identity-shaping upheaval, wild imagination and constant change. Following the widescreen…

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New band of the day : The Sly ‘they mangle indie into totally new shapes’

The Sly instagram  Snippet of their music here Snippet of their music here    The Sly are truly wonderful. A fantastically youthful band from Manchester/Oldham who have somehow managed to find a space of their own in the overcrowded field of indie. The description of them as ‘a baggy Krautrock 3 piece and Oldham’s hottest new band’ doesn’t even start to pinpoint their sound. With an imagination and firebrand intensity, they have mangled indie into post-punk shapes with…

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