The more you listen to music, the more you realise that this is as good an era for it as any.
During lockdown, without a great deal of work on my plate and with a podcast to provide content for, I’ve probably listened to more contemporary material than at any other time since my late night John Peel regime during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
Those years yielded a magnificent smorgasbord of post-punk gems, many of which are still instantly recognisable and have provided the canon against which the remainder of our listening life has been judged. Plenty of post-punk is to be found in the Sombrero Fallout Forty for 2021: in this opening episode Du Blonde, Goat Girl, Parquet Courts, NOV3L, Pynch and Anorak Patch deliver in spades.
But these days there’s a whole lot more happening.
The major development for SF during 2021 has been the introduction of the occasional interviewed episode. One such guest was my old friend, flatmate and fellow band member Rajan Datar, now something important at the BBC. Remarkably his band Maroon Town are not only still going but still going strong and their single Bullitt is in with a bullet at number 39.
Elsewhere Madlib reimagine Young Marble Giants with the help of folktronica guru Kieran Hebden of Four Tet; Juliana Hatfield reprises early ‘90s lo-fi; Let’s Eat Grandma create their own genre of soi-disant sludge pop; Lael Kneale updates country; Newdad do Irish shimmery shoegaze; Nana Yamoto channels kitschy daydream pop; while Arooj Aftab pulls off the biggest genre mash-up of all with her blend of jazzy minimalist neo-Sufi, tinged with reggae.
What will the next two shows have in store?
Tracklist:
I’m glad that we broke up, Du Blonde, Ezra Furman
Bullitt, Maroon Town
The crack, Goat Girl
Walking at a downtown pace, Parquet Courts
Dirtknock, Madlib
Mouthful of blood, Juliana Hatfield
Last night, Arooj Aftab
Group disease, NOV3L
Do you wanna, Nana Yamato
Karaoke, Pynch
Hall of mirrors, Let’s Eat Grandma
Blue vein, Lael Kneale
I don’t recognise you, Newdad
Irate, Anorak Patch