Sometime in 2002, I ridiculously managed to convince Uncut’s then-Reviews Ed to let me write a lead review of a CD I’d just bought online from a record label in Japan. According to the press release which accompanies this belated UK release for the same album, Plush’s “Fed”, I wrote that it was “The dazzling masterpiece he [Liam Hayes, Plush’s sole constant member] always threatened to produce.” Evidently not enough of a “dazzling masterpiece” for it to merit a UK release for six whole years.
“Class of ’88 reunion,” announces Sonic Boom. He has just played “Transparent Radiation” and is about to launch – launch may not be the right word, exactly; slope, perhaps? – into an excellent “When Tomorrow Hits”. In front of me, someone is wearing a “Goo” t-shirt. On the way to the Roundhouse, someone randomly proffered an open bottle of amyl. Only Sonic Boom’s haircut appears to have changed, slightly, in the intervening 20 years.
When we were talking about Coldplay the other day, one of the regulars, Jamesewan, posted some thoughts which suggested that the British music scene “has been in a kind of depression for a while now.” It’s not something I worry about a great deal, to be honest, since I don’t really care where the records I like come from – and they usually come from America, realistically.
