That Music List: LIST 245 - 14/03/2026 (Feature Fest #1)

Hello again,

This week's List finds your writer still with ringing ears and a happy heart from witnessing the Manchester leg of Cardiacs' emotional and triumphant return, with erstwhile Oceansizer Mike Vennart permanently installed in the live set-up now as well as on record.

The Albert Hall's variable sound quality - partly the consequence, I'm given to understand, of its many windows, beautiful as they are - couldn't prevent the magic of this strange, beautiful, sometimes manic music shining through, and it's worth stressing that compiling and executing this near two-hour set so perfectly was no small undertaking, even for those who'd performed some of its contents for decades previously.

These are still earlyish days for drummer Bob Leith performing without any of the backing tracks which the late Tim Smith had introduced upon the band's early-1990s conversion to a power quartet, and had kept in place as the live ensemble expanded and right up until the tragic events of 2008. Live keyboards hadn't featured in Cardiacs' live offer for at least 35 years, either, until Rhodri Marsden was brought on board; something else for Bob, Kavus Torabi and Jim Smith to get used to.

Inevitably, though, it was Vennart who has carried the greatest responsibility to make things work as the band's de facto frontperson now, to all intents and purposes the Tim of the piece however much he has striven to play down that perception.

Has he succeeded? Kavus's succinct summary on Facebook yesterday morning that, "Mike has excelled, taking on the almost impossible task of inhabiting these songs with authenticity and passion, not to mention extraordinary ability and talent", tells you enough.

This was not the Mike Vennart show, neither was it Mike doing Tim Smith cabaret - no replication of any of Tim's eccentric outbursts, nor any of the theatrical humiliating of Jim (indeed, Jim got a cuddle or two from Mike and Kavus). Instead, generous tributes to his fellow players and audience during the set, culminating in the outro of The Whole World Window, which rounded off the main set. Flowers thrown from the stage (a nod to the Consultant, one assumes - IYKYK), and respectful hug of a picture of Tim Smith himself.

The octet on stage looked absolutely spent by the time Is This The Life? drew the second and final encore to a close, Mike and Jim especially. The latter had, some will remember, been unable to complete the final Sing to Tim gig in late 2024 due to illness, but it was emotional investment rather than physical frailty at play here.

By the end of this week Cardiacs will have played four equally long gigs within five nights, and the time required to rest, recover and reflect will be well earned.

Jim has often mentioned that it felt as if Cardiacs were on the cusp of something approaching a crossover, relatively speaking, back in 2007 judged on the size and increasingly varying age profile of their audiences; and the evidence of the rapturous responses to these sell-out dates is that those people have not only waited and returned, but been appreciably added to in number.

The question for Jim Smith to consider, at leisure, will be what happens next.

There are supposedly further remnants of music and lyrics from Tim's archives which could yet be spun into gold in the same way as the LSD album and ultimately performed live.

Equally, and even factoring in the performances of all three tracks on the Ditzy Scene single this week and/or in 2007-8, exactly half of LSD will have remained unplayed to a live audience by the end of this current tour. That includes such audacious tracks as Busty Beez and Skating - taking these on the road some day must have its appeal.

And, of course, there is a back catalogue of such depth that a staggering number of setlist permutations could still be drawn up for years to come, with or without contributions from LSD, and the faithful would likely still be more than satisfied with that.

All in good time. More immediately, I know that Thursday night's concert definitely finds a place among my all-time favourites. I just need to decide where.

****

In the circumstances, there was never the remotest chance that this week's List would pass without a Cardiacs contribution, and the aforementioned Busty Beez is included in the No Language In Our Lungs feature.

Calling it my favourite Cardiacs instrumental would be damning it with faint praise, as they've not done all that many relative to the size of their overall recorded output (true to the ethos of this particular feature).

Calling it one of my favourite ever instrumentals of any description, however, is no exaggeration, so quickly and indelibly has it got its claws in me still only six months after release. A persistent, writhing, dramatic maelstrom of guitars and Craig Fortnam's brass arrangements, it reveals further details and secrets with every listen. It's incredible.

The more attentive among you will have spotted the Feature Fest suffix to this week's header, and sure enough, every single track in this List belongs to one of the features I've introduced or reintroduced since That Music List was reactivated in January.

I maintain a portfolio of 25 different features covering as many different eras and genres as possible, and no fewer than 20 make an appearance this week, three of which for the first time. With that, I'm pleased to say that every single feature has not only appeared at least once now, but has received some degree of coverage here within the past three weeks. I just need to keep all these plates spinning now.

Of the newbies, I Love Pop Music And I Will Fight You is the only feature to have been thought up since this blog's relaunch, initially inspired by a quip from my friend and former boss Simon Rowlands as to when Taylor Swift might be making an appearance. In truth, if Taylor Swift released a track I liked enough to include on a List, I would do so, and would do so unironically.

Until that eventuality, this feature includes other (mostly mass market) pop songs I do love unironically. Good pop is good pop, wheresoever it comes from, and for whosoever it might be intended.

I still recall most fondly the Strange Fruit indiepop nights that my brother and I would attend at Highbury Garage a quarter of a century ago, in which the occasional bit of S Club 7 or 5ive would nestle seamlessly among the perhaps more expected bill of fare, and be heard and danced to equally appreciatively.

As guiding principles go, that has remained with me longer than most. It also broadly informs the approach of our good friends Kev Birchall and Linda Yarwood, curators of Recordsville club evenings, organisers of the Pop at the Lock and Going up the Country indiepop alldayers, and tour DJs for the likes of Saint Etienne and Teenage Fanclub (all well as for our wedding reception).

All of this is probably too long a way of saying that whilst the initial choice for this feature is the bang up to date and commensurately cool pop of Hemlocke Springs, don't lose your mind if I decide it'll be turn of the century Kylie or even older Bananarama next time. My prerogative.

It's also my prerogative not to be in the habit of marking musicians' birthdays in That Music List, for if I started doing that I'd never stop. However, having cued up Nena for inclusion in the latest instalment of my German language music feature, I've since remembered she turns 66 in ten days' time.

I hope it doesn't disappoint too many of you to learn that I was never going to use up a List slot on 99 Luftballons. It's already sufficiently ubiquitous, and Nena Kerner has had a rather more rounded career and existence than the one monster hit and the ridiculous hysteria over her armpit hair that her fame amounted to in Britain.

Almost twenty studio albums for grown-ups, a handful more for children, TV and film work, mentoring and coaching on music contests, an autobiography, philanthropy, campaigning, and the setting up of a Sudbury model-type school.

A grandmother many times over she may be, but she's got no intention of retiring quietly, or as she puts it in my selection here, stopping being a Professional Teenager, any time soon.

A Loved Album this week probably ought to be re-dubbed An Album Loved By Almost Nobody Else Apart From Me, as I'm yet to find anybody else prepared to give Alright on Top by Luke Slater much in the way of credit.

Perhaps it was just too different from what had been Slater's stock in trade prior to that, still techno at its core but more, as Slater himself described it, "an album of songs". Perhaps the contributions from Ricky Barrow, former vocalist of The Aloof, were just too polarising - often deadpan where some might have preferred soaring, to offer a more striking juxtaposition between music and voice. I'm guessing on both fronts, I freely admit.

It was a collaborative exercise never repeated, and there can't be too many other items in Slater's body of work that you can pick up online for a quid, so moderate is its apparent standing. For all that, however, there wouldn't be many other releases from 2002 which I played as much at the time, still play as much now, and mostly know off by heart. Work that one out.

Much else to enjoy this week, including but far from limited to:

In another new feature, Wir Sind die neuen Götter, Die Krupps pummel their way through one of the many such tracks that soundtracked my EDM / industrial / darkwave club night visits whilst living in Germany exactly three decades ago,

In the final new feature, Yes, They Did Other Songs As Well, we have something from Candy Flip that isn't a certain notorious cover version,

U2 in clearing a U2 sample shocker! The peerless Tom Ewing has written fondly of Kiss AMC's almost DIY level enthusiasm winning out over actual rapping technique in this track, and it absolutely won't be the last time you'll see me endorse his every word of an opinion on these pages,

Three charts entries from this date in 1993, one of which you still hear rather more up to the present day than you do the others,

A theme tune which might just have been the stuff of Lucozade-quaffing, off from school with sickness-induced fever dreams for some of you (Structures Sonores Lasry-Baschet),

The forgotten (by some) '80s sound of sophisti-pop Mancs The Bernhardts, comprising one-third former John Cooper Clarke and Pauline Murray co-producer and two-thirds future Distant Cousins (whom we'll also catch up with on here one day),

Another perfect example of the Sabadell Sound Italo Disco archetype. Spanish performer with an English stage name (David Lyme, or Jordi Cubino Bermejo to his mum)? Check. Long intro? Check. Me loving it to bits? Check,

To finish, the sort of pneumatic, irreverent Happy Hardcore cover which will never not remind me of Peel and his enthusiasm for the genre (DJ Kaos). Chicago ballads were never so tolerable...

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 13/03/2026).

Click here for a glossary explaining TML features.

BULLETPROOF

JANE’S ADDICTION - Been Caught Stealing (1990)