LIST 255 - 23/05/2026

Hello again,

Only a quick intro this week, as I'd otherwise be unable to resist churning out another four-figure total of words on the aftermath of Eurovision.  

Suffice it to say for the time being that there are still things to look deeper into as regards voting (there are excellent legal reasons for my leaving it as obliquely as that); Sweden were out-Swedened by Denmark as predicted; and although I didn't go a bundle for Bulgaria personally, surely only those commentators who are unaware of Bangaranga's already well-established ubiquity on TikTok are still calling its win a shock.  

There was no Iceland at Eurovision this year, of course, but with impeccable timing the fortnight before it saw the release of the first album in three years from Daði Freyr, who was of course the moral victor in 2020.

But for the pandemic, who knows how much bigger a global name he might have become off the back of Think About Things. He's still a star in my world, at least.

It's a joy to be able to include the video for his latest single, which dropped as recently as Wednesday of last week.  Shades of Be Mine by David Gray thematically, or if you prefer, of the train sketch in The Young Ones.

You might also enjoy:

• Beck getting the A Session of Sorts treatment.  It's hard to gather up quite so many stylistic gear changes across his three decades plus of activity inside four songs, but I've given it a go.  Nothing quite demonstrates the change in him more starkly than placing the current single next to a particularly, um, abrasive track presented here in its Mellow Gold album guise, having previously existed as the b-side to notorious early single Steve Threw Up.

• something of a first for TML, with one Beck song appearing in two features, A Session of Sorts and In Loving Memory.  The bear of a man (at times literally) in the video for Cellphone's Dead is revered jazz drummer and sometime Beck collaborator James Gadson, whose passing was announced a couple of weeks ago.

• the past and delightful present of The Loft, significant early players on Creation Records turned wise old men of indiepop.  Stewart Lee's appreciation of the band goes right back to the day he struck up a conversation with a stranger over a Loft record in Hull just the 41 years ago, and his winning cameo in the Sad Comedian video feels especially heartfelt and appropriate. 

• a reminder of the talents of exemplary Seattle janglepoppers Math and Physics Club, sadly but understandably largely inactive since the passing of guitarist James Werle in 2018.  The pre-Indietracks four-part package at the Castle Hotel in Manchester seven years prior, also starring Very Truly Yours, Moustache of Insanity and The Sweet Nothings, remains high in my list of favourite gigs to this day. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

    (Math and Physics Club - Castle Hotel, Manchester 26/07/2011. Pictures are author's own)

• another emerging contender for my favourite song of the year, this time from Bristol-based Tara Clerkin Trio.  BBC Radio 6 Music seems particularly keen to regard them as an experimental trio, as if an act also picked up by Radio 3 requires some such epithet (I wonder what Deb Grant, broadcaster on both, of course, makes of it all).  I just find it a particularly beguiling, gently insistent piece of work, touched perhaps by the city's trip-hop and downbeat legacy, and with a vocal uncannily reminiscent of Hydroplane's Kerrie Bolton.

• a forgotten 80s pick from the Boothill Foot Tappers, briefly contemporaries of The Pogues as part of London's reviving British roots movement and an early Go! Discs signing to boot (no pun intended), but sadly all over and done by the end of 1985.

• for those who have only come to Cardiacs with the LSD album, some evidence that the delicate and imaginative orchestrations provided by Craig Fortnam there have informed his own work as North Sea Radio Orchestra for quite some time already (two decades plus, I believe).

• from the Dance Hall at Peel Acres, what actually feels like the sound of the human skull being sandpapered courtesy of ace but short-lived Jeff Mills and Robert Hood vehicle X-103.

• A Long Goodbye from my former work colleague Clelia Ciardulli, one half of experimental punk project Dead Badgers.  "I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things", Clelia rightly asserts, and for as long as it does, that way hope lies for all of us.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 17/05/2026).

Click here for a glossary explaining TML features.

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

DAÐI FREYR - I’m Out and I Wanna Go Home (2026) 

THE DIVINE COMEDY – Mother Dear (2006) 

MING - ll Continente Mentale (2001) 

TONY BONTANA - Battered Chips (2026) 

EUROTASTIC
DOUBLE - The Captain of her Heart (1985) 

A SESSION OF SORTS: Beck
BECK - We Live Again (1998) 

GIRLPUPPY - I Might Say Something Stupid (2026) 

THE FUTUREHEADS - Robot (2004) 

BRIAN ENO - Northern Lights (1983) 

RADIO 4 - Enemies Like This (2006) 

THEN AND NOW: The Loft
THE LOFT - Sad Comedian (2026)
THE LOFT - Why Does The Rain (1984) 

 

EX ORKEST – Uitgeest (2001) 

TARA CLERKIN TRIO - Something Good (2026) 

DEAD KENNEDYS – Kill the Poor (1980) 

ISOBEL CAMPBELL - Ant Life (2019) 

MY FORGOTTEN 80s IS MORE FORGOTTEN THAN YOUR FORGOTTEN 80s
THE BOOTHILL FOOT-TAPPERS - Get Your Feet Out Of My Shoes (1984) 

A SESSION OF SORTS: Beck
BECK - Ride Lonesome (2026) 
BECK - Mutherfucker (1994) 

 

NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA – Vishnu Schist (2016) 

THE HAIRS – Feeling a Lot of Feelings (2012) 

(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

BJÖRK GUðMUNDSDÓTTIR & TRÍÓ GUðMUNDAR INGÓLFSSONAR – Eg Veit Ei Hvad Skal Segja (1990) 

MATH AND PHYSICS CLUB – Everybody Loves a Showtune (2010) 

DANCE HALL AT PEEL ACRES
X-103 - Curse of the Gods (1992) 

PAYCHEQUE - Temporary Love (2026) 

DONKEY - Fickle Coercion Expletive (1995) 

(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

SISTERS OF TRANSISTORS - The Don (2008) 

HARVEY WILLIAMS - Her Boychart (1999) 

A SESSION OF SORTS: Beck
IN LOVING MEMORY: James Gadson
BECK - Cell Phone’s Dead (2006) 

THE LONG GOODBYE
DEAD BADGERS - Gemini Moon pt1 (2025)

(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)