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No. 10 - Inheaven - s/t (Pias) Okay, a tie with Alan Vega - It ... SPEW's top 10 countdown

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(Steven J Wilson)
It’s a big, blustery sound south London’s InHeaven make. A sound sonically descended from the buzz of the late Eighties, sometimes like Jesus and Mary Chain, sometimes Nirvana, or even Smashing Pumpkins and all that shit. 

 What I mean is, you can’t imagine this particular sonic blast, given aesthetics and technology, before the late Eighties. It’s already dated, right? At least in this age of indie retro-twee and hip-hop. But that’s part of its audacity. Brazen in its’ sheer rock-is-bloody-king quality. Suck on it. 


 Julian Casablancas likes them. He released their “Regeneration” single on his Cult Records label. 
A proper RAWK band - look at them!
Little Steven likes them. He’s been blasting their bracing, horn-adorned track “Baby’s Alright” on the Underground Garage. 

 When I first heard "Baby's Alright" on the radio, I thought - wtf … is this some strange lovechild of the Small Faces and Cheap Trick? It is, sorta. And it’s also rocking to the max. Moments of dream-pop respite, like “Do You Dream,” soften the blow, but for the most part this is a blast from the hard rock past. Bassist Chloe Little and guitarist James Taylor (ha ha ha) share and trade vocals - hers an anomic purr, his Brit-pop sincere, but the guitars never lose their snarl, or the rhythm section its punch.  


If I had guilty pleasures, I suppose this could be one. But I don’t. This record is a fucking blast of fresh air at eight miles per hour on a cool, grey day. No apologies necessary.
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10. Alan Vega - It (Fader) ... SPEW'S Top 10 countdown.

(Steven J Wilson)
If you know who Alan Vega is we can move along.  Alan Vega with one of his installations. But maybe some of you don’t.  Alan Vega was part rockabilly hiccup, part electronic futurist. He was a poetic minimalist. Whether as musician, either with his partner Martin Rev in the band Suicide or solo, or as visual artist (his gallery shows were infrequent, but legendary), Vega was uncompromising and unwilling to play the game. He was interested in energy, in process, not in creating a portfolio. One romanticizes artists at one's peril, but Alan Vega didn't have time for bullshit, and his work shows it.  Alan Vega died in 2016; he was seventy-eight years old. Much of his life he’d been a bit cat and mouse about his age, not wanting to let his Seventies “punk” peers at Max's and CBGB's know he was fifteen years older than them. He needn’t have worried. Nothing dated Alan Vega.  His posthumous swan song It i(the back half of a New York 'exit...
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2019 (Before I forget)

(Steven J Wilson)
2019 (Before I forget) 2019 Records I Like the Most  Released in 2019: Wives - So Removed @@ Fontaines DC - Dogrel %% Kate Tempest - The Book of Traps and Lessons ## Stella Donnelly - Beware of the Dogs ## Peter Perrett - Human World @@ Mattiel - Satis Factory @@ Tough Shits - Burning in Paradise @@ Felice Brothers - Undress @@ Robert Forster - Inferno ## Danny Brown -uknowhatimsayin %% %% Records I Like that Lots of Other Know-it-Alls Like: Angel Olsen - All Mirrors Jessica Pratt - Quiet Signs FKA  Twigs - Magdalene Charly Bliss - Young Enough Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow Refused - War Music Aldous Harding - Designer Better Oblivion Community Center - s/t Black Midi - Schlagenheim Cate LeBon - Reward Raconteurs - Help Me, Stranger Sturgill Simpson - Sound and Fury Rhiannon Giddens - There is No Other Bruce Springsteen – Western Stars ## Records I Like That A few Know-it-Alls Like: Mick Trouble - Here’s The Mick Trouble Lp T...
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The god/doglike genius of Asako Ota ... Meet the Maltese!

(Steven J Wilson)
I wouldn’t know a damn thing about the Maltese were it not for my friend, Todd Newman. Todd is a wonderful singer-songwriter himself with a pretty sweet recorded legacy, including one record, Too Sad for Words, that I co-produced. Todd is a devotee generally of the best of J-pop. He’s especially a fan of an artist named Asako Ota. She’s the driving force behind the Maltese. Previously, she led another band called the Dog Hair Dressers.   I’m not sure what her fixation on canines is about, and I’ll damn sure never know from listening to her music, because all the lyrics are in Japanese, which is Greek to me.   What I do know is that she’s a damn fine songwriter, singer and guitarist. Her singing is gracefully tuneful, never overpowering, her playing strong and accomplished, but never showy; everything Ota does is dedicated to her really, really good songs. The music she makes is loosely categorizable as power-pop, and the Maltese isn’t twee; they’re not afraid of the po...
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