It has been said so often now that most fans (even the newest, least tested ones) can take this as a fact: David Bowie always rocks hardest and best when he’s making a grand artistic statement. The years have proven that as factual but, as Station To Station, Tin Machine, Earthling and, now, Blackstar illustrate, the singer goes that ever-so-important extra step and ascends to a whole other creative echelon when even his biggest supporters are left pretty sure that...

Divers is the fourth studio album by U.S. singer-lyricist Joanna Newsom, released on October 23, 2015 via Drag City. Release date: October 23, 2015 Artist: Joanna Newsom Label: Drag City Genre: Baroque pop, Avant-garde music Producers: Joanna Newsom, Noah Georgeson   This album was released a couple of months ago – Joanna’s first new album in five years. I never started listening to her until about two years ago. I discovered her when a very good friend of mine said...

Restorations LP3 (Side One Dummy) If The Constantines taught us anything in their decade-long run as the pre-eminent Canadian ambassadors to rock n’ roll before the Arts & Crafts artist roster showed the rest of the world that there was some great music being made in the great white North, they showed us that the secret to a great rock song isn’t always a mind-blowing riff – sometimes it has everything to do with sonic texture and a good vibe....

  It is with great sadness that we share the news that Lemmy Kilmister passed away two days after learning that he had cancer. He just celebrated his 70th birthday on Christmas eve. On Facebook, the Official Motorhead page posted this: There is no easy way to say this…our mighty, noble friend Lemmy passed away today after a short battle with an extremely aggressive cancer. He had learnt of the disease on December 26th, and was at home, sitting in...

Eight years ago I came up with this idea (I was 49 years old then), to write a weekly column for this here music zine/blog, but the idea flittered away and I never wrote issue two. Rereading “issue one”, I really like how it came out and feel kinda bad that I neglected the potential that presented itself to me – to shoot the breeze, to ramble on, to string random ideas together into potentially seemingly cohesive streams of serious...

RICOH THETA S The Ricoh Theta S is a one-click device that creates flawless, high resolution 360 degree images, wow! I’ve never owned a camera like this before. I never imagined that there would be a camera that can do the things this one does. I’m just a photography enthusiast/hobbyist but I enjoy creating imagery that is unusual and eye catching. The potential that this camera has to easily create extremely eye catching images is phenomenal. One of the alluring...

ARTIST: Adele – DATE: 12-20-15 ALBUM: 25 LABEL: XL Recordings/Beggars Group   There’s no other way to say it: Adele is the rightful queen of pop in 2015. Now three albums into her career, she has set and broken records with an ease which is almost comical, and done it with raw talent – not using salesmanship or clever gimmickry. Her third album, 25, continues in that tradition for the most part but, now, the singer has clearly lay down...

Leave it to David Bowie to wrap a perfectly tongue-in-cheek idea in populist medium and make a celebration of it. That is, of course, precisely what the singer has done in licensing Earthling for a fresh vinyl pressing now, almost twenty years after the album was originally released. Confused, reader? Let me clarify it for you: when Earthling was first released in 1997, much ado was made about how the music was recorded as well as the equipment which was...

ARTIST: 2015 Holiday Gift Guide Part Two All the most marvellous gift ideas that Ground Control’s favorite Santa’s helper Ollie Mikse could imagine. DATE: 12-11-15 WRITER: Ollie Ottoman Now Playing: ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas’ by the Eels Hello there!?? It’s the holiday season and time to completely buy into the capitalist society we pretend not to live in. While Bill Adams will keep you covered with the music related-items we think will tickle your gift-giving fancy this year,...

The holidays are a fantastic time of year aren’t they? They’re the time when all the nonsense which may have congested personal relationships is put aside, and everyone seeks to be with those closest to them. They exchange gifts and it’s wonderful. If you’re like me though reader, you have a habit of over-thinking those gifts. Eventually, you find yourself wandering through the mall in a daze; you know you care for the people on your list, but have no...