From Alan Dearling
Alligator Records: 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music
Bruce Iglauer birthed Alligator Records in Southside Chicago in 1970. Since then it has become one of the world’s most established record labels, specialising on blues and the cross-overs with jazz, rock and soul. The 3-album CD compilation was released during Covid-times in 2021. The contents range from the roughness, described by Alligator as “a wonderfully glorious racket” with Hound Dog Taylor on ‘Give me back my wig’, through Earthshaker, Koko Taylor’s wailing blues voice in ‘I’m a Woman’, Coco Montaya’s spectacular vocals on ‘You didn’t think about that’ through to Guitar Shorty’s incendiary guitar solos with ‘Too Late’. A lot of blues in that collection – with well-known and loved giants such as Johnny Winter rubbing shoulders with little known (in the UK at least) “Oscar Wilson’s massive voice matched in power by Nosek’s deep blues harmonica.”
Tinsley Ellis: Labor of Love
I continue to be on Alligator Records promo mailing list. Thanks. Their latest album release in 2026 is from Tinsley Ellis, described as, “Atlanta-based blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Tinsley Ellis releases his new video for Sweet Ice Tea, a highlight track from Ellis’ new album, ‘Labor Of Love.’ ‘Labor Of Love’ is Ellis’ second acoustic album (after 2024’s Blues Music Award-nominated Naked Truth), and his first acoustic album to contain all original material.”
It’s simple, uncomplicated but passionate, authentic solo acoustic blues. Lovely. Video from single ’Sweet Ice Tea’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHc9nMDKlQ8
And ‘Hoodoo Woman’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uMYeNU2MaQ
Rosalia: Lux (complete with 18 tracks) 2026 edition
Towards the close of 2025, Rosalia’s ‘Lux’ became an on-line streaming sensation. Rosalia is Spanish and has already had some international hits with songs such as ‘Catalina’. ‘Lux’ has now been re-released with additional tracks. It’s operatic, world music. ‘Reliquia’ is a fine example: breathy, romantic, radiating passion. It is ethereal, an artefact of real beauty. ‘Porcelena’ is a sinister step into the darkness, atmospheric, bleakly thrilling, a trilling piano and Rosalia’s voice flying into the ether. It’s all complex and layered, textures of voices and sounds interweaved. Much of the music is steeped in European filmic traditions as well as dance music, at times bombastic, at times offering plenty of light and shade. But overall it creates a volcano of sounds.
‘Berghain’ is epic, confrontational, featuring Rosalia in partnership with Bjork and Yves Tumor: “I’ll fuck you, ‘til you love me!” Throughout, it is exciting, stylistically all over the proverbial shop. From hip-hop to gangsta rap to histrionic flamenco. There’s even a sense of fear, being assaulted, beaten and battered by the Third Reich whilst listening to Magma. Much is grandiose in the extreme, over the top, like a Grand Guignol all in one album, for example in ‘Rumba Del Perdon’. It feels almost unbearable, like attending a dozen weddings and funerals whilst watching a backdrop of ‘The Godfather’ films on a massive screen.
‘Berghain’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi-9wS1so
Lemon Twigs: Look for your Mind!
Video: ‘Look for your Mind!’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H7lNUdr-CQ
This album is akin to a trip back in a time capsule to early surf music, to a world filled with tuneful pop harmonies and twangy guitars. Early on in the album, ‘2of 3’ provides jolly bubble-gum music. Soft, sunshine pop, I was minded of ‘Green Tambourine’ from the Lemon Pipers – maybe that’s what the Lemon Wigs want to evoke. ‘Gather Round’ is another earworm of a song, full of happy good cheer, a little reminiscent of Monkees’ Music! “You’re the reason I woke up in the morning!”…”Can’t get over loving you.”
This duo from Long Island, New York got me remembering the Lovin’ Spoonful and John Sebastian live at the Isle of Wight Festival. ‘Bring you down’ seems brim-ful of ‘Surfin’ Safari’, ‘I Hurt you’ sounds like an early Beatles-outtake, and Mary Wells-ish ‘My girl’ and Beatle Paul’s ode to Jane Asher, ‘And I love her’.
Pillarstone: Mono Lit
Described in the promo as, “Forging bold new frontiers in Celtic rock, Soul and Americana.” The album opens with ‘Run Fox Run’, and ‘September Sun’ with soft rock vocals and soaring electric guitar licks. A 60s vibe. ‘September Sun’ has an Irish folksy lilt to it, a plaintive love letter. Nice track. In fact the styles are a mixed bag from ballsy screamer rock aria on ‘Hammer that nail’ to a piercing guitar solo on ‘Wise Up’, the darker ‘Fog of War’ filled with plenty of powerful imagery, and a lot going on in the closer, ‘Call for Mercy’, which creates a repetitive soundscape a little akin to the territory of Steve Reich or Philip Glass with a lot going on, almost like the outro of ‘All you need is love’.
In between there are nods to commercial pop audiences in ‘What is this World’ and the Springsteen Americana and rockabilly of ‘All I want’. From Ireland’s Waterford, Pillarstone is led by bassist Paul J Bolger and drummer, Alex Soikans.
‘September Sun’ single has been out for a while now, but the album, ‘Mono Lit’ is a June 2026 release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Zckwq3UBk
Marisa Anderson: The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music
New to me (apart from featuring with God Speed You! Black Emperor), Marisa is a beautiful guitarist. It’s a guitarist’s guitar album. One for connoisseurs. Much finger-picking. From the intricacies of the opening track, ‘Qodlibet’ it offers a pristine quality. It is all about musical moods and textures. The music spans many cultures – none of them exactly American, though there are some American underpinnings from Appalachian styling. There’s a lot of Eastern influences and rhythms. Precision playing, sensuous, and rather serious sonorous sounds on tracks like ‘Sarvi Simin’. It requires attention, listening power.
Quality oozes from every nook and cranny of the tracks as they unfold like a complex many hundreds of years’ old Persian carpet. I could sense the cry of an Imam, the poetry of Rumi, Sufism. I’m guessing. The titles require research and understanding, like ‘Taqsim for Guitar’. That one resounds like an old John Fahey or Hot Tuna track. It’s perhaps more akin to classical guitar sonatas than folk music. It seems to be an experimental piece, created/reimagined from an uncredited Syrian improvisation.
In fact, Marisa is American, born in California. But she’s moved around a lot and absorbed many influences from older musical statesmen like Doc Watson through to Thurston Moore, who she has collaborated with. Another piece, ‘Rop Koh’ sounds oriental. It’s simple, almost-skeletal tonalities and seemingly oriental in origin. Apparently, the choice of music reflects the countries and cultures with which the USA has been in conflict since around 1970. Marisa apparently ‘mined’ the collection of musicologist, Harry Smith, for inspirations. It’s a bold experiment in sonics. Kind of transcendental.
At a live March 2026 gig in Seattle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABeeZ7S2C6o
Angine de Poitrine: Volume II Fabienk
I keep in touch with a lot of creative folk who are passionate about music. Just occasionally, lots of people are sending me links to new-to-me artists. This recently occurred as the duo from Quebec toured in the UK in support of their new album, ‘Volume II’. From Montreal, I believe, they describe themselves as “Space-time voyagers” and “…simply thrilled to play rock ‘n’ roll.” They offer in plentitude, “…drum grooves and intricate tangles of double-neck microtonal guitar.”
You can’t help to sway along to their intense, progressive, propulsive jazzy electronica. It was created to move to, to dance… Almost every track – they are almost entirely instrumental – starts with a slow-build and then explodes. ‘Mata Zyklek’ is a good example. It is erotic, jumpy, choppy, elastic rhythms. They wear matching masks and stage outfits. Very dotty. Surreal and Dada, Musical Theatre. Costumes and disguises which started as a kind of musical joke and is now fully embraced. Khn de Poitrine plays guitars with Klek de Poitrine playing drums. Sounds simple? But it is indeed simple, clever, intelligent in the same way Devo and White Stripes had something new to say. It’s immensely playful, dynamic – especially in the live setting (I have yet to witness them in full flow). It’s joyful, mischievous with hints of musical cultures and traditions from around the globe – Hungarian, Gypsy, Eastern, Turkish – polyrhythms and dissonance in the midst of dance grooves. I sensed them as electronica instrumental descendants of Manu Chao and Baba Zula. Thrilling and intriguing. Live Weirdness in a performance from Angine de Poitrine in a fund-raiser from Rennes in France on KEXP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi-9wS1so
Nubiyan Twist: Chasing Shadows
From the opener ‘Azimuth’, this is mellow jazz with an Afrobeat, and added powerful vocals from a variety of guests and their own vocal stylist, Eniola Idowu. It has a kind of scat, hip-hop edge to it through many of the tracks. Funk and percussive rhythms, delicate harmonies and some nice touches from the keyboards. There is sophisticated rap on ‘Red Herring, I think from Bootie Brown.
It is jazz, but melded with a spacey variety of musical twists and turns – making it very much the sound of much contemporary jazz circa 2026. Plenty of propulsive, hi-energy vocal turns, African beats in title track, ‘Chasing Shadows’ and fine performances from Mali’s Fatoumata Diawara and the Zawose Queens.
‘Chasing Shadows’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=894X9T_O-b8
.