listening2... 25/01/25
I've been listening to... #14 in the series
listening2… is a series of regular posts on what I’ve been… well, listening to. Tracks from my travels. New songs and music to explore further. Half forgotten tracks from my collection. Roadtrip gems. If you like this post, let me know or, even better, let someone else know!
Here’s the 14th Listening2… since this publication began last March. The purpose of the series has always been t is to highlight tracks, bands and artists I’ve been listening to over the past few weeks. To find new (and old) music that you - the reader - might like to dig out.
Now we’re out of the marketing madness of yuletide, and into the new year’s promise; music always stays solid though. There’s always new tracks to discover and old tracks to love…
Listening2… #14: 18/01/2025
On this first listening2… playlist of 2025: Tracks from electronic style mixers, Porij; voice and LGBTQIA+ conscience of a nation, Liniker; dance and funk pioneers, Jungle; post-punk veteran and New Model Army’s lead singer, Justin Sullivan; and very different tracks from ex-Huggy Bear members, Jo Johnson and Chris Rowley (as punk band Adulkt)… Bonuses from Liniker, Jungle and 90s girl/boy revolutionaries, Huggy Bear.
1. Porij - Ghost
From their 2024 album, Teething
![Teething [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd8cd639b-3ccb-4362-9152-8a3f9348d918_894x894.jpeg "Teething [VINYL]: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl")
Teething has possibly 2024’s most off-putting looking record cover of the year if you’re a bit funny about teeth, but the stuff inside is awesome. Porij are a band who mix melodies and styles – but the vocals of Scout ‘Egg’ Moore guide this melange of sound into a set of beautifully crafted three minute pop songs with an electronic dance sensibility and a kind of St Etienne vibe.
It’s a lovely album actually and it was hard to choose the Listening2… track for this edition. I went for Ghost - partly for the beautiful guitar riff that opens the track, but honestly I could have chosen any of these songs. You can find the full album on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mfw9SM3KiWW6UBT5IHR5S8r7dJTG0VuDI
2. Liniker -
From her 2024 album, Caju
I came across Liniker on one of the Guardian’s excellent music features (find it HERE). Liniker, a black, transgender, working class artist (named after Gary Lineker on the suggestion of a football-loving uncle!) has become a massive star in her home nation, Brazil. Her work is explicitly queer-centred, political and sung in Portuguese. She’s also looking forward to meeting her namesake, the ‘progressive’ Gary, when she comes to perform in the UK in 2025.
The album is here on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_myNAa_7wgn_4PTodGQI4sThPX3iQDJ1W4&si=1n3l5aUn3An6Ff8_
There’s a special bonus video for you as well - an amazing Tiny Desk performance by Liniker and her band, The Caramelows - click on the footnote… 1
3. Jungle - Keep Me Satisfied & Let’s Go Back
new singles 2024 & 2025
Jungle produce brilliant, joyful, uplifting dance music. As in music to dance to and accompanying their songs with amazing dance-filled videos. The film version of their last album, Volcano, was one of the best things on YouTube around the end of 2023, and it still stands up. The dancing, production and choreography is breathtaking. You can find it in the bonuses below.2
You get two tracks for the price of one here, as it looks like Jungle are working up to another album (and film?) with a couple of excellent dance-laden music and video releases in the last few months.
Let’s Go Back (September 2024)
Keep Me Satisfied - January 2025
4. Justin Sullivan - Stone and Heather
From his 2020 album, Surrounded
Back in 2018, for my 60th birthday, I was given a ticket for A Beautiful Day Out at Eden at the Eden Project in Cornwall, a day version of the Beautiful Day festivals run by The Levellers. The lineup was intriguing. The Levellers themselves, of course, together with New Model Army, Reef, Dreadzone and Ginger Wildheart (who I didn't know, but was apparently born in the same town as me - South Shields - and had been in the Quireboys and the Wildhearts). I remember Dreadzone being, as always, amazing, The Levellers less so, and I can’t recall much of Reef or Ginger’s sets at all (sorry Reef and Ginger).
However, the best band on the day, for me was New Model Army. They weren’t a band I knew much about from the post punk 80s into which they emerged, but they were playing their latest album, Winter, and I was mightily impressed with it (even though they were playing it on one of the hottest days of that Cornish summer!).
Forward a couple of years and I was in Bath browsing in Chapter 22: Roots and Records, a wonderful little shop selling flowers and music. I came across an album called Surrounded by the lead singer of NMA, Jason Sullivan, and bought it on a whim and the recommendation of the owner, Dean, a knowledgeable and passionate post-punk aficionado. The album is great; one I revisit a lot. I’ve been listening to it again recently and was reminded of this track - Stone and Heather - it’s a great song:
Find the album playlist at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kTyrSIXRK-COLnERQ09PN9rtM9vW-3CzM&si=k5nymDOx9wDwa_fd and if you’re in Bath, definitely visit Chapter 22. It’s at 8 Broad St, Bath, BA1 5LJ: https://chapter22rootsandrecords.com
5. Jo Johnson - It Just Is The Love It Feels
From her 2024 album, Let Go Your Fear (Castles in Space)
The next two tracks on this list (numbers 5 and 6) are linked by the artists in question being in the same band in the early 90s - though their music is very different from each other now. Both Jo Johnson and Chris Rowley (see next track) were in the highly rated, anarchic band of ‘girl-boy revolutionaries’, Huggy Bear. More of them in the bonus section…3
Jo Johnson was the guitarist in said Huggy Bear and is now making DIY ambient electronica, released by the excellent and extensive Castles In Space label (see my piece on Moonbuilding magazine - sister publication to the label).
Her latest album, Let Go Your Fear, is a shimmering, lovely piece of work. Three long-form tracks that repeat, build, shift and transform as all the best ambient music does. As Jo explains: “The three tracks on the album are extracts from a long, free improvisation on an early summer’s day and shared with you unedited and unadorned.”
You can find the album on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n1Lal6RGh3ADLr_CLkJOH2l98FWoA51_0
On Bandcamp, you can buy the full album, including a gorgeous coloured vinyl version:
6. Adulkt - Relationship Studies
From their 2023 album, There Is No Desire
The second Huggy Bear related track is by Adulkt, the punk band fronted by ex-HB vocalist, Chris Rowley. Where Jo Johnson travelled from Riot Grrl, via Techno to downbeat DIY Electronica, Chris Rowley has returned – brilliantly – to a 90s-evoked, but entirely contemporary punk aesthetic and sound.
This song, Relationship Studies, opens their second album, There Is no Desire, and is typical of their offering: committed, pretty unrelenting - though none the worse for that. I love the opening bass riff!! It’s not cheery stuff though. It sounds a bit like the soundtrack to a bleak urban fantasy novel by China Miéville or someone (which is entirely a good thing, if you’re wondering).
And blow your anarchist’s whistle
That silent anarchist's whistle...
Annihilate. Procreate. Decimate.
Annihilate. Procreate. Decimate.
Class War on all floors
Class War with all force...There Is No Desire is on YouTube at: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l1oyh1QS5yVemPLqpkkzbZf0rT-T_8xrk&si=BSHkVLLw8bydfECJ
Apparently Chris Rowley described the first Adulkt album, Book Of Curses as the album, Huggy Bear would have made next. Find it at: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m931gWLcZi0-gONyPXpayPJrSxfGjxEI0&si=8_j9vz_SXqVkwm-C
Bonuses
Bonus 1: The NPR Tiny Desk concerts are some of the best things on the internet, and this session by Liniker e os Caramelows is a very special one. Here are three tracks which highlight Liniker’s incredible vocals and the musicianship of her band. Captivating and joyous…!
Bonus 2: VOLCANO - A MOTION PICTURE BY JUNGLE: this appeared on Youtube in December of 2023 and I was instantly smitten. I can thank
of Conspirituality podcast and here on Substack for this recommendation! It’s 49 minutes long and just gorgeous…Bonus 3: Huggy Bear. The early nineties ‘girl-boy revolutionaries’ were one of the most anarchic outfits around before the relative peacock charm and brashness of Britpop came in. They were a band for only three years, produced one album of their own (Weaponry Listens To Love), a joint album with Riot Grrl outfit, Bikini Kill (Our Troubled Youth) and handful of singles and EPs, including Her Jazz, which was the catalyst for a near riot at the studios of Channel 4 TV series, The Word in February 1993, presented by a mega-smug, ultra-preened Terry Christian, together with a bunch of other up themselves ‘yoof' TV’ presenters being ever so ironic. No wonder Huggy Bear went ballistic…
They also produced an EP collection album, Taking The Rough With The Smooch, which includes the studio version of Her Jazz, which is excellent:
This second video below shows the infamous The Word performance, which is…. well, interesting!! As well as the riotous performance itself, this version also shows some of the aftermath, which resulted in the band being ejected from the Channel 4 studios.