25 For 25, Part One

As far as I'm concerned, 2025 has been a great year for new music, some long-term favourites returning with new albums, others discovered for the first time. 

In fact, I struggled to come up with a single 45-minute selection, so sod it. I did two. More by accident than design, the second one came in at 13 songs which, added to this dozen, conveniently delivers 25 highlights from 2025. So far.

I'm going to hold onto Side Two until next Sunday. In the meantime, surround yourself with some wonderful songs from some wonderful albums (and two singles).

1) Patient Has Own Supply: Constant Follower (The Smile You Send Out Returns To You)

2) Dating A Model: Emily Breeze (Rats In Paradise)

3) The Blue: Mumble Tide (Might As Well Play Another One)

4) Who This World Is Made For. (Mindful Edit): Ellen Beth Abdi (Ellen Beth Abdi)

5) Burning Bridges: The Cowboy Mouth (Faultlines)

6) have you ever had a broken heart? (Album Version): senses (all the heavens)

7) Old Oak Road (2025 Mix): Mike Smalle ft. Cathal Coughlan & Jah Wobble (Ghosts EP)

8) 1st World Blues: Bright Eyes (1st World Blues EP)

9) Signs: Olafur Arnalds / Talos (A Dawning)

10) You Know It Ain't Right: Pearl Charles (Desert Queen)

11) Good To Cry: Robert Forster (Strawberries)

12) I Materialize: Destroyer (Dan's Boogie)

Side One (45:29) (GD) (M)

Nomates Put A Foot In It

Metalhorse by Billy Nomates is a standout album of 2025, and Nothin' Worth Winnin' a standout song.

Good news therefore that it's been officially released as a single. Not only that, but with a brilliant video directed by Tia Salisbury and co-starring the inimitable Paul Foot. 

It all starts with an exchange of phone messages.

Tor: "Hey Paul, not heard from you in a while. Had a thought. Me and you, let's go to the fair. Let's get on some rides, let's play some games, just go and have some fun."

Paul: "Hi Tor, thanks for your message. Would you mind if we didn't go? I'm just really not in the mood for that sort of thing. Um, if you really, really want to go, I will go with you, um, but i would really rather not. Thanks."

They go, of course.

A superb video to complement a superb song. Possibly the best music you'll see and hear all day.

Friday Camp Out At The Shops

In other words, it's Bandcamp Friday and I am poised to purchase.

I already had a long list, including

‘Aphex Meets Some Simple Minds Uptown’: sLEdger

Disturbia: Phonolab (Gaudi & Eraldo Bernocchi)

Don't Leave Me This Way (Cover of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes): Crooked Man

La Musica (2025 Version): Munk & Kapote

Vertigo: Michele Mininni

Wise Music In Dub: Dennis Bovell

...and here are five more new releases that have jumped the queue from Bicep, Bright Eyes (gone ska!), Cardiacs, Adrian Sherwood and Daphni aka Dan Snaith.

Tame Impala's new single isn't available on Bandcamp, but it's so good I had to include it. And, based on the shite weather in this neck of the woods in the past few days, calling the song The End Of Summer perhaps wasn't as premature as I first thought...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Does Your Misfortune Give Me Such Pleasure...?

Baxter Dury has had a rum deal on these pages. I've only featured him once previously, as part of a Dubhed selection in November 2022 and even then it was an instrumental!
 

Back then, Minsky Rock - aka Sydney Minsky-Sargeant (Working Men's Club) and Russ Orton (ex-Fat Truckers) - took  "the basic cells of a sleepy spoken word number and [turned] it into a bastard 80s electro animal". 

This time, Baxter has teamed up with Paul Epworth, who first piqued my curiosity with his remixes as Phones in the early 2000s, including Banquet by Bloc Party and The Futureheads' cover of Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush. In 2025, similarly exciting music has resulted.

“I don’t want to say it’s contemporary,” Baxter drily observes. “Because I sound like a c**t using that word. But it does sound really contemporary."

If I'm honest, new single Schadenfreude reminds me more of those heady early years of the 21st century, but that's no bad thing. Baxter inhabits this new musical clothing like a well worn suit and his world weary narrative plays off well against the pulsing, exuberant melody. 

Guest vocals from JGrrey aka Jennifer Clarke add to the feel and the Gareth Bowen-directed video seals the deal.

Baxter's ninth album, Allbarone, is out in September and, after twenty plus years of dipping in and out of his music, it's shaping up to be my first.

And if the album title conjures up some exotic Mediterranean setting, separate it into three three-character words and it'll bring it somewhat closer to home and a less salubrious setting...

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I was in a hotel in Stockholm

Waiting for you to call

But you were off with that doughnut

Laughing behind my back

Then I read a bitter review

About a band you're in

To be honest

I got schadenfreude

Déjà vu on the hotel foyer

Ignored the thing you said

Back flips on MDMA

An aisle seat on a cheap airline

Trying to get to Lithuania

I think of you to calm my nerves

A busy stage will solve my pain

And you'll be another ghost

That never knew how much I thought about...

Thought about...

But I still got schadenfreude

Déjà vu on the hotel foyer

Ignored the thing you said

Back flips on MDMA

Ignored the thing you said

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I got schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

I got schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude 

We’re Both Losers Too

We Don't Count is a collaboration between Yves Tumor, a longtime favourite here, and NINA, who is completely new to me. 

A quick look on Discogs reveals that We Don't Count was released as a limited edition one-sided vinyl 7" for Art Book Fair 2025 at ArtCenter College Of Design in Pasadena, California, which ran from 15th to 18th May.

Thankfully, Warp Records are making it available to a global audience via the usual channels, describing We Don't Count as 

"Less a duet than a shared hallucination 

— a hook-dense piece in which Yves Tumor and NINA 

lean into bass-driven post-punk, 

melding propulsive rhythm 

with serrated guitar stabs and hypnotic vocal melodies, 

unveiling a new side to both artists’ oeuvres."

Yes to all of that. Or, in other words, it's on the shopping list for tomorrow's Bandcamp Friday.

Yves Tumor aka Sean Bowie has been releasing music for over a decade, on Warp since 2018, spanning multiple styles and genres, all never less than interesting, so a delve into the back catalogue is recommended. 

And, if you didn't catch it first time around, Yves' performance at Glastonbury was a highlight of 2022. Stick to the closing song, Secrecy Is Incredibly Important To The Both Of Them, just brilliant.

And, a little keyboard tapping and skim reading reveals that NINA is Nina Cristante, born in Rome, based in London and an "artist, musician, nutritionist & personal trainer". An interesting combination, for sure.

Unsurprisingly, it's another case of me coming extremely late to the party, as NINA has been releasing music for at least as long as Yves Tumor,  with four self-released albums - including collaborations and two soundtracks - between 2015 and 2025.

Fortunately, NINA's catalogue is well represented on Bandcamp with the perfectly timed and self-explanatory Compilation added to the list last month. If you like We Don't Count, odds are that you will enjoy NINA's solo music and that of her 'other' job in bar italia.

Fingers crossed that there's more to come from Yves and Nina's partnership.

 

Culture Clash

Listening again to Monkey Mafia's dub-infused cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival at the weekend, go me thinking about another of Jon Carter's excursions into Jamaican culture.

This in turn prompted a delve into the archives of my old blog, and an album review from 11th February 2007, namely Two Culture Clash, an intriguing compilation first issued 23rd August 2004. 

What did my younger self think of it? Over to, er, me.

This Wall Of Sound release purports to be an innovative creative pairing of electronic music producers with (predominantly Jamaican) reggae/dancehall greats. The sleeve notes even go so far as to sniffily dismiss other efforts as a “half-baked, ham-fisted assemblage of dancehall vocals grafted onto electronic beats in a studio on the other side of the Atlantic”. 

So, has bringing the producers to Jamaica and locking them in a studio with the island’s “lyrical wordsmiths” produced the “unprecedented” success that writer David Katz clearly believes it is? Well, of course not. 

There are some undeniably great moments on this album, but be under no illusion that Two Culture Clash has resulted in something completely new. Instead, the producers seem to have moulded their sound to complement the performers, most of whom dish out the lyrical clichés that both characterise and damn the musical genre. 

If you can accept that this won’t be the earth-shattering, life-changing album that the hype suggests, then you can settle back and enjoy nearly an hour’s worth of good music. 

How Do You Love? is a deliberate shot at the charts, with Jon Carter bringing out the best in vocalists Patra (who guested on his Monkey Mafia single Work Mi Body) and Danny English*.

The two Jacques Lu Cont tracks - …And Dance and Na Na Na Na – are perhaps the album’s dancefloor highlights, with a minimal, pulsing beats that prove impossible to resist. General Degree provides vocals on both, but the addition of Ce’Cile on the latter is like a pumped up version of Cookies by Ciara. 

It should be no suprise that Roni Size doesn’t disappoint on Knock Knock, a muscular rhythm suiting Spragga Benz’s rough monotone delivery, whilst West London Deep’s Rudie No! featuring Big Youth comes on like The Specials in space. 

There are inevitably a couple of disappointments. Kid606 seems uncharacteristically restrained on This Anuh Rampin’ and it’s left to Switch on the subsequent Love Guide (featuring Ms. Thing) to take the sound in an abstract direction that the Kid is usually more than capable of. 

Phillipe Zdar (Cassius/Motorbass) injects Get Crazy with an infectious, pulsating rhythm, let down only by Innocent Kru’s tired (and tiresome) lyrics. But these are small gripes. 

Elsewhere, Howie B. and Horace Andy team up for Fly High, a dub extravaganza that is arguably the best song that Massive Attack never recorded, whilst Justin Robertson’s retro dancehall ballad Save Me closes the album. 

Showcasing a vocal from Nadine Sutherland and Ernie Ranglin, Save Me is guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine… and get you skanking uncontrollably. 

As long as you skip the sleeve notes' hyperbole , then Two Culture Clash is a great album. It's not as ground breaking as it's instigators think it is, but it is worth more than a casual listen.

As a 2025 footnote, I recall buying this CD via eBay for a few quid, as part of my quest to plug gaps in my collection of Justin Robertson's music (which I'm still trying - and failing - to do today). A look on Discogs reveals that you can still easily pick up a copy for less than a fiver, postage included.

* I was sad to discover when creating the artist links that Danny English aka Donald Cox died on 23rd January this year, aged just 54. 

You Haven't Found A Way To Kill Me Yet

Jehnny Beth has featured here plenty of times as the host of the excellent ARTE Concert series, but not once as frontperson of Savages or as a solo artist.

Time to redress that criminal oversight with a trio of songs from Jehnny's upcoming album, You Heartbreaker, You, crashing into our lives - and ears - on 29th August.

All three videos are co-created with Jehnny's partner, Johnny Hostile, and are a perfect complement to the primal energy of the music. 

Play loud, scream louder.

Immediately prior to the album release, Jehnny willl be performing two nights at the Rock 'n' Roll Circus in Sheffield. The week after, she will be in Liverpool, Nottingham, Bristol and London for a series of Rough Trade in-store signings, followed by a European tour.

 

 

Covered Dub

Back in April, I posted Under Dub Covers, a selection of reggae and dub cover versions and it was well received, so here's the follow up!

Fourteen tracks this time, a 50/50 split between reggae and dub, 60s-90s and 21st Century, but 100% certified excellent. Well, the tunes, if not the sequencing!

Some of my all-time favourite singers are featured, opening with Pat Kelly and Marcia Griffiths, taking in Horace Andy, Dennis Brown and Jackie Edwards and, more recently, Shniece McMenamin.

Sly & Robbie, Adrian Sherwood and Lee 'Scratch' Perry feature heavily throughout, whether up front or in the studio.

This week in 1985, I Got You Babe by UB40 "with guest vocals by" Chrissie Hynde first entered the UK singles chart at a modest #22. It was Top 5 a couple of weeks later and #1 a couple of weeks after that. 

There was a dub version on the flip side but no extended version on the 12", so I've taken the liberty of creating my own edit for this selection. I've literally spliced the dub intro and outro with (most of) the vocal version. A dub sandwich, if you will, crackles and all.

1) Stoned In Love (Cover of 'I'm Stone In Love With You' by The Stylistics): Pat Kelly (1979)

2) It's Too Late (Cover of Carole King): Marcia Griffiths (1974)

3) A Wonderful Version (Cover of Louis Armstrong): Rhoda Dakar ft. Natty Campbell (2023)

4) Safe From Harm (Album Version By Adrian Sherwood) (Cover of Massive Attack): Horace Andy (2022)

5) Night Nurse (Dub With Vocal) (Remix By Mick Hucknall) (Cover of Gregory Isaacs): Sly & Robbie ft. Simply Red (1997)

6) To Love Somebody (Album Version By Lee 'Scratch' Perry) (Cover of Bee Gees): Busty Brown (1969)

7) The Model Dub (Cover of 'Das Modell' by Kraftwerk): Prince Fatty ft. Shniece McMenamin (2020)

8) Chase The Devil (Adrian Sherwood Dub) (Cover of Max Romeo): Dubblestandart ft. Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Coshiva & Emch (2014)

9) I Got You Babe (Dub Sandwich Re-Edit By Khayem) (Cover of Sonny & Cher): UB40 ft. Chrissie Hynde (2025)

10) Long As I Can See The Light (Adrian Sherwood's Dub Lighting) (Cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival): Monkey Mafia ft. Shirzelle (1998)

11) Dock Of The Bay (Cover of '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of Tthe Bay' by Otis Redding): Dennis Brown (1972)

12) Everything I Own (Dub Version By Stewart Levine) (Cover of Bread): Boy George (1987)

13) All Shook Up (Cover of Elvis Presley): Jackie Edwards (1979)

14) Exodus (Dubvisionist Dub) (Remix By Felix Wolter) (Cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers): Tackhead (2011) 

1969: The Upsetter: 6

1972: Superstar: 11

1979: So Proud: 1

1980: All Shook Up EP: 13

1987: Everything I Own EP: 12

1997: Night Nurse EP: 5

1998: Long As I Can See The Light EP: 10

2011: Exodus EP: 14

2014: Dubblestandart In Dub: 8

2015: Play Me / Sweet And Nice (Expanded Edition): 2

2020: Disco Deception Dubplate LP: 7

2022: Midnight Rocker: 4

2023: What A Wonderful World EP: 3

2025: I Got You Babe (bootleg MP3): 9

Covered Dub (59:23) (GD) (M)

You can find Under Dub Covers here

A few cover versions that didn't make today's final selection were produced by the legend that is Dennis Bovell. That didn't sit right with me so, as compensation, I've restored links to the two DB-themed selections that I've previously posted. With the above, that's pretty much four hours of dub nutrition!

Weakened/Weekend In Dub (August 2023)

From Conception To The Grave (October 2021)

Two Party System

"Another Gecko Production" compilation CD-R, circa 2004, featuring some seriously heavyweight tunes.

Gecko is one of the aliases used by my brother for his mixtapes and CDs in the early 21st Century. He was living in Japan at the time, and we'd continue to swap DIY compilations with each other as a shorthand musical postcard of where we were at.

Spanning South West England to West Coast America and some wild zig zags in between, it's a reminder of how much exciting new music was coming out in the early 2000s. There are also plenty of nods to what had come in the decade before. Listening to the NaS track for the first time in a long while sent a shiver down my spine.

I've tweaked a couple of the versions included here, either because I don't have the album versions or because the remix alternative is so good. In the mid-2000s, I discovered McSleazy aka Grant Robson, who posted a load of bootleg mash-ups and remixes online. I particularly liked his darker take on the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and today's pick by Kelis. 

Likewise, the version of Dreamy Days by Roots Manuva is a low slung relick by Lotek aka Wayne Bennett that appeared on the Exclusives!, a NME cover-mounted CD in 2001.

Harmonic 33 is one of the many nom de plumes used by Mark Pritchard, after Global Communication and way before he started making music with Thom Yorke. Harmonic 33 is a collaboration with Dave Brinkworth and not to be confused with Harmonic 313, another of Mark's solo ventures. Honestly, you need a sat nav to find your way through his vast body of work...!

Great to hear Definition Of Sound again, who should have been massive beyond the handful of hit singles.  My fact-obsessed brain was fascinated to discover that Pass The Vibes - and second album Experience - was co-produced by Chris Hughes (Adam & The Ants, Tears For Fears) and Jack Hues (Wang Chung). Every day is a learning day!

The mix opens heavy with Massive Attack featuring Mos Def and closes with a Serge Gainsbourg-sampling classic from David Holmes. Not a second wasted from start to finish.

1) I Against I: Massive Attack ft. Mos Def (2002)

2) Where Have They Gone: Harmonic 33 (2002)

3) The Seed (2.0): The Roots ft. Cody ChesnuTT (2002)

4) Trick Me (McSleazy Remix By Grant Robson): Kelis (2004)

5) Dreamy Days (Lotek Bonanza Relick) (Remix By Wayne Bennett): Roots Manuva (2001)

6) What Goes Around (Album Version By Salaam Remi): Nas (2001)

7) Natural Mystic (Ital Mix By Matt Green): Bob Marley (2001)

8) Solid As A Rock (Hexadecimal Edit By Steve Osborne): Bim Sherman (1996)

9) Year 2000: Smith & Mighty ft. Niji 40 & Louise Decordova (1999)

10) Evolution Revolution Love (Album Version): Tricky ft. Ed Kowalczyk & Hawkman (2001)

11) Television, The Drug Of The Nation (Album Version By Jack Dangers & Mark Pistel) (cover of The Beatnigs): The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy (1992)

12) Pass The Vibes (Album Version): Definition Of Sound (1995)

13) California Love (Long Radio Edit): 2Pac ft. Dr. Dre & Roger Troutman (1995)

14) Temple Head (Zenana Mix By Aki Nawaz & Paul Tipler): Transglobal Underground (1991)

15) Don't Die Just Yet (Album Version): David Holmes (1997)

1991: Temple Head EP: 14

1992: Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury: 11

1995: California Love EP: 13

1996: Experience: 12

1996: Solid As A Rock EP: 8

1997: Let's Get Killed: 15

1999: Big World Small World: 9

2001: Blowback: 10

2001: NME Exclusives!: 5

2001: Remixed Hits: 7

2001: Stillmatic: 6

2002: Extraordinary People: 2

2002: Phrenology: 3

2002: Special Cases EP: 1

2004: Trick Me (bootleg MP3): 4

Two Party System (1:13:35) (GD) (M)

Unselfish Love

Another "one of those weeks" which I won't be sorry to see the back, whilst simultaneously fretting that 2025 is frittering away.

Music is the cure for all that ails ye, and that goes double for disco, especially on a Friday. I'm 99.9% sure that none of today's picks have appeared in previous Dubhed selections, so wrap your ears around these beauties.

Even the tech is less laggy, compared to yesterday. Music is the answer!

1) It's A Love Thing (Album Version By The Whispers, Dick Griffey & Leon Sylvers): The Whispers (1980)

2) I Got Protection (Album Version By Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards): Chic (1980)

3) Do Or Die (A Tom Moulton Mix): Grace Jones (1978)

4) You Can Do It (Special U.S. Disco Mix): Al Hudson & The Partners (1979)

5) Never Change Lovers In The Middle Of The Night (Album Version By Frank Farian): Boney M. (1978)

6) Macho Man (Special Edit By Jacques Morali): Village People (1978)

7) Over And Over (Full Length Disco Mix By Harvey Fuqua & Wes Bradley) (Cover of Ashford & Simpson): Sylvester (1977)

1978: Do Or Die EP: 3

1978: I Am What I Am EP: 6

1978: Nightflight To Venus: 5

1979: You Can Do It EP: 4

1980: Imagination: 1

1980: Real People: 2

2002: François K: Choice: A Collection of Classics: 7

Unselfish Love (44:26) (GD) (M)