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• Hard to believe these passionless peddlers of diet dream-pop once supported the Jesus and Mary Chain and Deus. Their own web-biog – charming though it is – admits “the music of Secret Shine always sounded very derivative” and this showing continues that tradition, despite the promisingly moody photo of Clevedon Pier on the sleeve. There are good bits – ‘Perfect Life’ is a soft slice of Vangelis-meets-Electronic, ‘Every Thought’ shudders along under sweetly smouldering guitar, closer ‘Trying to Catch the End’ builds to a fine power-frazzle finale. Mostly, though, it’s sheeny guitarwash, over-processed into the middle-distance and layered with weird, heat-treated vocals like Cher drowning Enya in a vat of cliché-flavoured Angel Delight. Shame. (Mike White)
Copyright Mike White 2011
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THE BIG GIG
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Gary Numan
Mike White muses on the missing link between Kraftwerk and NIN. The same year as ‘Alien’, three years before ‘Blade Runner’, awkward, acne-ridden 21-year-old Gary Webb wrote a song called ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’. It sounded…23.04.2012 READ MORE -
Philharmonia/Ashkenazy
You have to feel sorry for any young pianist braving a Chopin concerto under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy. Poacher turned gamekeeper, Ashkenazy’s glittering career as a pianist was kick-started by success at the Warsaw Chopin…23.05.2012 READ MORE


‘The Beginning and the End’ (LP, self-released)





















































































































































































































