The Listening Log

A wander through more new music featuring Finn Wolfhand, Debba and a growing suspicion that “pleasant enough, without being thrilling” may be the defining sound of modern pop.

Battling a June cold, miserable weather and post-holiday blues, while The The, Whitney Houston, The Amps and The Mothers of Invention provide the necessary medicine.

Home from Brazil, back in rainy Salford with a sleeping dog in the back seat, Black Lace on the stereo and the grim reality of unread work emails looming ever closer.

A Brazilian afternoon of beer, Jason Donovan, Graham Central Station, Tom Waits and Mozart, while quietly trying not to think about work next week

An overcast Brazilian morning featuring John Lennon, Erasure, Sepultura, Frankie Knuckles and the startling discovery that some music legends have been dead for years without anybody bothering to tell me.

The Listening Log returns internationally from Brazil with BB King in the headphones, relatives chatting in Portuguese nearby and Duke Ellington transporting me back almost a century.

A slight change of direction for The Listening Log this week as I wander through Spotify obscurities, vocoder fog and promotional write-ups more entertaining than the music itself.

Preparing mentally for two flights and a long journey to Brazil next week while drifting between 4Hero, Red Simpson, Dead Can Dance and Charli XCX on an ordinary Tuesday morning in Manchester.

Football promotion, new Stones music and election afternoon background noise drift together across a blurry, overfed week of recovery, politics and quiet office listening.