Artist Choice | 160gig blog

Artist Choice: Karen Lawrence

by Tim | Dec 9, 2017 | 0 Comments

"It was 1994:'s Karen Lawrence who gave the others the choice of being second best or giving up" (Geoff Barton in Sounds) Every so often a great album or a truly talented artist spends their entire career toiling away just below the awareness of all but a lucky few...

Artist Choice Part One – Samantha James

by Tim | Jan 21, 2017 | 0 Comments

In 2009 one of my discoveries was Samantha James. You can get the basic bio here. On the surface one of the stable of EDM artists that OM Records offer to the world, there is a certain something about the mix of her voice, the production, and the slightly hippy trippy...

Dream Syndicate – Medicine Show: I Know What You Like (4 CD Deluxe Edition)

by Tim | 5 October 2025 | album review | 0 Comments

When my Americana UK colleague Paul Kerr posted on the dreaded socials about the 40th Anniversary edition of ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ late in 2023, I needed no persuading to invest in my third copy of the album with its lovely book and intriguing extras. The hope...

We’ve got five years, what a surprise!

by Tim | 18 September 2025 | Music discovery | 0 Comments

No I'm not going to start singing Bowie, but it is 5 years since I started my CD store on Discogs. I’ve sold nearly 19,500 discs in that time, and I thought it would be interesting to work out who the most popular artists have been over the 5 years. This is of course...

Album review: Rain Parade – “Crashing Dream” deluxe edition

by Tim | 17 August 2025 | Uncategorised | 0 Comments

Having reviewed the 40th anniversary reissue of “Emergency Third Rail Power Trip” over at Americana UK last December I had rediscovered my love for all things Paisley Underground. So, the notice about this issue of “Crashing Dream” dropping into my inbox was cause for...

So that didn’t go according to plan…

by Tim | 26 July 2025 | Uncategorised | 0 Comments

Having made all sorts of promises about featuring lots of exciting things from the “big box of discs” I promptly had the biggest down spike in M.E. for 10 years. That meant that it was triage time and doing enough to keep earning a living became the priority and...

Yet more Power Pop…

by Tim | 22 June 2025 | Uncategorised | 0 Comments

I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Go All The Way: A Literary Appreciation of Power Pop. Edited by Paul Myers and S. W. Lauden it’s a mine of information and opinion. With What is Power Pop being almost as common a question as What is Americana, and just as...