Things we like

THIS is "I like" week as far as I'm concerned. I'm just going to concentrate on stuff which I know I'll enjoy, because if I'm honest I get really hacked off with hacking records to pieces.

Ironically, it's much easier to write about awful music: you just roll up your sleeves and moments later, as if by magic, you've got a column written and there's smoke billowing out of your computer and your ears.

It doesn't make me feel good, though. There's already too much negative energy in the world at large - er, man - and the thought that I'm adding to it is a bit disheartening. This time round, therefore, I'm gathering a clutch of goodies around me like spiritual lifebelts, starting with two new releases from bands I have long championed, namely Electrasy and Freak Circus.

Electrasy, as many of you will know, coalesced right here in Dorset then embarked upon a high-flying odyssey which took them around the world and ultimately brought them back home, bloodied but decidedly unbowed.

The music business has a regrettable habit of chewing the very heart and soul out of its most worthwhile sons and daughters, but Electrasy are made of sterner stuff. Rather than lick their wounds, they have opted to proudly flaunt them instead - see www.electrasy.com and note their inspirational new mantra, "music without industry".

Wired For Dreaming, Electrasy's third album, has been a long time in record company limbo but has now found a sympathetic home with Simon Felton's Pink Hedgehog label, refuge of many a local scoundrel including myself. The minute I write anything about bands I know, I always leave myself wide open to accusations of nepotism - but as ever, you just have to listen to the albums yourself and tell me if I'm being fair.

Wired For Dreaming will silence any nay-sayers within the first four bars of the Can-like motorik groove of opening track Far Away. The whole album exudes a bold confidence and an immediacy which is beyond the reach of most contemporary rock bands this side of The Killers.

Artful lyrics express a measure of the discontent the band must have been feeling at the time of recording - "no dignity, only money shares and industry, stupidity, sits in office and dictates to me" (White Noise) - and it's tempting to surmise that Steve Atkins' extraordinary, twisted guitar lines express his frustration in the most overt fashion. He just about pulls the strings right off the neck in the solo for Roll It Up, a hit single in waiting if ever I've clocked one.

You can, and emphatically should, buy Wired For Dreaming from www.pinkhedgehog.com - where you'll also find Freak Shall Inherit The Earth, the first album for the label from stalwarts of the South Coast gig circuit, Freak Circus. The press release accompanying this album rather flatteringly includes quotes I've written about the band in the past - but the best part is listening to the album and being reassured that I was right about them all along. They really do sound as though they absorbed all the best music from punk's first wave then went surfing with it in the cosmos.

The trash aesthetic which informs the likes of Sex Vampire - all one minute and 57 seconds of it - is alchemised into diamonds in the hands of The Freaks. And speaking as we just were of hit singles in waiting, the punk/pop perfection of My Lullaby and It Took Some Time provide ample proof that there's real substance underpinning the band's irreverent stance.

While we're nominally on the topic of the local live circuit, don't miss the chance to catch Kate Rusby tomorrow night at The Lighthouse, Poole (£18.50/£16.50 students/under-18s, tickets from 08700 668701).

The Yorkshire-based folk figurehead is in characteristically fine voice on her new album Awkward Annie. Her clear-eyed lyrics, no-nonsense diction and crisp vocals are way sexier than she could possibly imagine - and the inclusion of her version of The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society as a bonus track just puts the proverbial tin lid on this as an album which I will be taking to my dungeon time and again.

I leave you with the great Kenny Anderson - King Creosote to you and I - who proves that an unadorned Scottish accent need not be an impediment to understanding nor indeed emotional resonance on his latest album Bombshell.

You want to shake his hand for the lyrical deftness of You've No Clue Do You, you want to buy him a pint for the affable pathos of Cowardly Custard ... then you want to move away a bit when it comes to the surprisingly creepy title track.