Old Fellas New Music Episode 95!!

Jenny on Holiday – Appetite

Big Thief – Los Angeles

Imarhan – Derhan N’Oulhine

CMAT – The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station

Jacob Collier – Norwegian Wood

Suede – Dancing With Europeans

Yungblud – Changes

Pulp – Spike Island

Allie X – 7th Floor

Notes

Jenny on Holiday – Appetite

A nice review in The Guardian for Jenny Hollingworth’s first solo album. Originally in the group Let’s Eat Grandma, the Guardian thinks this is great:

The record peaks with the archetypally perfect powerpop number Appetite and the genre-bending Do You Still Believe in Me? in which Hollingworth patchworks together breakbeats, vertiginously swooping vocals, squealing hair metal bombast and shoegazey dissonance, reminding us of her singular powers in the process.

Me too. A great pop number!

Appetite only has a visualizer video you can hear with this link

and just so you can see her perform – Every Ounce of me

Jenny on Holiday – Every Ounce of Me (Official Video)

Thanks The Guardian for this find. While this is her first solo album, she started recording when she was 16 – now 27!!

Imarhan – Derhan N’Oulhine

Love this song. Thanks again to The Guardian for this find!

Imarhan – Derhan N’Oulhine (Official Video)

Like always, music that is new to me.

This is their fourth album and you can read about it here in KLOF Magazine.

Known for a sound that transcends Tuareg tradition by weaving hypnotic synths into desert blues, Imarhan are embarking on a significant evolution. While their previous work drew from the foundational, guitar-driven legacy of groups like Tinariwen, ‘ESSAM’ signals a bold departure. The album—whose title means “lightning” in the Tamasheq language—moves toward a sound that is more open, modern, and exploratory.

apart from this, I am not finding out much about the band

Imarhan is an Algerian Tuareg desert rock quintet formed in 2006, in Tamanrasset, Algeria.^[1][2][3] Their first three albums were released on German record label City Slang.^[4]
But, going back to 2016, The Guardian (thanks) wrote abut their first album

Even in a less-than-full basement on a sodden Scottish night, they conjure up an alluring mood of campfire conviviality and bluesy soul-searching. The bass-led spiral of breakdowns and builds in Arodj N-Inizdjam inspires some impromptu dancing on the venue’s benches, while the upbeat Tahabort features suave lead guitar curlicues that would impress disco impresario Nile Rodgers. The overall effect is of a solid, traditional bedrock enlivened but not overwhelmed by outside influences. If Imarhan are the future of Tuareg music, it looks very bright.

The Guardian really likes this band and wrote a lot about them after their first album was released. Two of The Guardian music writers ranked them at one of the best of 2016.

Jacob Collier – Norwegian Wood

Sometimes the most interesting thing about a choice is the review

This review of Jacob Collier’s new album led me to choose Norwegian Wood. Collier does beautiful work on a variety of covers and this one is lovely. The reviewer remarks on its simplicity, something yoou don’t always read about Collier:

A common criticism of Collier’s music is that it is too technical and difficult for audiences without extensive knowledge of music theory to understand. While this may apply to his other albums, “The Light For Days” balances the intricacies of music with a style that appeals to broader audiences.

Collier performs a stripped-back rendition of “Norwegian Wood,” staying true to the song’s original harmonic structure and featuring an isolated melody in the vocal line. This track has a playful feel—as if Collier simply started recording a solo jam session—with its constant shift in focus between Collier’s baritone voice and his guitar.

this is the comment that helped me choose this – interesting

Previously, my sentiments about Collier were that his foremost audience was himself, followed by the small cohort of people who treat music like an exercise in analysis.

The video is a visualizer, but you still get to see Collier hiking in Rio De Janeiro’s Tijuca National Park.

Jacob Collier – Norwegian Wood [Official Visualiser]

Yungblud – Changes

another selection thanks to The Guardian. With an opening like this I had to add Yungblud

‘I’ve got a fearlessness to being laid bare’: how Yungblud became Britain’s biggest rock star

This seems to happen all the time Yungblud seems to be everything in England, but I have never heard of him. From the Guardian:

In 2025 the Doncaster-born singer-songwriter has earned two UK No 1s, three Grammy nominations and the respect of rock’s greats – and he says it’s all down to putting fans first.

In November, Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud, received three Grammy nominations. The news that he had become the first British artist in history to be nominated that many times in the awards’ rock categories came as a suitably striking finale to what, by any metric, was an extraordinary year for the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

So why this song pick?
Read further below:

In July, he played at Back to the Beginning, the farewell performance by Black Sabbath, whose frontman Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days after the gig. On a bill almost comically overstuffed with heavy metal superstars paying tribute – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, Slayer – his rendition of Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad Changes unexpectedly stole the show, appearing to win him an entirely new audience in the process: the crowd at the gig skewed considerably older than the gen Z fans Harrison traditionally attracts.

Allie X – 7th Floor

Allie X – 7th Floor (Official Visualizer)

Just a very cool song that I had to add to this week’s selection.

Very hard to find much about her, But Exclaim! reviewed her second aldum:

Whether it’s made explicit or not, albums that arrive hot on the heels of their predecessors usually stand in certain relation to them. Such is the case with Happiness Is Going to Get You, the latest from Canadian pop chameleon Allie X (born Alexandra Hughes), which forms a ghostly ’90s shadow cast by last year’s full-on ’80s homage, Girl with No Face.

But Wikipedia comes to the rescue

Alexandra Ashley Hughes was born on 31 July 1985 in the town of Oakville, Ontario.^[4] Her father is of British descent.^[12] Raised in an upper middle class family, she has described her upbringing as “privileged”.^[13] She attended the Etobicoke School of the Arts, then studied classical piano and voice at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and graduated from Sheridan College‘s Musical Theatre Performance program, and also studied musical theatre.^[14] During her adolescence, Hughes was diagnosed with an unnamed autoimmune disorder that caused her to be “small and sickly-looking.

Bob’s Notes

My Old Fella selections this week are all from one source, the venerable UK publication Mojo Magazine. I picked Mojo’s choices for top four albums of 2025.

Check all 50 out here.

Big Thief – “Los Angeles” – Double Infinity

Big Thief is a band formed in Brooklyn in 2015. Grammy nominations and acclaim followed. Los Angeles is a highlight from their latest.

It also sounds great live.

CMAT – “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” – Euro-Country

CMAT is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson an Irish musician and singer. She has released three studio albums, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead (2022), Crazymad, for Me (2023) and Euro-Country (2025).On 10 September 2025, Euro-Country was announced as one of 12 nominees for the 2025 Mercury Prize.

I love this song. CMAT is also very funny, like an Irish Jann Arden.

Suede – “Dancing With the Europeans” – Antidepressant

Suede was formed in London in 1989. By the early 1990’s they were one of the most popular bands in the U.K. Eventually they ran out of steam and broke up but in 2013 they reformed and have subsequently released another five albums.

Number 2 on the Mojo charts!

Pulp – “Spike Island” – More

Pulp formed in 1978 but hit their commercial peak in the mid 1990’s. Like Suede, they have had various sabbaticals but have reformed and are still going strong to this day. Mojo chose More as the album of the year.