Now Available – The Sonicbond On Track Sampler
We will be launching our first printed sampler later in May (July in the USA, TBC). In a handy pocket-sized format and retailing at a nominal £9.99 ($12.95 in the US), this will give key chapters from eight titles in the series. It will be available from all outlets at the end of May, including Burning Shed.
When we at Sonicbond Publishing published our first books in 2018, we were, of course, ambitious. But even we didn’t expect that by 2024, we would have published over 120 new titles in our flagship On Track series. To celebrate that fact, we are pleased to present our very first printed, pocket-sized sampler. This represents a brief dive into eight of our titles in the series across a wide range of music genres, including progressive rock, indie, classic rock, folk rock, singer-songwriter and metal. Other genres not included here but well represented in the series include punk, new wave, R&B and pop. We have On Tracks that range, time-wise, from the early 1960s right up to 2024!
While the On Tracks have a relatively strict series format, as you will see from these sample chapters, each author gets a great deal of leeway to put their own personal stamp on their subject. What we hope to achieve is a good mix of fact and opinion, and while the author’s voice is vital, we also encourage them to justify their opinions in detail and to avoid hyperbole. This is so that while the informed reader may not necessarily agree with the author on whether x album is the finest the subject has produced or whether y album should best have been consigned to oblivion, they can at least understand why the author has expressed their view. Feedback over the years has shown that this is a policy that seems to find favour with readers.
So, join me for a wander through some interesting albums. My own chapter on Yes’ seminal Fragile album finds the band rushing to take advantage of their first success, and cope with a precocious new keyboard player – a certain Rick Wakeman. Dominic Sanderson gives us The Good Son by Nick Cave, which saw the much-lauded singer-songwriter and his band The Bad Seeds relocate from London to Brazil. Journalist Kevan Furbank gives us his take on Fairport Convention’s 1969 album Unhalfbricking, featuring the Sandy Denny classic ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’, while writer John Van der Kiste discusses early Eagles on One Of These Nights. Led Zeppelin’s controversial Houses Of The Holy gets a detailed examination by Steve Pilkington, while New Zealander Peter Kearns discusses Joni Mitchell’s exquisitely tender Blue. To complete the book, metal expert Matt Karpe discusses Tool’s 1996 epic Ænima, and Scottish writer Peter Gallagher looks at The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s astonishing 1975 album Tomorrow Belongs To Me.
We hope you enjoy this little dive into just a few of our many books in the On Track series and beyond. If you have, then why not investigate more via our website and online shop at Burningshed.com. Genre-specific samplers may well follow, but in the meantime, enjoy!
Stephen Lambe