JOHN McKAY'S REACTOR & MIKI BERENYI TRIO

The Scream, the debut album from Siouxsie & the Banshees, was released late enough in the punk era to bear some claim as the first post-punk album, with only minor traces of 'punk' and enough hints of what had come even earlier to feel utterly new. Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, but the sonic dynamo was John McKay, composer of most of the album's music and hit singles, such as Hong Kong Garden, while simultaneously creating a wholly new guitar sound that was harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating, best articulated by a confounded Steve Albini many years later, "... only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". Many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades credited John as a major influence, including Geordie from Killing Joke, Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2's The Edge, Thurston Moore, Johnny Marr, and even the two guitarists who followed him into The Banshees - The Cure's Robert Smith and Magazine's John McGeoch. Sixes And Sevens is an historic lost album bearing fair claim as the lost treasure of the post-punk era, the album collects eleven compelling studio tracks. A prelude to the great surprise of John's return to live performance, with a fresh new band and a number of live shows in the offing. John McKay's Reactor will feature the lad 'imself on guitar, Jen Brown (The Priscillas) on vocals, Jola (Adam & The Ants, The Priscillas) on drums, and Billy King on bass.

Miki Berenyi Trio, or MB3 for short, is named after its lead singer – a direct way to convey the presence of the former singer/co-guitarist of Lush, and one of the most instantly recognisable faces of the ‘90s. However, the songwriting is entirely a three-way collaboration by Miki Berenyi, KJ ‘Moose’ McKillop and Oliver Cherer, as the album title highlights, while acknowledging the mother tongue of Miki’s father: Tripla is Hungarian for ‘triple’.

Tripla’s richly layered, imaginative and uniquely slanted strain of dream pop is an often euphoric and sometimes melancholic mix of guitars and electronica, fronted by Miki’s instantly recognisable vocal, overlaid with an often profound and sometimes abrasive view of our age. But whether fearing the effects of macho aggression, the solipsism of social media and the race to environmental destruction, particularly for our children, or mourning lost loved-ones and middle-of-the-night anxiety, the shoegaze pioneers continue to imbue their politically charged legacy with upbeat optimism and a sense of humour.