Fat Roland
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fatroland.bsky.social
Fat Roland
@fatroland.bsky.social
🎵 Music writer for Electronic Sound, veteran blogger, short story author
🎤 Comedian (Title Fight, Glang Show, A Lovely Time)
🍊 Operations droog for Anthony Burgess Foundation
💢 Was a sentient tower (grrrrrr)
Read my blog: https://fatroland.blogspot.com.
"My notes for the album contain phrases like "so very very dirty" and "the scuzz is mesmerising", and "gaaaawjeous" which may or may not be a word."

✍️ Read my new blog post: Bruise Blood cuts deep in Electronic Sound magazine fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/11/brui...
November 5, 2025 at 11:13 AM
The bestest fave thing I've seen in the past month is this. If you know, you know.
November 1, 2025 at 11:59 AM
"Before we discard October onto the laundry heap of forgotten month-pants (really need to work on those metaphors), let's listen to some music."

✍️ Read my new blog post: On the Fat Roland radar: a sunset, a head-spin and a marshmallowy James K fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/10/on-f...
October 31, 2025 at 10:40 AM
New mag klaxon. Issue 130 of Electronik Sound magazine is out today. Gary Numan is the kover star, and there are the usual interviews, reviews and excellent kontent. And yes, it kontains my 130th kolumn – this one's all about your kranium. www.electronicsound.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 11:28 AM
"It's a miserable tune, all minor chord and morose. The lyrics depict corporate fat cats as predators to be avoided – indeed, to be run away from."

✍️ Read my new blog post: Raves against the machine – Mr C (and Octo Octa) lead the way fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/10/rave...
October 3, 2025 at 8:44 PM
"It's basically him impersonating a late-career Michael Jackson ballad, with a bit of falsetto and some washboard abs thrown in for good measure. Meh."

✍️ Read my new blog post: Ultimate 90s Number One – Baby Spice, Baby D and a bunch of terrible Brothers fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/09/ulti...
September 28, 2025 at 8:03 PM
"Allan's riotous shows on Key 103 felt like a portal into something subversive, as if it was a private broadcast of all the stuff you weren't allowed to listen to."

✍️ Read my new blog post: Set for take-off – remembering Stu Allan fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/09/set-...
September 22, 2025 at 10:48 AM
"In an effort to reclaim the national debate, I have designed six flags dedicated to electronic music... Should flags have teeth?!"

✍️ New blog post: Full-mast hysteria – waving the flag for electronic music fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/09/full...
September 3, 2025 at 7:47 AM
"It reminds me a bit of Tycho and The Black Dog. The music, not the handbags ."

✍️ New blog post: Bochum Welt walks the catwalk with Jil Sander fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/08/boch...
August 31, 2025 at 10:07 PM
"Aggressive, rough, and enough to make a hamster spill its lapsang souchong,"

✍️ New blog post: The dark destroyers – my interview with Black Sites in the latest issue of Electronic Sound magazine fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-...
August 22, 2025 at 7:02 PM
"Underworld’s plump synth blaps are all over the Pantheress tune, and it works really, really well."

✍️ New blog post: Is this illegal? Pink Pantheress ushers Underworld back to the pop charts fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/07/is-t...
July 31, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Drunken Butcher In A Cat Cafe (July 2020). Originally published in issue 67 of Electronic Sound magazine
June 30, 2025 at 5:18 PM
"I remember the thrill of hearing our songs on those paint-splattered radios that scaffolders had."

✍️ Read my new blog post: Music for scaffolders – 808 State on Top Of The Pops fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/06/musi...
June 30, 2025 at 11:00 AM
"Please, let's have one good track. Please. I bow to the blogging gods, deliver us from musical mediocrity. PLEASE."

✍️ New blog post: Ultimate 90s number one – Several tragedies, a scally elf, and a bedroom musician saves the day fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/05/bedr...
May 30, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Comedy berks and book fools! Suzi Ruffell's coming to the Burgess Foundation in a few weeks to launch her memoir Am I Having Fun Now? It's likely to sell out, so snap up your ticket. She'll be in conversation with Jon Richardson. www.ticketsource.co.uk/serenity-boo...
May 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
G o double d.
May 8, 2025 at 11:54 AM
"'Off my box with four cans of Stella,' interrupts one wag, ruining the mood."

✍️ NEW blog post: Smileys for miles – 10 rave culture classics that you should listen to immediately fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/04/smil...
April 26, 2025 at 9:33 PM
This is what the Labour logo looks like without any LGBTQIA.
April 22, 2025 at 2:35 PM
"[Will Poulter's] shelves are cluttered with framed posters featuring the work of the TDR graphic design studio, which is beloved of techno heads and console gamers..."

✍️ NEW: Plaything posters – Black Mirror goes full Designers Republic fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/04/play...
April 18, 2025 at 11:18 AM
"I interviewed Wolfgang Flür for the latest edition of Electronic Sound.... This is the first time I've interviewed someone inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

✍️ NEW: Keeping it current with a former Man-Machine – An interview with Wolfgang Flür fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/04/keep...
April 17, 2025 at 7:49 AM
Today is Sleeve Notes launch day and there's a new issue of Electronic Sound in the shops. Same red colour. Is this a communist conspiracy?
April 12, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Ten writers, ten musicians, and 15 confused warthogs getting under everyone's feet. If that's the kind of event you like, then you're out of luck because tonight's Sleeve Notes album launch contains no warthogs whatsoever. It's sold out, but there is a waitlist. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sleeve-not...
April 12, 2025 at 11:28 AM
"The song was sexy and sinful, which left the religious 17-year-old Fats quaking in my cassock. Even more transgressively, they spelled 'sadness' wrong,.."

✍ NEW blog post: When monks dropped the hottest track of 1991 fatroland.blogspot.com/2025/04/when...
April 10, 2025 at 5:55 PM
I like that, because of BBC News's commitment to the regions, Pulp's new album is labelled as South Yorkshire news.
April 10, 2025 at 3:24 PM
First they came for Pingu...
April 6, 2025 at 4:59 PM