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Heading For The Ditch: Smog and Will Oldham

Ben Thompson, The Independent, February 2000

IT'S ONLY THE first week in February and already spring's sonic daffodils are poking through the boy-band mulch. Those who feared they would live their whole lives without seeing Mercury Rev and Tony Christie in the same top 20 singles chart can now rest easy. And a double bill of albums every bit as deliciously twisted as that unlikely coupling has got 1999 off to a flyer in the long-playing stakes. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's I See A Darkness and Knock Knock by Smog are the sort of records decades get remembered for, never mind years.

Total word count of piece: 1151

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