Press

ARTIST: VINNY PECULIAR

New ALBUM ‘The Curse of You Know Who’ CD Vinyl Download

Release date 11^th SEPT 2026

1 The Curse

2 Billy Liar

3 Katy Perry in Space

4 AI Girlfriend

5 Wormhole

6 Flat Earth

7 Runcorn Abductions

8 New Dark Ages

9 The Velvets

10 Moon Landing

Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes] has been putting out records for over twenty years to considerable critical acclaim. ’The Curse of You Know Who’ is his sixteenth long player, a hard rock guitar driven offering inspired in part by popular conspiracies. An introspective take on Moon Landing looks back to a live school assembly TV viewing and childhood dreams of astronautics. Flat Earth stars podcast luminaries Brian Cox and Tim Peake, marooned on the space station looking for answers. Songs alternative realities include UFOs in Runcorn, Katy Perry in Space and an AI Girlfriend. Huge guitars and fey prog rock lyrism make epic album opener ‘The Curse’ feel like a ready-made post-power pop classic. ’Billy Liar’, the king of making stuff up, reflects in all seriousness on the most important film ever made. ‘The Curse of You Know Who’ is a playful testimony to fuzzy truths, iffy memories and contemporary misinformation, reimagined with Peculiar’s alluring and at times fantastical wordplay, adding yet more creative weight to of the one the UKs most uniquely individual songwriters.

Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes] grew up in Worcestershire and trained as a nurse before signing to Manchester cult label Ugly Man records [former home to Elbow]. He’s since put out thirteen albums of literate autobiographical pop music over a twenty-year career and has regularly toured band, solo and duo shows.

Variously described as – ‘an under sung national treasure’ [UNCUT] – ‘a warm-hearted Morrissey’ [Q Magazine] and ‘the missing link between Jarvis Cocker and Roger McGough’ [Irish Times] previous work associations include Bill Drummond [KLF], Luke Haines [the Auteurs], Jah Wobble [PIL] and his various bands have included ex members of The Smiths, OASIS, Aztec Camera & The Fall. He’s also written and recorded as Parlour Flames, the band he formed in 2013 with ex OASIS rhythm guitarist Bonehead.

Vinny Peculiar, often described as a poet laureate of the everyday, is a singer-songwriter known for his sharp wit, poignant storytelling, and a knack for capturing the quirks of modern life. With a career spanning decades, his music blends elements of indie, folk, and pop, creating a sound that is both nostalgic and refreshingly original.

NEW ALBUM ‘The Curse of You Know Who’ expected Sept 2026

Press notes n quotes….

‘The missing link between Jarvis Cocker and poet Roger McGough’ IRISH TIMES

‘If Tony Hancock had made pop records, they’d have sounded like this’ UNCUT MAGAZINE

Part Pulp, part Kinks, and very much part Peculiar, this is observational, punk-tinged songwriting at its best. HOT PRESS

Wildly witty with abject sadness and pathos in swathes, like a warm-hearted Morrissey no less’ INDEPENDENT

‘A strange brave captivating album, matched by fascination, dark humor and warmth’ DAILY MIRROR

This fifteen-track album from the Salford based singer songwriter is frankly, unmissable. A real joy. AMERICANA- UK

Crashing poppily through Vinnys world of nostalgia and insight every song stuffed to the gills with melody and eccentricity, clever, funny and wonderfully weird’ R2 MAGAZINE

Wilkes is also one of those few songwriters that can wring genuine smiles and pathos out of ordinary memories’ IRISH TIMES

On Vinny Peculiar

'If you ever considered Pulp to be just a little too mannered and art-school here’s the rock-literate Jarvis Cocker you can do business with’ Classic Rock

Classic Rock

‘Wilkes is also one of those few songwriters that can wring genuine smiles and pathos out of ordinary memories’

Irish Times

“One of the finest and most individual and literate voices in contemporary English music’

Mike Davies

‘Disgust and disillusionment as a fine art’

Classic Rock

‘If Tony Hancock had made pop records they’d have sounded like this’

UNCUT MAGAZINE – Simon Goddard

‘A songwriter who deserves to be taken seriously’

Q Magazine – Jon Aizlewood

‘When you listen to a Vinny Peculiar album you cannot help but think that you have come across his diary and as you sit and read it you feel both uncomfortable and wonderful all at once. His music is littered with the complex and yet everyday emotions that the masses go through and it is reassuring to know that we are not alone in our ponderings and self-analytical behaviour.’

SOUNDS XP

‘Songwriting’s Angel of the Odd, Vinny Peculiar is like a celestial observer of the small, unseen dramas of daily life, delicate and delightful’.

MEN Reviews

‘Like Vic Chestnutt tooled up for an armed robbery’

Irish Times

‘Curiously elegant confessionals from one of the UK’s most criminally under-rated talents; make room in your heart for this peculiar, but highly likeable man’

W&H

‘Nostalgia’s not what it used to be… Imagine a surreal episode of My Two Dads where said fathers are Jarvis Cocker and David Bowie, who bully their child into liking them and everything they like, like glam stomp, kitchen sink vignettes, mordantly witty lyrics, nostalgia, dreams and a sneer, and you‘re ready for Vinny Peculiar, Manchester’s premier forward thinking backward looking song smith.’

AMERICANA-UK

'“Confessions of a Sperm Donor” begins with the wonderful couplet “I used to be a feminist, I used to be a freak. Sold my sperm for bus fare I got £15 a week” – and indeed lyrically the album is devastatingly funny and moving almost right the way through’

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On Vinny Peculiar

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