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The Orb - Blue Room FLAC

As an experiment, I've uploaded a FLAC copy of The Orb's "Blue Room" over at Spinster's Rock.

I keep threatening to move this blog over to the Wordpress site, but it doesn't seem to be sparking much enthusiasm from you people.

Do me a favour and let me know:

1. Should I move the blog over to the Wordpress site?
2. Is there any appetite for more FLAC stuff?

Ta, Chuck.

Blue Room FLAC at Spinster's Rock.

Two Mixes

100% Silk Mix mixed by Sir Stephen.

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The Dub Vault featuring the Blood And Fire Allstars. Mixed by Pendle Coven and Dom Blood And Fire.

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Steve Moore - Horror Business

Heads up, arpeggio fans!

CiS favourite, Steve Moore has a new mini album up on Bandcamp. The soundtrack (apparently) to a documentary about independent horror movie producers/directors, this is a short, but wonderful piece of work. 11 tracks of Italio horrorcore served on a lush bed of analogue swirls with a neo-prog jus. Get on board.

It's five bucks for goodness sake. Bargainmoungous.

Horror Business.

If you remain unconvinced, hear more Steve here.

Ekoplekz/Drvg Cvltvre - snug life 7"

Weirdly, I had this one lined up to post, just as a request came in from friend of the blog m.m asking if I had a copy. Ker-ching!

*Strictly limited copies - just 100 of these have been made* Promising new imprint Snug Life finally kick-start their run of limited releases with a two-track 45 of blasted post-industrial beat-offs by Ekoplekz and Drvg Cvltvre. The label are proposing a series of 7", CD and DVD releases from the likes of Leyland Kirby, Cosmic Dennis Greenridge and Vindicatrix and more in coming months, and if this one is anything to go by, the quality of tunes and curation should be impressive. First up, with 'Like Cattle You Run' Drvg Cvltvre (fka Ra-X) hits a sodden rut of effluent electronics on sounding like KPLR-meets-Madteo deep under the influence of some untested Dutch pharmaceuticals. Flipside Ekoplekz's 'So Allein Replekz' inversion is far more destroyed, extruding your third ear thru flanging, echoic chamber dub noise sounding somewhere between Kevin Drumm and something off Laurel Halo's 'Antenna' tape.

Apparently this is still available from here. I'm amazed that these are hanging around, as I thought that this would fly out. Perhaps it's just a littte bit TOO obscure?

Ekoplekz had an amazing year last year, releasing a slew of brilliantly fractured dubwise electronica with a post-industrial twist accross a bewildering array of labels and formats. I recommend that you get hold of anything - it's all fantastic. Follow his adventures in sound here.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

Download.

Julian Cope - East Easy Rider & Head Remixes: 2x12"

The boxes are looking a bit bashed up, alas, but the vinyl is sounding in remarkably good nick.

We have here the remaining Cope "baggy" remixes by Hugo Nicholson as lifted from the "Peggy Suicide" album. These are also available digitally on the Dancing Heads CD and latterly on the monstrous balls up that was the Peggy Suicide Deluxe Edition which appeared a few years ago. Following on from the "Jehovahkill" Deluxe Edition, which is widely regarded as featuring the worst remastering job EVER and which renders it pretty much unlistenable; Island Records should hang their collective heads in shame. What a way to treat two of the finest UK rock albums ever released.

Anyway, following a recent request for these tracks, I thought I'd dig out the original vinyl editions and include the full vinyl porn artwork.

After all these years, I still love this stuff. Cope was untouchable around this time and although I'm mightily glad he's still around, ploughing his own furrow and releasing interesting music, it seems unlikely that he's ever going to do anything which touches the sparkly genius of this this stuff again. That last Head Heritage album comprising two bikers grunting and shouting in prehistoric chambers is possibly the worst record I've ever heard. I still bought it though...

My favourite track among this lot is the wonderful groove which is "Ravebury Stones". The soundtrack to many a comedown.

Vinyl rips at 320 Kbps.

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White Savage Dance

Utterly fantastic early works from Karl O'Connor, better known these days as Regis.

I've been playing this to death over the last few weeks and am loving the early industrial vibe a la Cabaret Voltaire/Robert Rental/DAF etc etc.

Still available here, so this one will only be up for a few days.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Grid - Floatation (Prins Thomas Miks) 10"

The Grid's signature track gets a typically lovely and sensitive treatment from the genius that is Prins Thomas. This appeared just before Christmas on a one sided 10" single and has been getting serious punishment over the holiday period.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

Download.

Julian Cope - Love L.U.V. 12"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a good time. My New Year's Eve was eventful. I didn't/couldn't get out of bed until 15:45 on New Year's day due to an appalling hangover. The consequence of mixing wine, champagne, moscow mules and port. Just imagine the state of my poor shrunken brain-sac after THAT assault.

As I stumbled through the remaining part of the day this remix of Cope's "Beautiful Love" kept echoing around my broken head - a fractured memory of the previous evening's soundtrack. I have a vague recollection of standing on a chair, throwing shapes and grinning like a fool to the huge embarrassment of my daughter. This killer tune has become a party staple round these parts, as it's a guaranteed living room floor filler for those of a certain age. Us fortysomethings just can't resist that baggy beat. It stirs something within our hive conciousness and black-holes us back to shared memories of clubbing and drugging days now passed.

Back to work tomorrow. *sigh*

Fresh rip from vintage pink vinyl.
320 Kbps.
All artwork included.

Download.

Various - To The Shores Of Lake Placid

Ah, the infamous "To The Shores Of Lake Placid" LP. Catalogue Number Zoo 4.

Wikipedia.

1. Big In Japan - Society For Cutting Up Men
2. Those Naughty Lumps - Iggy Pop's Jacket
3. The Teardrop Explodes - When I Dream
4. Echo And The Bunnymen - Pictures On My Wall
5. Echo And The Bunnymen - Read It In Books
6. Lori And The Chameleons - Lonely Spy
7. The Turqoise Swimming Pools - The Winds
8. Whopper - Kwalo Klobinsky's Lullaby
9. Dalek (I Love You) - A Suicide
10. The Turquoise Swimming Pools - Burst Balloons
11. The Teardrop Explodes - Camera, Camera
12. Big In Japan - Suicide A Go Go
13. Echo And The Bunnymen - Villiers Terrace
14. The Teardrop Explodes - Take A Chance

Features full artwork with added Julian Cope autographs.

Vinyl rip from original LP at 320 Kbps.

Download.

Limited Edition.

This LP is a recent release collecting a load of UK DIY stuff both old and new. It's not always brilliant, but it filled me with a warm glow of nostalgia that this stuff was still getting released. It's pretty authentic too; foldover card cover in a poly bag, hand stamped label and typewritten insert. Brilliant.

It's typically bonkers stuff. There's a mix of lo-fi and very lo-fi, but crucially it all blends together into a fairly seamless whole. There's even a spoken word track!

This is a limited edition of 250 and more info (but not much more) is available from the Savoury Days Blog . Go and give them support - there looks to be a few cool things there.

Again, as this is still available, it's only going to be up on here for a few days.

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Limited Edition.

A Krautrock drone-out future classic.

You need this one in your life. Come back and tell me if I'm wrong.

Brand new and up for two days only.

Link Expired.

Slow Oscillations

Thanks to all for your suggestions. As I'm sticking with Mediafire for now using Chrome for a browser. Issues seem to be definitely relating to a break between Firefox and the redesigned Mediafire upgrade. Onwards.

I've got a few things to post which are new and still available, so I'm only keeping them up for a few days.

First up is this great little single from Steve Moore's Zombi. I've posted some of this stuff up on here before. It's driving synth/prog/italio stuff which always puts a huge smile on my jaded old face. "Slow Oscillations" is one of the better tracks from Zombi's last album "Escape Velocity"). The real joy here though it there is a slightly rougher, but longer demo version on the flip side.

This single is a limited release of 500 copies, which I got from here. There can't be many of these left by now, and it's a lovely package as always from the Static Caravan guys.

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Mind The Gap

Apologies for the lack of activity here. I'm having horrible trouble with Mediafire which since it's "brilliant" refresh doesn't seem to work with Firefox. Or it might be issues with OSX Lion, which is equally "brilliant".

Can anyone recommend another pain free file hosting site?

In the meantime, you could always have a look at my series of photos of 100 Londoners over at Spinster's Rock. At some point early next year, I'm probably going to move this site over there, so, you know, get used to it now, why not?

In other news, I've just taken delivery of the 2010 remastered edition of Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge". It's jaw-droppingly good.

I hope you're all doing OK and gearing up for the festive season. I'm already getting stuck into the mulled wine and have completed the vast majority of my Christmas shopping.

Stay warm and beautiful.

NM

The FLK - We Know Where The Time Goes

This release appeared a few months ago. You know the drill by now:

Released anonymously? Check.
Rumoured to be be The KLF? Check.
Chock full of recognisable KLF tropes? Check.
Sparking internet arguments about the veracity? Check.

In the end, it doesn't really matter does it. It obviously has nothing to do with Drummond/Cauty, but it IS a great record. A kind of sample collage built around folk samples both obscure and renowned.

I'm just happy that this wonderful band still continue to inspire and inform music so long after their retirement.

Go to The FLK site for videos and social stuff.

There's also some left here if you want to get your own copy.

The FLK Burn Liege & Lief from thyme lord on Vimeo.

Download

The Bombay Royale - Sote Sote Adhi Raat 7"

You're going to like this one.

The Bombay Royale are a Melbourne band dedicated to honouring and reviving the funky, bizarre and mysterious music of vintage Indian cinema. Dusting off near-unheard relics, smashing out Bollywood classics and putting down surfadelic Hindi originals is all in a day’s work. This band brings the sound of the Golden Age of Bollywood back to the future, where it belongs.

The A side is absolutely killer - those synths totally blowing my mind... More please.

The Bombay Royale

Hope Street Recordings

Vinyl rip at 320 from 7" Single.

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Black - Wonderful Life 7"

I've always loved this track.

Colin Vearncombe is much underrated as far as I'm concerned.

This reminds me of attending a house party at an impossibly glamorous friend of a friend who lived in Stoke Newington. Before I moved down to London, I made a brace of exploratory visits, each one convincing me more and more that I had be down there. The land of a gig every night and women and women and women. I'd already bought this record on a trip to see a friend who was doing media studies at Liverpool Poly. I thought this was incredible. "What? You get to study films, and newspapers? And then get a degree?"

On one of my initial visits to London, I attended a Smash Hits party with David Hepworth and Mark Ellen in attendance. There was a "smokers" room I seem to recall, but I was far too young, wide eyed and innocent to participate. I just got pissed on cider and tried to cop off with the girl from Cherry Red records. She was having none of it, unfortunately. I later found out she was going out with Louis Philippe, so I couldn't really compare with that could I?

I'm rambling. Back at the Stoke Newington party, I arrived after a visit to the Virgin Megastore and HMV on Oxford Street. I couldn't fucking believe that there were record shops which stocked EVERYTHING. I bought "Wonderful Life" again on the 12" reissue, as this initial release on Ugly Man Records had pretty much bombed.

Always clued up musically, I felt ahead of the game as I played the twelve to the assembled throng. The gays and women loved it. The men, less so.

I had already fallen in love with London and it was a matter of mere weeks before I boarded the train South to seek out a flat in Battersea, renting a room from a mad woman who played percussion: both in an orchestra and on her CD player. Many's the time I arrived home to the sound of an African drum ensemble.

I have a picture somewhere of me at that party which I should dig out for you. I think you'd like it.

Vinyl rip from the original single release at 320 Kbps. A bit of surface noise, but still worth it.

Wonderful Life.

EDIT: Brilliant update from friend of the blog, Bicksvilla.

"Back in the dim distant student days I used to "borrow" a students Union minibus under the guise of official ENTS Ctte business and earn a bit of extra cash doing bits and pieces for various Liverpool bands. I used to drive Black about and one cold autumn day I was booked by Black's manager at the time (Mike Gaunt) to take the band up to Blackpool for the filming of the Saturday morning kid's TV show on ITV called "It's Wicked" (which was presented by Jake Abrahams - another Scouser who ran a pub round the corner from where I lived at the time), We had to go up on the Friday night as filming was early Saturday morning. We stayed in the Norbreck Castle hotel and I was booked in under the pseudonym Tom Bassey (under which name I got junk mail from said hotel for years!) - the reason for the name was Mike couldn't remember my real name but knew it was something Welsh. Anyway filming was over and we were to head straight back to Liverpool, unfortunately the weather was now awful, gale force winds and driving rain but I had to get back to Liverpool in a hurry, I think we had a gig at the uni that we needed the van for, so I drove back to Liverpool in terrible conditions and most probably way over the speed limit. Colin Vearncombe was lying down in the back of the minibus with a coat over his head, not being able to cope with the speed I was driving in the condidtions. He let it be known that I was never to drive them anywhere ever again. Bit of a big girl's blouse was Colin..."

My favourite bit of detail from that is the name of the TV show, which appears to have been a BBC affair rather than an ITV prog...

DJ Shadow - Preemptive Strike

A gathering of early Shadow tracks, which is worth the price admission for "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Parts 1-4)".

I haven't heard the new album yet. I've resisted so far as I bought the last one and thought it was shit. Any reviews from the Castles Massive?

Download.

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve - West

They saved the best till last. "West" is my favourite BTWS album. Again presented here in a brand new rip with full vinyl porn artwork.

As it's been a good few years, I'm assuming that alas, there will be no more from Team BTWS. Richard continues to make great music in a similar vein as The Time And Space Machine, while Erol Alkan is all across the current club scene. Check out his website for more details.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

Download.

Beyond The Wizards Sleeve - George

The third album is better than the last, and has the brilliant "Electric Bananas" as the centrepiece.

Red splatter vinyl.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

Download.