Acid Ted

A word from Acid Ted:

EXCLUSIVE ERROR OPERATOR MIX
Happy New Year to you. To get the new year off to a cracking start, I’m offering you the chance to get an exclusive mix from the marvelous but mysterious Error Operator. This mix is not available anywhere else. All you have to do is make a small donation to charity. Email me with the reply and I’ll send you the mix. It’s that simple.
You WILL want this mix. It starts with the brilliant but brooding “Moth” by Burial and Four Tet before going on to mixes of Foals and Burial himself. It even has some Tinie Tempah bfore ending with James Blake and ultimately coming a full circle to a remix of Four Tet. This is a quiet evening with a bottle of fine red.

ACID TED MIX by Error Operator
1. Burial & Four Tet – Moth
2. Foals – Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie Remix)
3. Burial – Archangel (Boy 8-Bit Remix)
4. Gold Panda – Snow & Taxis (Throwing Snow Remix)
5. Tinie Tempah – Pass Out (SBTRKT Remix)
6. Andreya Triana – A Town Called Obsolete (Mount Kimbie Remix)
7. Break
8. Joy Orbison – Hyph Mongo
9. James Blake – CMYK
10. Four Tet – Love Cry (Joy Orbison Remix

I’d like others to benefit from the time that Error Operator has put in. In particular, to raise money for research on brain tumours in children. Brain tumours are the commonest solid tumours in children in the UK and USA. More children now die from a brain tumour than any other childhood cancer. If you want a copy of the mix, here’s how to donate:

TO DONATE: Give directly to the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust (UK) by donating here or Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation (USA) here or to a children’s cancer charity in your own country. Once you have done so, you will get an emailed reply from them. Forward that email to me (acidtedblog@googlemail.com) and I will send you a link to the mix.

Please, please donate. How much you donate is up to you (£5 = US$7 / EUR5). If you need to know why these charities are so important, see my story here or little Thomas’ story here.

Finally, if any readers are bloggers themselves, could you please promote this mix on your sites. It’s in a good cause. Thank you. Email me with the link and I’ll send you a copy of the mix.

And my sincere thanks and gratitude to Error Operator for making this appeal possible.
http://twitter.com/erroropsmusic
http://soundcloud.com/erroropsmusic
http://www.facebook.com/erroropsmusic

Spinster's Rock.

As an adjunct to the Tracie post, and by way of introduction, I've relaunched the Spinster's Rock Wordpress site as a kind of "Everything Box" extension of Castles In Space. It's a repository for stuff I've accumulated over the years, some new pictures and just... stuff.

I've posted one of Tracie's non album singles over there.

I'm also asking for contributions from you lot. Be it something cool, something awful or something that moves you and that you think will move others. Please get in touch with me at nolanmicron@googlemail.com if you have anything that you would like to share/inflict.

The homepage for Spinster's Rock is here. Have a look and it should give you an idea of the type of things I'm looking for. More to come, though. Much more.

Thanks for listening. Get involved.

Your pal,

Nolan Micron.

Tracie - Far From The Hurting Kind

What we have here is one of the great lost Eighties pop albums. Tracie was signed to Paul Weller's vanity label Respond in the early Eighties and had a brace of good Motown/mod influenced pop singles before the album appeared. Featuring one track written by Elvis Costello and a clutch of tracks penned by Weller himself, the songwriting is of a uniformly high standard. Although wearing it's Eighties production values rather loudly (the album was co-produced by Weller), the quality of the songs and the vocal performances from Tracie shine through. I think the ballads work best, but it's all good. This is a lovely artefact in common with Weller's output at the time, featuring a heavy Sixties retro vibe and sleevenotes by Tracie herself (supposedly). Having said that, the cover itself is a disaster area and I suspect that they were self-consciously veering too far away from the "sex" angle to the detriment of the overall finished product. Ah well. That was the Eighties for you. Sexual politics all in a muddle etc.

If you enjoy this, I recommend that you buy the brilliant Cherry Red re-issue which contains those early singles and a further selection of session tracks, B-sides and extended version in a lovely package. Cherry red are hitting the ball out of the park with just about every one of their pop reissues, so you should probably go and check them out anyway.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Blue Pearl - Naked In The Rain Remix 12"

Blue Pearl were a short lived techno/house duo consisting of American female singer Durga McBroom and infamous early post punk/acid house scenester, Youth (Martin Glover). Naked In The Rain is a classic example of early house/pop music and did pretty well in the British charts on it's release in 1990.

This 12" features a pair of remixes from David Morales, whose work I find patchy at best. There's no denying he was on top of his game here though, perhaps due to the strength of the raw materials with which he was working.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Gorillaz - The Fall

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Neneh Cherry - Buffalo Stance 12"

I pulled this one out to assist with the present wrapping on Christmas Eve and it hasn't been out of earshot ever since. This got played out to the family more than once on Christmas day and it went down a treat. Especially the "What is he loike...?" bit. Fucking genius.

Here's the Wikipedia page. And it should be noted that the contribution of Bomb The Bass/Tim Simenon can't be underestimated on this brilliant EP.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce...the high hat..."

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Human League - Hysteria

And while we're at it...

This is much, much better than I remember it being. I think it suffered from being the album after "Dare".

I might get something else up here later on.

Happy Christmas.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Limited Availability

Christmas treat for you all. The Cerrone mix is awesome.

Be quick.

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The Egg - Wall 12"

I have no idea why I haven't posted this brilliant record before now, but it is truly a classic slab of spacey house pop. There's the original version and remixes from Mylo and Atomic Hooligan. The Mylo mix is the one that will get your Christmas party bouncing, but all three tracks on this are great.

The Discogs bio tells us that "The Egg were formed in the UK from a conglomeration of various Oxford-based dub-influenced dance music acts...hey have developed a unique sound combining hip-hop, psychedelia, ambient and house, resulting in what has been described as a "fluid trance groove".

I'm not sure if they are still active, but the band still have a live website here.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps

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Camp As Christmas Part Two

Apologies for the slight lag, but work commitments, Christmas preparations and a nasty bout of Manflu have conspired to prevent me from getting this mix up here. Response to the first one was pretty good, so many thanks to all those who took the trouble to download and listen. If anything, I think this second part is slightly better.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend about what "camp" actually was. It's kind of hard to pin down isn't it. I'm convinced it's not just about the gay thing and that there's a weird, slightly indefinable quality about it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it all, but I'm not sure I agree with some of that. Perhaps that's an American interpretation. Initial selections for this mix were rejected at the last minute for not being at all camp. I've also steered clear of tracks that were simply by gay artists. As I've said before, this isn't intended to be reductive in any way - it's a celebration.

As with the last part, I've uploaded an enhanced podcast with full artwork in AAC format and a standard MP3 file. Both are ripped at 320 Kbps. Interestingly, downloads for the MP3 beat the AAC by about 2 - 1 for the first part. I'd go for the AAC myself. It has scans of all the single sleeves and chapter markers.

AAC
MP3

Brilliantly, Castles In Space Reader Graeme took it upon himself to create artwork for the podcasts. Part Two already features the above image, but for those who wish to update the first part with the matching cover, here is the art for Part One.

Man 2 Man Meet Man Parrish - Male Stripper 12"

The 7" mix of this was included on the first Camp As Christmas mix. Here's the full glory of the 12".

http://www.manparrish.com/biography/

My gay posts have only received one complaint so far. Next up is the Camp as Christmas Part Two Mix. Sure to make your Christmas party go with a swing. Honourable mention should also go to Seedy for posting Jon Savage's brilliant compilation of Queer Noises.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Pet Shop Boys - Disco

Perhaps their finest album, what self respecting gay themed blog series would be complete with a sprinkling of the genius that is Pet Shop Boys?

This album accompanied my move from the North West to London and soundtracked many a pre-club dressing up ritual for me and my friends. Still sounding brilliant after all these years. Pet Shop Boys have contributed so much to British pop and dance culture. The cliche was that they were like The Smiths with synthesizers, but that's pretty much true. Lyrically rich, musically inventive, and what tunes. Their 12" single remixes are like a an ever-evolving history of British dance music.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Camp As Christmas - Part One

Christmas. It's quite gay isn't it.

All the sparkle and emotion. Seeing family. Love. Bitchiness.

I fucking love it. I love it so much I've spent more time than you would believe doing a big old camp podcast/mixtape.

I'm not doing a tracklist as I think this one might be enjoyed more as a beautiful surprise. Like finding out that your bezzie is bi-curious.

There are two versions. An enhanced AAC file with full artwork and an MP3 with a lovely picture of your host, Mr Kenneth Williams.

The plan is that there will be another one of these before Christmas, but as this one has almost killed me, it might take a few days.

There were a few rules:
1. It had to be ripped from a record in my singles box
2. It had to be camp
3. I had to love the song without irony.

Happy Christmas to all the beautiful people (that means you). x

AAC/iTunes
MP3

Monsoon - Ever So Lonely 7"

I'm doing a few posts for all the gays out there, in a post-ironic sort of way. Are we post irony now? It's hard to keep up. Anyway, these are definitely intended as celebratory and in no way reductive. Here we go - kicking off with this one.

"Ever So Lonely" was released 5th March 1982. Initially it was top of the gay (Hi-Energy) charts and then went to be a Top 10 hit in the UK and a hit around the world.

Sheila Chandra was in TV's 'Grange Hill' for several years (at the time, one of the most radical kids TV programmes). She played Sudhamani Patel - a stereotypically reserved and sulky Asian girl who was being set up for an arranged marriage and whose family ran a corner shop.

This is a great track, although the B side, "Sunset Over The Ganges" does little to dispel those accusations of stereotyping. It's still great, though. She's got a great voice. And indeed, she is "still going". And why not?

Vinyl rip at 320K bps.

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The Icicle Works - Love Is A Wonderful Colour 7"

Perhaps the best Autumn record ever.

Arguably, the defining, founding fathers of the whole "cosmic scally" movement (c.f. The Coral, The La's, The Lightning Seeds et al), this fantastic band are woefully underrated. Ian McNabb has a great voice and his phrasing on this beautiful, beautiful lyric is bordering on the transcendental. I never, ever get tired of hearing it, the imagery is so strong.

On the Barrow scene, we had a running joke that all of his vocal melodies were broadly similar, but what the hell, if it isn't broke etc. etc.

On my very first trip to London with Neil, Mike and the very beautiful Michelle, we saw them at the Astoria (now sadly deceased) on the Charing Cross Road. The venue was probably about a quarter full. They were great beyond belief. They suffered from patchy album syndrome, but as both a live prospect and a classic singles band, they were AMAZING.

McNabb still continues to do great work and remains horribly under appreciated.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Hits Of House Are Here - Double 12" Album.

Obvious, (but none the worse for that) selection of early pop/house hits. "Including Full Length 12 Inch Versions" screams the cover. This is kind of a companion piece to this, as most of the samples are sourced from tracks featured on here.

Shamelessly nostalgic, I know, but it's that time of year isn't it.

I'd rather jack, than Fleetwood Mac.

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Brand New Brilliance. The 24 Hour Rule Applies.

Voices tumble over voices creating a cloud of half-heard words, and VHS-tainted synths bubble up beneath them, dragging us right back into a world of thick-knit sweaters and Marathon bars.

A late contender for album of the year. Trust me.

[Sorry, you've missed this one.]

Cola Boy - 7 Ways To Love 7"

People of the Earth, apologies for the lack of updates. I've got a huge backlog of shit to serve up for you, but life continues to be a whirlwind of family and work commitments.

In the meantime, please accept this wee nugget.

7 Ways To Love was written by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of St Etienne, who hoped the track would be their first step in building a Stock, Aitken & Waterman / Brill Building / Hit Factory style songwriting empire.

Cola Boy was a duo, consisting of Janey Lee Grace and Andrew Midgley. Andrew had worked with Bob and Pete on studio material in their pre-St Etienne days in the late 1980s. Janey had been a backing singer for numerous pop acts, including Wham and Pasty Kensit’s Eighth Wonder, and was a radio broadcaster on LBC.

Sarah Cracknell sang the vocals on the original white label version of 7 Ways. After that initial batch sold out, it was re-recorded with vocals by Sarah’s friend Janey Lee Grace, as Sarah was under contract to another label and was not permitted to sing on non-St Etienne releases.

Janey’s version of 7 Ways is the one that was subsequently picked up and released by Arista Records, but in the meantime the original Sarah version was heavily bootlegged, costing Arista many thousands of sales. A further Cola Boy connection with Sarah was that the duo were managed by Sarah’s mother, who had previously worked with and managed a number of acts, including Wee Papa Girl Rappers.

There was a second Cola Boy single, He Is Cola, which was spectacularly unsuccessful. That fulfilled the two-single deal with Arista, and the contract was not renewed.

With other labels interested in picking them up, Janey was keen to continue working on new Cola Boy material, but Andrew had by then started work on a new project, Blinder, and was writing darker, non-pop dance material.

Cola Boy fell apart in late 1991/early 1992, and Andrew moved to north. Blinder enjoyed some limited cult success on the northern England and Scottish rave circuit, before dissolving towards the end of 1993. Andrew subsequently moved into journalism and composing music for television.

Janey continues to perform and record, and released her last album in 2006. She has also continued with her broadcasting career, and has long been a key member of Steve Wright’s Radio 2 team. She can be heard on air most days, taking part in the programme and reading out 'factoids'.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps

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Felt - Forever Breathes The Lonely Word

This is the sixth album, released on Creation in 1986.

Forever Breathes The Lonely Word was eight tracks running at a shade over half an hour. Contrasting the lack of vocals on [previous album] "Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death", "Forever Breathes The Lonely Word" was Felt's first completely conventional song album. Concentrating more on the Hammond organ of Martin Duffy and the disparate range of Lawrence's lyrics, spanning black humour ("All The People I Like Are Those That Are Dead"), advice to young naïve music hopefuls ("Down But Not Yet Out") and soul-bearing honesty ("Hours of Darkness Have Changed My Mind"). Overlaid with an immaculate John Rivers production and the intricate guitar picking of Tony Wille, this album deserves the rare accolade of "Perfect."

This is certainly one of their best.

Duffy, who's out-of-focus face adorns the rather glorious cover, later went on to join Primal Scream, fact fans.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Mojo Various Artists - The Score

I don't usually bother with cover mounted CD compilations, but this one is worth revisiting, for sure. 'The Score' was given away in May 2002 with Mojo Magazine issue 103 and features a pretty faultless selection of movie themes, tracks and related pieces.

I was on board from the get-go due to the inclusion of the brilliant Peter Cook performance of Bedazzeled from his 1967 film of the same name. This was hard to come by back then.

Regardless, this is a great selection of stuff which has been soundtracking my own little internal film this week on the foggy commute into town.

The full tracklisting is:

1. Brother on the Run - Johnny Pate and Adam Wade
2. God's Children - The Kinks
3. Something's Cookin' - Quincy Jones
4. Dark Days - DJ Shadow
5. Get Carter - Roy Budd
6. Frankie Machine - Elmer Bernstein
7. You Cut Up the Clothes - Melvin Van Peebles
8. Time Is Tight - Booker T. & The MG's
9. Midnight Cowboy - John Barry
10. Bedazzled - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
11. Arabesque - Henry Mancini
12. Watermelon Man - Mongo Santamaría
13. Linus and Lucy - Vince Guaraldi
14. Taking of Pelham 123 - David Shire
15. Truck Turner - Isaac Hayes
16. Death Line - Wil Malone
17. A Fistful of Dollars - Ennio Morricone
18. Johnny Too Bad - The Slickers
19. God Moving Over The Face Of The Water - Moby
20. Let It Be - Nick Cave

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Echo And The Bunnymen - A Promise 12"

Isn't this sounding absolutely great?

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Bill Nelson - The Love That Whirls/La Belle Et La Bête

Bill's second solo album was another limited edition double, which like "Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam" came with a strangely brittle and yet spangly instrumental album entitled "La Belle Et La Bête".

We should probably deal with the main album first. "The Love That Whirls" might just have been Nelson's commercial high point - at least, since the almost-there days of Be Bop Deluxe. The thing about Bill is that (just like us), he's just a wee bit too "off" to ever truly appeal to the herd, so even his commercial successes are still a bit too niche.

Just the way we like 'em.

In truth, this is a superb art pop album, brimming with great tunes, melodies, performances and inventiveness. But then that was what we had come to expect. When I was about 16, I mail ordered a brilliant compilation VHS from Cabaret Voltaire's nascent DoubleVision label. Nestled among the Cabs' disturbing ambient washes, the multitudinous American shorts featuring images of Frankenstein's monster intercut with graphic childbirth and the frankly fucking disturbing Renaldo And The Loaf video, was a breathtaking B&W video for Nelson's "Flaming Desire". I promise to you now, that in those pre-internet days and STARVED of decent non-mainstream stimulus (indeed, even ANTI-mainstream thrills), I played this fucking tape till the magnetic particles had all but fallen off. It was his wife in the video. It was scuzzily low tech and low budget, but had a towering ambition which effortlessly negated those obstacles. I was the BEST VIDEO I HAD EVER SEEN.

And then, the album. A sojourn to Earthquake Records one Saturday, returning home with not one, but two albums. Textured sleeve. Inner sleeves. An inner A4 sheet, asking me if I wanted to join the fan club with the promise of quarterly 7" EPs (I did join, the promise was kept faithfully).

"The Love That Whirls" is filled with really, really good pop songs. Much less angular that the "Sound On Sound" and "Quit Dreaming..." albums. Ever current, Nelson was transmogrifying from post-prog innovator, through new wave spikiness, onwards and upwards into the brave new world of cheapening technology and brave-new-world electropop. What an amazing success this album is. His voice and lyrics alone are worth the price of admission.

"La Belle Et La Bête" purported to be a soundtrack album of a staging of (Nelson's hero) Jean Cocteau's 1946 filmed version of Beauty And The Beast by The Yorkshire Actors Company. Revisiting this album, I had convinced myself that this was probably an elaborate ruse, but re-reading the sleeve notes again, I'm thinking that this was probably true. If there is anyone out there who was either involved in this company, or saw one of their performances, I would dearly love to hear from you.

The instrumental album itself is a glorious affair. Many, many short tracks and fragments of delicious fragility combine to make a seamless whole. Ironically, it is here that the angularity of Nelson's earlier work bubbles it's way to the surface. There are bells. This record was one of my earliest encounters with proper ambient, or "Furniture Music", although I definitely had some Eno stuff by the time this (and his previous record) appeared. I was once again thrilled that there was more of this stuff appearing. Although "The Love That Whirls" has been subsequently reissued, this second album never has been, as far as I know. I'm pretty sure that some Orb samples have been sourced from this album. So, you know, we're in pretty good company here.

"What's he been up to since?" I hear you ask. Well, there is a predictably extensive back catalogue of self released stuff available from the the man himself over at his website. There remains a dedicated set of fans who support him and the stuff he produces continues to follow his obsessions of a romantic, shiny new future in an endearing and heartwarming way.

What a guy.

Vinyl rips at 320 Kbps with full artwork.

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There's A Breakdown At The BBC

This weird little thing backdoored it's way into my life a few weeks ago. Making it's presence felt like a horrible, ugly cuckoo chucking the eggs out of my otherwise pristine nest. I don't know what the hell this is about, but it's a beautifully twisted pop throwback which somehow manged to avoid being strangled at birth, or thrown in a sack and dumped, mewling into the canal.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. There's a lovely melody at the heart of this and an extended "Memory Of A Free Festival" singalong choral vibe flapping it's malformed arms, but I dunno - something just isn't quite right.

There's a part one/part two thing stretched across two all too brief sides of white vinyl which I have kindly conjoined into a single track for your uneasy listening.

Dave Lazonby (ex of the remarkable Lazerboy amongst others) is one of the most endearing & quirky people i've ever met on the Leeds scene. His band Geese have collaborated with Damo Suzuki from Can on some serious improv freeform projects in recent years & now shout out with their debut 7" 'The Plane's Gone Dad', a white vinyl treat in two parts. It's got that shimmering, sky gazing feel, a sweet wistfulness like Spiritualized if they drank scrumpy & watched WW2 documentaries rather than talking to god through a heroin haze. They call it an apocalyptic torch song and they're not wrong, this one's got some serious sad eyed space rock tentacles but bags of heart & soul. Part 2 fizzles out into organic cyber bleeps & crackly field recordings posing a big ? as to what to expect next from this curious collective.

There's more available here, including an immense return to form from a reinvigorated Genesis P-Orridge's Psychick TV, spunked across a blood red splatter vinyl 12'. I can't imagine that those will be hanging around for long, so get on board if it's not too late already.

Sweet dreams.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Mansun - Three EP.

Mansun were so high concept that my best friend and partner in crime, Steve could simply not countenance them.

It might even have been this very song that got him riled him right up. Stripper Vicar? Egg Shaped Fred? Fuck right off, he quoth. I can see his point, but there's a wonderful, inventive Joie de vivre at work here. The arrogance to create and inhabit your own little universe should not be disregarded.

They went even further off piste with later releases, that I really wanted to like, but simply couldn't because they were shit (letters to the usual address). This, though. This, right here is fucking jaw dropping.

So eff off, Steve.

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M|A|R|R|S - Pump Up The Volume 7"

Surely one of the greatest records of all time. I dug this out yesterday for the simple reason that I wanted to hear it again. It still sounds utterly wonderful. Although emblematic of the burgeoning acid and turntablism cultures, this record somehow manages to sound out of time - in and of itself, in it's own defined space. And that doesn't happen very often, does it. The B side, should not be easily dismissed, either.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Cocteau Twins - Bluebeard.

Here's the last of my Cocteau Twins posts. Seemingly bright, and with a new sense of clarity, the actual story is much, much darker.

"Are you the right man for me?
Are you safe? Are you my friend?
Or are you toxic for me?
Will you mistreat me or betray my confidence?"

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Danny Saul - Armchair Dancefloor 024

This is a great downtempo mix with a nice little edge.

I don't know much about Danny Saul, but on the strength of this, I'll be investigating further. Enjoy.

Ad Mix013 - Danny Saul by Armchair Dancefloor on Mixcloud

Jim Foetus

As you can well imagine, my long suffering family are used to all sorts of squonks, bleeps, whooshes, thuds, booms, thwacks and wibbles emanating from "the den". Playing these singles this week, however, resulted in a mass uprising of wife and children to demand that I "turn that horrible noise off". The last time this happened was years ago, in the car. Heartily sick of some or other nursery rhyme CD, I huffily ejected it and replaced it with the first Tindersticks album. My (then) toddler daughter started to cry floods of shocked and frightened tears while my wife looked on from the rear seat, shaking her head silently, her disapproving stares burning into my face via the rear view mirror. Way to kill the buzz, girls.

Anyway, this legendary troubadour, Jim Thirlwell/Clint Ruin/Foetus etc. etc. was by all accounts a proper drug-crazed, seeker of the dark side who made a string of great/horrible records under many guises some years back. These are indeed horrible, but that's the point. Obviously. Check out "Death Rape 2000" for a full on, pummeling, mong-out of trancen-mental proportions.

You have been warned, Motherfuckers.

Vinyl rips at 320Kbps.

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Ofra Haza - Im Nin' Alu 12"

There's a fascinating Wikipedia entry which tells you everything about this truly great vocalist.

Predictably, this brilliant twelve first came onto my radar via the Coldcut remix of the Eric B and Rakim track, "Paid In Full".

Her greatest international recognition came with the single "Im Nin'Alu", taken from the album Shaday (1988), which won the New Music Award for Best International Album of the Year. The song topped the Eurochart (Europe's equivalent to the American Billboard charts) for two weeks in June that year and was on heavy rotation on MTV channels across the continent. For years to come, this song would be extensively re-released, re-mixed and sampled, for example on Coldcut's remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full"

This is one of those early UK remix 12" singles, but still sounds great for all that.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps

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The Futureheads - Area

There's a great interview with The Futureheads here at Dirty Laundry. They seem to be doing good stuff over there, so have a look. This is worth the price of admission for the acapella breakout.

There's also a free MP3 of a track from the new album here.



To celebrate their greatness, here's a previous single, "Area". What a great band they are. Can't wait for more stuff from them.

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Big Audio Dynamite - E=MC2

Probably the best song about the films of Nic Roeg you will ever hear.

I love this so much. The album was a partial let down, but this opening salvo resonates still. I reckon this is Mick Jones' finest hour - including all the Clash stuff. Killer B Side too.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Creatures - Feast

As a few of you will know, I recently bought a stack of Eighties vinyl from a man in Peterborough. Most of it, it has to be said, is fucking awful and will either go the way of eBay or the local Cancer Research shop. However, I reckon about 20% of the haul was good shit. Amongst the morass was a double album copy of the second Siouxsie And The Banshees greatest hits compilation, "Twice Upon A Time".

I was struck once again by the wonderful energy and individuality of this seminal punk/post punk band and was sent hunting for this lost peach among the vaults. Freshly ripped this afternoon, this is sounding truly great. Always a force of nature, Siouxsie here lets fly. Given the room to breathe, her voice undoubtedly takes centre stage, but then again, it usually does in a full band setting anyway. No wonder there have been so many imitators across the intervening years. And of course, it goes without saying that Budgie was one of the premier percussionists plying his trade professionally at that time.

More context and background adapted from the Wikipedia entry:

The Creatures were a musical act formed in 1981 as a side-project for Siouxsie and the Banshees members Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie. The Times described their music as "adventurous art rock built around Siouxsie's extraordinary voice and drummer Budgie's battery of percussion". In 1983, The Creatures released their first full length album Feast. The band decided where to record the album by randomly placing a pin on a map of the world. The result was Hawaii, which led to the featuring of The Lamalani Hula Academy Hawaiian Chanters on some tracks. In the week of its release, the band was on the front cover of both the Melody Maker and the NME. The Melody Maker described Feast as "an album of filtered brilliance, fertile, sensual and erotic" and the NME accentuated "The humours of Sioux's frosty larynx are nakedly outlined against skins of sometimes fabulous quality". The album reached number 17 in the UK Albums Chart. The hit single "Miss the Girl" took its inspiration from the book Crash by J. G. Ballard.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps with full artwork.

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For Stanley

So I found myself in possession of a battered, scratched old copy of the 2001 soundtrack. So then I did this, like, thing with it. What a self indulgent fool I am.

Just my little way of saying "thank you" to a truly great man.

Enjoy/Endure

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Felt - Prinitive Painters 12"

Too late and too tired to write much, but this has been wrecking the iPod since Sunday. Never got tired of this one.

Now then, I'm going to bed with that new Orb/David Gilmour album. My expectations are quite low, so let's hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Kon Kan - I Beg Your Pardon 12"

A bona fide lost classic (I'm saying!). This clattering New-Order-a-likey emanates across the years from out of Canada. Treading the fine line between ultimate cheeeez and glittering cool, this is brightening up my Sunday like you would not believe. I cannot believe that if this had been played last night, the floor would have full. Anywhere. In the world. Get on board.

Unbelievably, these fuckers had half a career. But come on - this is fucking great.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps. All artwork included.

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Cocteau Twins - Tishbite

Yet another CT double pack from the later period. Still wonderful. Still sounding great.

Tishbite is a word used in the Bible to refer to Elijah (1 Kings 17:1, 1 Kings 21:17-28, 2 Kings 1:3-8, 2 Kings 9:36). The phrasing can be reworded as "Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead." The word is sometimes interpreted as "stranger," so that the verse might read "Elijah the stranger from among the strangers in Gilead." This designation is probably given to the prophet as denoting that his birthplace was Tishbe, a place in Upper Galilee (mentioned in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, Tobit 1:2). Josephus, the Jewish historian (Ant. 8:13, 2), however, supposes that Tishbe was some place in the land of Gilead. It has been identified by some with el-Ishtib, a place 22 miles due south of the Sea of Galilee, among the mountains of Gilead.

320 Kbps. Full artwork.

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Orbital - Satan Live CDS Set.

What a great live act they were. I saw them so many times at Glastonbury and in London. This brilliant single set has it all. The melodic techno brutalism, the clattering TR909 breakbeats, the twisted vocal sample etherealness. It's all here.

"Satan" wasn't one of their best tunes, but this CDS set has brilliant versions of plenty of other stuff. Long versions of "Chime", "Out There Somewhere" and "Impact".

The second time I saw them at Glasto, I had done two pink microdots. Transcendental.

Have a great Sunday.

320 Kbps. All artwork included.

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Cocteau Twins - Violaine

Written, produced and engineered by Cocteau Twins.

"Alice" was also featured on the motion picture soundtrack of "Stealing Beauty."

An alternate mix of "Circling Girl" was originally released on the compilation CD/magazine Volume 15.

This was the last Cocteau Twins release to appear on Mercury/Fontana (with the exception of the song "Touch Upon Touch," which was released in late 1996 on the compilation Volume 17).

320 Kbps

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Blancmange - Mange Tout

I always thought that Blancmange were a slightly misunderstood band. Lumped in with the "synth duo" crowd, they were always a bit too weird and outre to sustain much of a pop career. The first album is good, but they really hit their stride with this second outing. Neil Arthur was a lanky, awkward Lancastrian with such a great voice and Stephen Luscombe was a genuinely talented musician/arranger/producer who was wonderfully camp.

All three albums have been remastered and expanded and are definitely worth checking out. According to the Wikipedia page, the band have reformed and are recording new material.

This is a DMM vinyl rip at 320 Kbps. All artwork included.

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Everything But The Girl - Love Is Here Where I Live 12"

Pre the dance re-invention, EBTG had kind of lost their way a little bit. The A-Side here is a middling track, lifted from a middling mid-period album. So what do have? The unavailable anywhere else B-sides prove that they could still pull on the heartstrings without trying too hard. And Tracey's voice is such a thing of beauty that I could listen to her reading the phone book. If such a thing existed anymore.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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Bernard Sumner - The First Time

This wonderful BBC6 interview features Matt Everitt speaking to Bernard Sumner. The programme includes Bernard's recollections of the early Punk scene in Manchester, his still raw and painful memories of his friend Ian Curtis' suicide, and the genesis of New Order's Blue Monday.

Very moving. Highly recommended.

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Neil - Hole In My Shoe 7"

Wikipedia:
In the sitcom The Young Ones, Neil, one of the principal characters, continually sang a recognisable line from "Hole In My Shoe". Eventually, in July 1984, Nigel Planer who played the role, released a cover version of the song, which reached the same #2 peak as the original. He also performed the song as Neil on the BBC show Top of the Pops, where he asked Paul Weller to "listen to the lyrics!". The single won "Best Comedy Single" at the 1985 Brit Awards during the days the event was called "The BPI Awards".

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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BBC Sessions, Anyone?

I'm late already, so I can't hang around. Just wanted to apologise to anyone who got a spam message from me today. It wasn't actually from me, but then you knew that already, right? Anyway, password changed so hopefully crisis averted.

I was keeping this till the weekend, but as I'm here now, here's something a bit special for the Cocteau heads out there. Although these reduced scale BBC versions don't perhaps have the impact of the proper studio stuff, they have a special charm all of their own. Instead of the usual "Cathedrals Of Sound", think "Maisonettes Of Sound".

I kill myself.

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