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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