For The Irregulars...

The Castles In Space Irregulars might want to have a look at

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which is of course no substitute for the real thing.

Bliss.

Cabaret Voltaire - Drinking Gasoline

I always think of The Cabs as having three distinct phases in their lifespan. There was the early Rough Trade scratchy, shortwave radio stuff, the transitional electronic stuff and the later period slick industrial electro/funk stuff. Personally, I love all of it, but I guess it's this later period material which has remained the most accessible.

This double 12" gatefold package, (their second such affair, the first being the wonderful Neville Brody packaged "2x45" released in 1982) still sounds amazing today. Four longish tracks, one per side, and each one is a killer. Hard to pick a favourite, but "Big Funk" is a super cool melding of their old style with the big drums and loose-but-tight proto-groove of their later stuff. And when Mal comes in at 2:00, it's a startling reminder of what a fantastic singer he was.

The artwork is stunning too, and is of course fully reproduced in the file. They were one of the first bands to see the potential in video and artwork and I had a load of their DoubleVision releases on VHS, all sadly M.I.A. these days.

I wish they were still around today. The last sighting of the Cabaret Voltaire name was this bizarre remix album, which (and I'm being kind here) didn't live up to expectations. Proof positive that you really can't polish a turd.

Anyway, reacquaint yourself with this. It's honky funk of the highest order.

Don't stop.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Festive Fifty Number Ones: An Illustrated Memoir by Lee Thacker.

In the words of Hubert J. Farnsworth, "Good news, everyone". Remember this?

Of course you do. Over to Lee again:

Well, after the nightmare of receiving 50 books from the printer with all the covers on BACK TO FRONT (!!!!) I finally have two big boxes of books in my living room that I'm about to sign and number. Most of them have been sold already (including a few comp copies) and I'll be posting them out on Wednesday (23rd June).

This means I'll need to order another batch for any future sales (he said hopefully) and I'm really worried the same error might occur again. Let's hope not.

Anyway, the signed and numbered edition of the book can be purchased directly from me for £12 (including p&p). Contact me at leethacker66@yahoo.co.uk for further details.

Alternatively, you can also get the signed edition on ebay. where you can also purchase the (very) limited edition portfolio.

You can also purchase the unsigned edition direct from my printers.

I've also got a book on Lulu with the lyrics of Robert Lloyd (Prefects, Nightingales) that he's currently selling on the short Nightingales European tour.

Also, you will get the opportunity to win a copy if you vote in this year's Dandelion Radio Festive Fifty

I think that's it. Buy my book. Buy one for a friend. If it does well, I might make another one....

Electronic - Forbidden City

Adapted from Wikipedia:

"Forbidden City" is a song by English band Electronic, comprising Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, with guesting co-writer Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk, released as the lead single from their second album Raise the Pressure, and their first new release in almost exactly four years, the last being the stand-alone single "Disappointed".

[The single contains] two non-album B-sides: "Imitation of Life" (an edited version of which would appear on Get the Message - The Best of Electronic ten years later) and "A New Religion", which featured Denise Johnson providing backing vocals. All three songs were written with Karl Bartos.

This is a great track and Marr's guitar solo is a bit special too.

320 Kbps

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Cocteau Twins - Otherness

Such a beautiful EP, this one. The last EP they released and a wonderful remix set from Seefeel's Mark Clifford. I must dig out the Seefeel albums, as they are totally beautiful and quite hard to come by these days.

I've said before that I think I started to take this stuff for granted, but revisiting these late period Cocteau twins releases has been somewhat of a revelation. Dysfunction and borderline mental illness has a weird track record of creating great art does it not?

In reverse order then, "Cherry Coloured Funk" sounds like the the music that will be played in the lift on the way up to Heaven. We know that everything is going to be alright, forever. Beautiful angel sigh on a bed of the softest feathery sweetness. It's funereal and life affirming at the same time. Liz has never sounded sweeter or more bonkers. Can there ever have been another track with the word "funk" in the title that was less funky?

This version of "Violane" does have a slightly loopy, trancey feel to it though. There's some sub-bass action happening and a multi-tracked Liz calls us to the dance with her seductive siren call.

"Seekers Who Are Lovers" propels us forwards like a bass driven jam on the Trans Europe Express. Once you hear Liz's "Hey yeah ah hey ah" riff, it might just stay with you forever. And then she does that choirboy thing that makes you wish you could just hear this on a loop until the end of forever. It's a fairly stripped down thing at this point, but it still works in the most spectacular fashion.

Lead track, "Feet-Like Fins" is suitably oceanic and images of mermaids and shagging fishwomen on spooky beaches are conjured seemingly from the watery ether. Although that might be just my fantasies bubbling to the surface. Whatever, it's lovely and pretty and a little bit magical.

I miss them terribly.

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Throbbing Gristle - Mutant

Possibly a unique artefact in that the Wetherall mix is shit, but look beyond that and there's some pretty good stuff here. The more electro inclined stuff emerges from the sausage machine slightly shinier and there are a couple of great remixes of "Hot On The Heels Of Love".

"Looking at the names involved, I have to admit that my first feeling was a sinking stomach, as I imagined flaccid house beats laid over songs that had originally been on the cutting edge of sound. Thankfully, and surprisingly, that turns out not to be the case. For the most part, these remixes allow the souls of the originals to show through while at the same time turning them in new directions. The Motor remix of "Persuasion" keeps the song slow and stripped-down, with a rhythm built of clicks and snare, while Hedonastik's "What a Day" strews mechanical-sounding metallics across a funkified version of the song's original beat.

"Carl Craig takes two shots here. His version of "Hot on the Heels of Love" maintains the original's feel, though the rhythm is more consistent and somewhat less interesting; the feeling of sound under pressure remains, though. His reworking of "Still Walking" is better, a dark, dank and echoey version that shows Throbbing Gristle to have been hip to trip-hop long before the genre existed.

"TG members Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti get their own licks in twice. First with a skeletal, slow "Hamburger Lady" that's eerie, like sound leaking in from another dimension; and then "HotHeelsUnited," which cleverly combines two songs into one, backed with an insistent pulsing bass beat.

Not all of the remixes work as well. Two Lone Swordsmen dissect "United" into a pulsing rhythm that keeps the vocals but loses some of the original's dark feeling of threat. And Simon Ratcliffe (of Basement Jaxx) turns the original of "Hot on the Heels of Love" into a sweetness-and-light club tune devoid of personality."

This is the CD rip, but there's a vinyl version at the ever-brilliant Ripped In Glasgow here.

320 Kbps

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Culture - Two Sevens Clash

Probably universally recognised as one of the best authentic reggae albums ever, Culture's debut strikes a lovely balance between the sweetness and light of the Jamaican sound and the righteous warnings of the Rastafarian faith. Lest there be any cultural imbalance here, I'm retaining my right to state that all religion is horeseshit, especially this brand of foreboding apocalyptic pessimism, but as with the early Christian music of the middle ages onwards, anything with a sense of spiritual certainty is undoubtedly powerful and often hot-wires our consciousness into a level of spirituality that even though we might not subscribe to that view, accesses our deepest wells of inner god in such a way that we can immediately appreciate the sincerity and passion - artifice though we feel it may be. If this isn't making any sense, unbelievers should go and have a look at Westminster Abbey or the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris (or countless others, I'm sure. I've never seen Rome, although any little Norman village church seems fairly awesome to me on an architectural level). There's a good reason that those building are designed to inspire passion, fear and a sense of smallness in the face of a huge universe.

Also coming into play here is the multi-layered historical background of black struggle and the railing against Babylon which makes this pretty much irresistible to all forward thinking revolutionaries, be they black, white, poor or rich. There's something wonderfully rebellious in this stuff which just works on a primal as well as intellectual level.

Despite all that, this is also musically a massive achievement. A pinnacle distillation of the Seventies Jamaican reggae sound with a stellar cast of peak period musicians (including Sly and Robbie) and produced by the mighty Joe Gibbs.



This version is the 1978 UK reissue on Lightning records, which despite being funded by WEA always operated as an indie and had a weird catalogue of retro fifties rock 'n' roll and cutting edge Jamaican reggae. It was on Lightning that Althea and Donna had their wonderful number one hit, "Uptown Top Ranking" although it was the Johnny Rotten fronted Virgin Front Line that released their album in the UK.

In summary, this Peel favourite is the shit. As far as I know hasn't been released on CD in the UK, which is fucking criminal.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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