I see there's another member doing albums from '82 on this diary thing. I remember '82, but only a little as I was a mere sprog back then. I think it was the year my Dad bought the family an Atari 2600 and I spent many a happy hour playing Space Invaders with that joystick where the rubbery thing came off and you could stick it on the end of your nose and pretend to be a futuristic Pinocchio. Unsurprisingly, I doubt few (if any) '82 charts will feature this LP, and that's a shame:
Pakistani disco meets Yacht Rock, none more so than in key track Aaj Shanibar which sounds like Bollywood playback singers slipping on their canvas boat shoes and jumping aboard a schooner with America circa-Horse With No Name and halfway through deciding to have a stab at covering Southern Freeez. Killer jam:
Seems like it got a reissue last year but true to form I missed out on the bugger. Oh well - it'll turn up I'm sure. Until then I'm going to annoy the wife by playing the mp3s until she kicks me out the house to grab a Mutton Vindaloo.
Of course this isn't the best foreign language disco track by a long chalk. That honour belongs to a certain Turkish lady, as regular Pluggers will be acutely aware... _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
I see there's another member doing albums from '82 on this diary thing. I remember '82, but only a little as I was a mere sprog back then. I think it was the year my Dad bought the family an Atari 2600 and I spent many a happy hour playing Space Invaders with that joystick where the rubbery thing came off and you could stick it on the end of your nose and pretend to be a futuristic Pinocchio. Unsurprisingly, I doubt few (if any) '82 charts will feature this LP, and that's a shame:
Pakistani disco meets Yacht Rock, none more so than in key track Aaj Shanibar which sounds like Bollywood playback singers slipping on their canvas boat shoes and jumping aboard a schooner with America circa-Horse With No Name and halfway through deciding to have a stab at covering Southern Freeez. Killer jam:
Seems like it got a reissue last year but true to form I missed out on the bugger. Oh well - it'll turn up I'm sure. Until then I'm going to annoy the wife by playing the mp3s until she kicks me out the house to grab a Mutton Vindaloo.
Of course this isn't the best foreign language disco track by a long chalk. That honour belongs to a certain Turkish lady, as regular Pluggers will be acutely aware...
will be checking that out. Sounds interesting. Onto the 'ol queue it goes. _________________ -Ryan
The mid 00s were a funny old time for me. I was living in a council house with my bitch of an ex, no room for my CDs (which I left at my parents), certainly no space for my records, and no internet. In fact the years 2003-2006 were a massive lull in my quest to take my musical mind to new places, and it was only after splitting up from her, living in a folk-haze for 6 months (culminating in a life-changing experience at Stonehenge for the Summer Solstice) and losing the shackles I finally started living again.
Amidst all this however I did manage to find time to discover a few new things, mainly thanks to my good mate (and fellow Aldershot Town supporter) Richard who used to work behind the counter of a quiet second-hand record shop by the bus station in Guildford. Working in the same town I spent many a happy lunchtime there, rifling through promo CDs that some bloke from the Guardian used to sell to the shop, as well as doing the Telegraph crossword and making up nicknames for some of his punters (though 'Smelly Pete' was hardly imaginative. 'Cosmic' however was a far better effort for some old bint who was obviously on day release from the local nuthouse and thought I looked like Brad Pitt). I picked up a few odds-and-sods during these halcyon sojourns: Funeral before anyone had heard of it (later flogged), Futureheads S/T, the first Pipettes LP and a whole load of Soul Jazz promos (one of which I later sent to JoyOfDivision as a present). There was one though that I listened to a whole bucketload, which was:
Which up until about 10 minutes ago I hadn't listened to for over a decade (for reasons which will become apparent towards the end of this trip down memory lane). Two reasons for this - I played it to death in the car when I first discovered it, and it totally reminds me of a girl I was nuts about for years (who's now a dear, albeit seldom-seen friend). In fact I remember driving down to see her with this playing on the journey, and me making her a mix 'CD' with a couple of the tracks on.
If you haven't heard it, Engineers is a beautiful album - a subtle mix of ethereal dream-pop with a hint of shoegaze and just a pinch of Krautrock. There was another band like this that my band played a gig with once (called Lowgold), and there's hints of Elbow and Keane and the like in here too (both bands I haven't got any time for whatsoever), but the songcraft throughout is first rate. You could listen to the first four tracks standing on a cliff top with the wind threathening to blow your Sowester into the sea and feel completely lifted. Other tracks - "Said & Done" specifically - sound like BoC gone indie. There's a definite flavour of Nowhere-era Ride too in both the wispy vocals and the sense of being somewhere just close enough to the sea to skim a few stones into the foam.
Listening to it brings back memories both happy and sad. Music's always had the power to do that to me - I don't rate, I feel.
The whole reason this has popped into my head is because of this, which was made by their former bassist/guitarist/keyboard fella Mark Peters:
Which (following an abridged version coming out before Xmas) is one of the best things I've heard this year to date. It's like his former band left the singer in a bar and decided to make an album with Brian Eno. Ambient haze here, Krautrock drift there, a boat trip round some desolate inlet; it retains a lot of the (musical) imagery of the Engineers' S/T but with a more austere feel. Not that it's in any way mundane - it's a sweeping instrumental tapestry of colour that could easily calm many a seasick soul, especially on a choppy hovercraft crossing between Southsea and the Isle of Wight. It reminds me of a maritime version of the wonderful Tyneham House LP from a couple of years' back.
Not sure if it's age or wanting to investigate things out the ordinary, but I've listened to more ambient/dub techno/vaporwave albums this year than ever before. It's not as if there was even a catalyst for it (although perhaps picking up a more-than-decent first press of Music For Airports a couple of years ago might have been the harbinger of things to come). After randomly picking up a copy of vaporwave totem Floral Shoppe in Skinny's old haunt (Banquet Records, Kingston) yesterday I've been delving into some of the rarely listened-to records in my collection, and revisited this which I picked up at a record shop near Stonehenge a few months' back:
Now I'd normally bulk at records with grey covers, but there was something a little irresistible about Liquid & Stellar Music that I couldn't put my finger on. Firstly the price - £3. Secondly the first spin (on the in-store crappy portable record deck). Wow. It flows like intravenous morphine. Think Synthesist if Harald Grosskopf teamed up with Neu. Think the title track on Another Green World stretched out for 20 minutes, bumping into Selected Ambient Works Vol.2 on the way to the nearest teleport to oblivion. It's absolutely flipping fantastic - cosmic ambient, layer-upon-layer of bliss to transport you away to some lunar shangri-la.
Stream the bastard thing here. The B-Side - "This Same Temple" - is like a mellow jazz piano equivalent of the above, but a little bit more pedestrian (i.e. not as exciting) as the aforementioned. Hell, listen to it anyway. It's rather pretty nonetheless. And better than any Killers LP. _________________ 'Reggae' & t'ing Folk 'n Stuff SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG
As time goes by I realise that, as an addict, I have far too much music than I'll ever need. And in the same way that we tend to refresh our wardrobes from time to time I am rather partial to an occasional album cull, both physically and digitally, about once every 3 months or so. Whilst this can be quite a therapeutic exercise (I mean, why exactly did I buy the Kids From The Brady Bunch CD? Fucked if I know), at times you're left staring at iTunes or holding a record in your hand that part of you can't bear to jettison, even though the chances of you listening to it again in its entirety are slim-to-nil. Then you stick in on your deck, spin it and still can't make your mind up. And the reason? There's one track, a 3-or-4 minute piece of genius that is so bloody perfect that it justifies owning the bastard LP despite it mostly being filler or guff. Easy when you've got a digital collection - you can just make a playlist called "Jimmy's Zingers" or whatever takes your fancy and move the rest to the Recycle Bin/external Hard Drive of oblivion (delete where applicable). But when you've got too much of the black stuff that your wife's moaning at you that the ceiling's about to cave in you're faced with the unenviable task of making a call which once you've flogged said LP on Discogs or on Facebook or whatever you can't reverse. Unless you buy the sodding thing again in a fit of nostalgic rage.
Back in 2010, just before I joined BEA, I was enjoying an indie-pop renaissance: wearing a blue anorak and/or tweed jacket/tie combo, seeing a new indie band almost weekly with my South London gig buddy Anna, falling in love with the Dum Dum Girls and TPOBPAH, frequenting the stellar How Does It Feel To Be Loved indie nights at The Carpenters Arms in Brixton (RIP), and (as I am still) floating around in a bubble of love and contentment thanks to having a fucking amazing girlfriend (now wife). As time's meandered on and middle age has dawned those fleeting, pre-parent days are remembered as smelling of JD & Coke and Marlboro Lights (neither of which I've touched this year) and soundtracked by beautiful little epics such as this.
I don't think I've listened to the Avi Buffalo album for about 8 years. And I still haven't, because by the time I got to the second track I just pressed repeat and have now had this song on constant repeat for the last 20 minutes (about as long as I've taken to write this). If you've got a spare 5 minutes, give it a listen. It's one of the most charming and joyful songs of the last 10 years.
As time goes by I realise that, as an addict, I have far too much music than I'll ever need. And in the same way that we tend to refresh our wardrobes from time to time I am rather partial to an occasional album cull, both physically and digitally, about once every 3 months or so. Whilst this can be quite a therapeutic exercise (I mean, why exactly did I buy the Kids From The Brady Bunch CD? Fucked if I know), at times you're left staring at iTunes or holding a record in your hand that part of you can't bear to jettison, even though the chances of you listening to it again in its entirety are slim-to-nil. Then you stick in on your deck, spin it and still can't make your mind up. And the reason? There's one track, a 3-or-4 minute piece of genius that is so bloody perfect that it justifies owning the bastard LP despite it mostly being filler or guff. Easy when you've got a digital collection - you can just make a playlist called "Jimmy's Zingers" or whatever takes your fancy and move the rest to the Recycle Bin/external Hard Drive of oblivion (delete where applicable). But when you've got too much of the black stuff that your wife's moaning at you that the ceiling's about to cave in you're faced with the unenviable task of making a call which once you've flogged said LP on Discogs or on Facebook or whatever you can't reverse. Unless you buy the sodding thing again in a fit of nostalgic rage.
Back in 2010, just before I joined BEA, I was enjoying an indie-pop renaissance: wearing a blue anorak and/or tweed jacket/tie combo, seeing a new indie band almost weekly with my South London gig buddy Anna, falling in love with the Dum Dum Girls and TPOBPAH, frequenting the stellar How Does It Feel To Be Loved indie nights at The Carpenters Arms in Brixton (RIP), and (as I am still) floating around in a bubble of love and contentment thanks to having a fucking amazing girlfriend (now wife). As time's meandered on and middle age has dawned those fleeting, pre-parent days are remembered as smelling of JD & Coke and Marlboro Lights (neither of which I've touched this year) and soundtracked by beautiful little epics such as this.
I don't think I've listened to the Avi Buffalo album for about 8 years. And I still haven't, because by the time I got to the second track I just pressed repeat and have now had this song on constant repeat for the last 20 minutes (about as long as I've taken to write this). If you've got a spare 5 minutes, give it a listen. It's one of the most charming and joyful songs of the last 10 years.
They don't make days like they used to.
I agree: this one was all the time on Belgian radio and this one absolutely beat everything else that was on the radio round that time. It's catchy as hell...
Been a while. With the grim prospect of redundancy breathing down my neck, a death in the family (RIP Nan - bless her, 94 and every time I think of Mrs. Miller I'm instantly reminded of the time we went carol singing together) and recent vinyl acquisitions being few and far between it's not been the most stellar to times at Dread Towers of late. But maybe things are starting to look up. And maybe, just maybe, I might finally get round to sharing with you some - gulp - jazz discoveries I've made of late, partly kicked off by listening to The Creator Has A Master Plan on constant loop whilst job hunting. 'cos, you know... maybe she does, like.
Given my new-found interest in Pharoah this has been kissing my ears of late:
Maybe 2019's the year my jazz collection expands beyond Karma and A Love Supreme, who knows? Or maybe I'll just stick with some Finnish Augustus Pablo impersonator...
Having just rebooted my Denon Network Audio Player after a couple of years of non-use (the stupid wireless dongle broke, so I've had to wire it in via a Wi-Fi extender) I've been rediscovering the joys of streaming Internet Radio stations from JA. And none can top that broadcasting from the mecca of Jamaican musicianship - The Alpha Boys School. Studio One classics, Pablo, Burning Spear, Mikey Dread... utterly essential stuff.
Coming soon... a list of my all-time Top 50 Studio One cuts. Stay tuned an' t'ing.
The man pictured above is a legend. What follows over the next few posts is my attempt to compile my all-time Top 50 Studio One cuts, which considering the sheer volume of music Jamaica's version of Motown put out (although I've never liked that analogy) is something that's taken me far too long to put into some sort of order over the last few weeks since I first decided to have a stab at it. Think of it as my Xmas gift to you all - and even if one of you gets something out of it then my work 'ere is done.
If the track's on YouTube I'll put a link up, but suffice it to say that every single track in the 50 demands to be heard and especially those whose knowledge of Jamaican music is limited to the obvious it might open your eyes up to something new. For everyone else, grab a can of Red Stripe, sit back and chill.
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