Album: MAX BONDI – M (Tartaruga TTRDC004 2009)

Tartaruga’s releases are always eagerly awaited around these parts. They don’t come around very frequently – this being just the fourth release since the label’s inception 18 months ago – but they’re always an aesthetic joy. Packaged in a hand stitched, gatefold recycled card sleeve, screenprinted in green and with a fold-out tracing-paper insert, Max Bondi’s first release M is a beautiful object. All the packaging in the world, though, can’t rescue a substandard record. This hasn’t been remotely a problem for the label thus far, and I’m pleased to say that their quality control department is still functioning perfectly.

There are a bewildering array of instruments used on M, and yet the album has an uncluttered simplicity to it. Most of the tracks are based around deep drones, but these are usually used as an enveloping sonic pallette through which other sounds rise and fall. There’s a fine balance of noise and quiet, of melody and dischord, and things tend to evolve unhurriedly, but not without tension or even violence.

Some of the bass levels are intense. “Morendo” has a deep bass drone underpinned by even lower sub-bass frequencies while a slow, echoing snare marks out a forlorn beat. “Volanté” also carries some subterranean tones with the percussion beating out a slow march and fuzzed up psychedelic guitar wending its way through the track. “Alina”consists of looped and overlaid cello phrases that both complement and contrast with each other as the track increases in depth, but always sound exquisitely mournful.

The epic “A Desperate Threnody” is the stand-out piece. Constructed like a three movement suite, it begins with a deep drone, as waves of grimy synth build to monumental proportions. When they seem about to crash, they fade into the long central segment which is constructed of chiming, metallic percussion and a gentle piano repeating the simple three chord theme of the first part. The finale is brief, a build-up of filthy static fuzz that obliterates the doleful mood with its malevolence. “Elenco” wraps things up, as sampled, distorted traffic noise and kids’ voices are eventually overwhelmed by a fuzzed up, spitting guitar coda.

M embraces the drone, the art of noise and reflective musique concrète. The elements are familiar, but the extremities seem somehow heightened. It’s a terrific edition to Tartaruga’s small, but perfectly formed catalogue. The CD, limited to 200 copies, is out on July 27th, with an unlimited download to follow later in the summer. Go to the Tartaruga website for details.

Tracks
1 Aleph.Bet 3:52
2 Morendo 3:35
3 Volante! 5:44
4 In Such Seeming All Things Are 9:48
5 Alina 3:15
6 A Desperate Threnody 15:50
7 Elenco 5:34

Websites
www.tartaruga.com

Oxfam Book Quiz reminder

Just a quick reminder that the first Oxfam Glasgow Book Quiz is this coming Tuesday at the 78, Kelvinhaugh Street at 7.30.

Go to oxfambooksglasgow.wordpress.com for details about the quiz and all the other events happening in Glasgow as part of Oxfam’s Bookfest fortnight. There’s stuff going on all over the rest of the UK as well.

See www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/bookfest.html for details.

The M M & M 1000 – part 35

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. The last Load of Ms.

BIRTHDAY PARTY – Mr Clarinet / Happy Birthday (Missing Link 18 1980)
And indeed it is a link. Taking the quirky pop of the Boys Next Door and guiding it towards the einstürzende swamp-rock of the band’s 4AD period, “Mr Clarinet” has a squawky charm of its own. It may seem quite restrained compared to what was to come, but there’s menace ‘neath the surface.

LAST PARTY – Mr Hurst / Hubby’s Hobby (Harvey 2 1987)
I wrote about this forgotten gem here.

4 HERO – Mr Kirk’s Nightmare / Move Wid the House Groove / Combat Dance (Reinforced 1203 1990)
One of the defining tracks that bridged hardcore techno with what was to develop as jungle. As the BPMs turned up, the E-bliss began to turn into paranoia, and “Mr Kirk’s Nightmare” feeds on this and spits it right back out. The sampled voice dispassionately forming Mr Kirk that “your son is dead – he died of an overdose” being pumped out to bodies stretched to the edge on E, K and coke was fairly explicit in its message.

FALL – Mr Pharmacist / Lucifer Over Lancashire (Beggars Banquet 168 1986)
The last forty years have consistently seen waves of hopeful garage bands cranking out two and a half minute tunes, all the while wishing they were in Nowheresville, Oregon in 1965. The Fall have always had a garage sensibility in that polish is strictly for shoes and dinner tables. But they capture the spirit without ever sounding like imitators. Even when they’ve covered garage classics like “Mr Pharmacist”, originally done by a band called the Other Half, they’ve always made them sound like Fall songs, and the originals sound like weak imitations.

CHORDETTES – Mr Sandman / I Don’t Want to See You Cryin’ (Cadence 1247 1954)
There’s something deeply spooky about this song. The squeaky clean harmonies and lack of any sex or sensuality whatsoever, make it seem like the perfect soundtrack to that Stepford world of 1950s suburban America. Mr Sandman is, of course, a character of children’s nightmares, and there’s something really creepy about the unthreatening blandness about the Chordettes, three perfectly lovely white, Christian, Republican girls. It cropped up in Gary Ross’ 1998 film Pleasantville, and immediately evoked an environment of conformity and repression.

BYRDS – Mr Tambourine Man / I Knew I’d Want You (Columbia 43271 1965)
BYRDS – My Back Pages / Renaissance Fair (Columbia 44054 1967)
I was at a funeral recently, and the deceased’s choice of tune to send the congregation out was Dylan’s original of “Mr Tambourine Man”. An off the wall choice, but obviously a deeply personal one. The Byrds’ excised large chunks of the song for their version. What makes it is that jangly guitar riff, an intro as recognisable as any in pop. Rickenbacker sunshine. “My Back Pages” follows the same formula of adapting a wordy Dylan song into a snappy piece full of glistening harmony.

WILSON PICKETT – Mustang Sally / Three Time Loser (Atlantic 2365 1966)
This is one of those car/girl metaphorical songs that were a staple in soul and r&b from the forties to the sixties. It allows for plenty of innuendo (”ride Sally ride” etc) lashed with southern grit.

ANGELS – My Boyfriend’s Back / (Love Me) Now (Smash 1834 1963)
It’s ironic that the girl groups of the sixties were all about boyfriend-worship, and yet they came across as sassy and in control. Modern girl groups often sing about control and dissing any unfortunate males who get in the way, and yet they sound like production line Barbie dolls. Of course that’s a ludicrous generalisation. There were sixties songs like Lesley Gore’s horribly twee “It’s My Party” that were just wet. The Angels certainly didn’t sound like they were the sort to burst into tears at the drop of a hat.

STEVIE WONDER – My Cherie Amour / Don’t Know Why I Love You (Tamla 54180 1969)
“My Cherie Amour” sounds a lot more sensual than ‘my dear love’, which sounds like the sort of thing that a particular camp actor would come out with.. By 1969 Stevie Wonder was leaving the Little Stevie schtick, and the bouncy Motown floorfillers behind, and moving into a more sophisticated type of soul music that he would nail in five stupendous albums recorded between 1972 and 1976.

WEDDING PRESENT – My Favourite Dress / Every Mother’s Son / Never Said (Reception 5 1987)
My favourite Gedge song. The first two Wedding Present albums seemed to be mostly mined from the same failing relationship. But “My Favourite Dress” is the one that really expresses the hurt with its long, almost spoken, second section: “Uneaten meals, a lonely star / A welcome ride in a neighbour’s car / A long walk home in the pouring rain / I fell asleep when you never came / Some rare delight in Manchester town / It took six hours before you let me down / To see it all in a drunken kiss / A stranger’s hand on my favourite dress / That was my favourite dress you know / That was my favourite dress“. That focus on something so banal as an item of clothing is so true to life. The big picture is often hard to take in, and it’s the little things that are often so upsetting. All the while, the song has an almost bouncy arrangement that’s underpinned by an underlying sadness. Still sounds magnificent.

WHO – My Generation / Shout and Shimmy (Brunswick 5944 1965)
When you cut through all the layers of irony, it’s still a great song. Back then (and indeed for MY generation which was the next lot along), the generation gap was real and cavernous. I’m not so sure such a thing exists at all any more.

TEMPTATIONS – My Girl / Nobody But My Baby (Gordy 7038 1964)
MARY WELLS – My Guy / Oh Little Boy (Motown 1056 1964)
Two Motown songs that everybody knows, probably to the point that they’ve become banal background noise piped out of nostalgia radio stations, supermarkets and every other damn public space. They’re so familiar that nobody ever really listens to them any more, which is such a shame. I could wax lyrical about the commodification of pop, but now is not the time to come over like a poor man’s Paul Morley.

LOVE – My Little Red Book / Message to Pretty (Elektra 45603 1966)
The first missive from the sixties most ironically named band was a piece of Bacharach and David cheese, punked up. Although it has the sort of lyric that Smokey Robinson would reject as being too twee, Arthur Lee actually makes it sound like an angry and bitter thing, full of pent-up resentment.

SIMON & GARFUNKEL – My Little Town / Rag Doll (Columbia 10230 1975)
The product of a very short reunion, “My Little Town” carries on from where the likes of “The Boxer” left off. Full of nostalgia, wall of sound production and fantastic harmonies.

10,000 MANIACS – My Mother, the War / Planned Obsolescence / National Education Week (Reflex 1 1984)
Natalie Merchant seems to get many people’s backs up. They see her as some kind of bossy school ma’am. Perhaps it’s because she never tried to hide her intelligence, or conform to the stereotype of sexy front for her band. The titles from 10,000 Maniacs’ first EP tell it all. She wasn’t going to sing about staple pop fare. What may shock anyone whose never heard these early tracks is how sonically adventurous they are. “My Mother, the War” sounds like a cross between the Young Marble Giants and the Jesus & Mary Chain at their noisiest. Natalie imparts a tale of an everywoman figure whose brood is out fighting, possibly never to return. She touches on both the mundane and the macabre – of gossiping neighbours, shiny parades, anxiety and bloodied carrion while surrounded by a maelstrom of feedback and quick-step drums.

DAVID RUFFIN – My Whole World Ended / I’ve Got to Find Myself a New Baby (Motown 1140 1969)
SUPREMES – My World is Empty Without You / Everything Is Good About You (Motown 1089 1965)
Two more Motown classics, and two that haven’t been jaded by over-exposure. Motown’s writers were never ones for understating an emotion. The boy meets girl songs are usually accompanied by over the top declarations of how damn wonderful he/she is. The boy loses girl (or vice versa) are usually apocalyptic catastrophes. Credit to the singers that they always made you believe. David Ruffin and Diana Ross were both lead singers of their respective groups, and both got a bit big for their boots, leaving the group format behind for a solo career. There the similarity ends. David Ruffin’s post-Temptations career started well enough, but as the group got bigger, he got left behind and ended up dead too young. Lady Di, of course, became showbiz royalty.

ELVIS PRESLEY – Mystery Train / I Forgot to Remember to Forget (Sun 223 1955)
Forget Graceland, rhinestones, cheeseburgers, leather jumpsuits, terrible films, “Do the Clam” and all the other monstrosities. This is why he mattered.

More soon.

EP: CLARK – Growls Garden (Warp WAP272 2009)

When Chris Clark released his debut album Clarence Park in 2001, it slipped out unheralded and didn’t garner a great deal of attention. It was a collection of short, gleaming abstract techno pieces allied with a touch of glitch and acid which fit into the cold, dehumanised electronica that was prevalent at the time. It was good, but not especially distinctive. 2003’s Empty the Bones of You developed and expanded the sound, but still came across a little like Autechre Jr. Dropping his first name, he reappeared three years later with a dirtier, harder and more industrial sound, and since then has been pretty prolific.

Generally, he’s alternated full length albums with six track mini sets. These have been far from cast-off collections. The latest (which came out back in March) is called Growls Garden after its lead track, a fantastic piece of scuzzy techno rock that thuds its way into the synapses. Like Mark Pritchard’s Harmonic 313 album earlier this year, Clark delights in ignoring genre boundaries. Taking acid, grime, techno, dubstep, big beat and ambient and a whole heap of dirty crackle and fuzz, he’s still managed to come up with a 25 minute journey of surprising coherence. “Gonk Roughage” is acid-grime, and “Distant Father Torch” a tottering dubstep monster that is brutally hard and yet atmospheric. “Farewell Mining Town” rounds proceedings off on a yearning note, sounding like an Eno-esque cosmic ballad heard through a poorly tuned tinny transistor radio.

New album Totems Flare is out very soon, and many are calling it his masterpiece. I’m not one to listen to hype, but Growls Garden certainly bodes well.

Tracks
1 Growls Garden (5:03)
2 The Magnet Mine (4:43)
3 Seaweed (3:21)
4 Gonk Roughage (4:00)
5 Distant Father Torch (4:38)
6 Farewell Mining Town (3:28)

Websites
www.throttleclark.com
www.myspace.com/throttleclark

A Few Forthcoming Releases (July 2009)

Usually a slow period before the big autumn push. Some goodies, though, to see you through the summer.

6th Jul
BJÖRK – Voltaic (One Little Indian)
HAROLD BUDD & CLIVE WRIGHT – Candylion (Darla)
IMPRESSIONS – Complete A & B Sides 1961 – 1968 (Universal)
JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER – Ballads of the Revolution (Fire)
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN – Spiral 1; Japan (EMI Classics)
MARVELETTES – Complete motown Albums Volume 1 (Universal)

13th Jul
CLARK – Totems Flare (Warp)
MERZBOW – 13 Japanese Birds:Kamo (Important)
SLEEP WHALE – Little Brite (Western Vinyl)
TARA JANE O’NEIL – A Ways Away (K)

20th Jul
BILL FRISELL – Disfarmer (Nonesuch)
ENGINE7 – Another Thunderous Silence (Herb)
GREG DAVIS – Mutually Arising (Kranky)
JEGA – Variance (Planet Mu)
LIGHTS – Rites (Drag City)
OCHRE – Like Dust of the Balance (Benbecula)
SCENE IS NOW – Tonight We Ride (Lexicon Devil)

27th Jul
MAX BONDI – M (Tartaruga)
MERZBOW – 13 Japanese Birds:Kujakubato (Important)
SON VOLT – American Central Dust (Rounder)

3rd Aug
DISKJOKKE – Discolated (Remixes 2007-2008) (Smalltown Superjazz)
HERBALISER – Band Session 2 (K7)
MOS DEF – The Ecstatic (V2)
RICHARD YOUNGS – Like a Neuron (Dekorder)
ROBERT WYATT – Box Set (Domino)
VARIOUS – Ze 30: Ze Records Story 1979-2009 (K7)
TELEKINESIS! – Telekinesis! (Morr)

10th Aug
JAMES YORKSTON & THE BIG EYES FAMILY PLAYERS – Folk Songs (Domino)
LUKE VIBERT – We Hear You (Planet Mu)
NISENNENMONDAI – Destination Tokyo (Smalltown Supersound)
RICHARD THOMPSON – Walking on a Wire: 1968-2009 (Shout Factory)
SOULSAVERS – Broken (V2)
THE ROOTS – How I Got Over (Def Jam)

17th Aug
NEIL LANDSTRUMM – Bambaataa Eats his Breakfast (Planet Mu)
PLUM – A Different Skin (Benbecula)
RICHMOND FONTAINE – We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River (Decor)
SQUAREPUSHER – Solo Electric Bass (Warp)

24th Aug
ARTHUR-VINCENT LOURIE / LEO ORNSTEIN / GEORGE ANTHEIL – Futurpiano (LTM)
MÙM – Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know (Morr)
SUSANNA & THE MAGICAL ORCHESTRA – 3 (Rune Grammofon)
TIM BUCKLEY – Live at the Folklore Center, NYC: March 6th, 1967 (Tompkins Square)

31st Aug
ANDREW WEATHERALL – A Pox on the Pioneers (Rotter’s Golf Club)
ROBIN GUTHRIE – Carousel (Darla)

7th Sep
NUDGE – As Good As Gone (Kranky)
PASTELS / TENNISCOATS – Two Sunsets (Domino)

14th Sep
PERE UBU – Long Live Pere Ubu (Cooking Vinyl)
SPARKLEHORSE / FENNESZ – In the Fishtank 15 (Fishtank)

21st Sep
CHRIST. – Distance Lends Enchantment to the View (Benbecula)
PART CHIMP – Thriller (Rock Action)
VARIOUS – Warp 20 Box Set (Warp)

28th Sep
SWEET TRIP – You Will Never Know Why (Darla)

12th Oct
SHINING – tbc (Rune Grammofon)

Album: SIR RICHARD BISHOP – The Freak of Araby (Drag City DC398 2009)

Ex-Sun City Girl (Sir) Richard Bishop has been responsible for some of the most original and eclectic guitar music of the last few years. The Freak of Araby is a conceptual collection of sorts, with Arabic scales and tunes informing the work. He’s even credited by the name Rasheed Al-Qahira.

It’s very much a band work, with two percussionists and a bass guitarist joining the fray, but the opening piece “Taqasim for Omar” is a deft and haunting solo electric guitar piece. When the band joins in, the results are a little like the Ventures if they had grown up in Rabat rather than Tacoma. Twangy guitar and Middle Eastern percussion may seem like unlikely bedfellows – like seeing Hank Marvin in a fez – but it works really well. Some tracks go for the simple melodic approach (such as the cover “Solenzara”), but others allow Bishop to engage in some captivating improvisation over a steady, and impeccably laid down rhythm.

Sometimes the cross-culturalism leads to something unexpected. Both “Kaddak El Mayass” and “Essaouira” have shades of Calexico’s Tex-Mex desert twang, particularly the latter. But then Spanish culture is influenced by the fact that it was a Moorish colony for hundreds of years, and that culture was exported to the New World, so it’s not so surprising.”Ka’an Azzaman” has a Balkan feel to it, but then that again is a product of the cross-fertilisation between Eastern Europe and the Arab World through the Ottoman Empire.

There isn’t a dull moment on the whole album, but the two closing tracks are worthy of particular mention. “Sidi Mansour” rattles along at the sort of pace that would have Dick Dale struggling to keep up, and has a terrific dubby, space-rock middle section. The closing “Blood-stained Sands” jettisons the guitar altogether in favour of Moroccan Chanters. They’re instruments that it takes patience to get to love (like the bagpipes), but they lend a hypnotic end to proceedings – especially when allied with some really warlike drumming.

Another fine album, then, from Rick / Sir Richard / Rasheed. My favourite yet, although he’s got such a bewildering catalogue that I’ve heard a mere fraction of the stuff he’s recorded.

Tracks
1 Taqasim For Omar (7:16)
2 Enta Omri (2:45)
3 Barbary (2:20)
4 Solenzara (5:01)
5 The Pillars Of Baalbek (5:18)
6 Kaddak El Mayass (3:26)
7 Essaouira (2:21)
8 Ka’an Azzaman (2:51)
9 Sidi Mansour (6:03)
10 Blood-Stained Sands (7:30)

Websites
www.myspace.com/sirrichardbishop
www.freewebs.com/improvika/

Album: SLEEP WHALE – Little Brite (Western Vinyl WV65 2009)

Little Brite is the debut mini LP / EP from Denton, Texas duo Sleep Whale who are made up of guitarist / cellist Joel North and violinist / programmer Bruce Blay. The music is largely acoustic, given an electronic edge that adds colour without ever being obtrusive. This is summery music, sometimes steeped in sadness, sometimes whimsical and sometimes as bright and fresh as a cooling dip in a mountain stream. Think a more natural, less self-consciously intellectual counterpart to Books for a quick reference.

There are six tracks which, on the vinyl version, break into two distinctive suites. “Skipping Stones” provides an slightly childlike opening with tingling guitars playing over soft violin and a percussion built out of samples of water. It sounds like the perfect soundtrack to Trumpton or Camberwick Green (references that will mean something only to Brits of a certain age). It segues seamlessly into the plucked acoustics of “A Pebble Garden” and the bright, complex guitar melodies and hand drums of “Josh Likes Me” which clatters to a dissonant, shambolic end.

The mood of the second half is more downbeat, and the instrumentation more complex. Manipulated string drones and mournful guitar give “Airplane Arms” a darker feel, with the track bookended with helicopterish rotary drums loops. The album ends with its only vocal track. The soft, airy harmonies of “Little Brite” give it a suitably sleepy and bucolic feel.

This is a lovely release. It’s mellow without ever lapsing into blandness, whimsical without ever being twee. Chilled out music that also pays close attention and which is complex without ever being showy, or losing sight of its essential melodic simplicity. The album is issued by Western Vinyl on July 14th.

Tracks
1 Skipping Stones 4:30
2 A Pebble Garden 3:28
3 Josh Likes Me 5:04
4 Sleep Whale 4:44
5 Airplane Arms 3:52
6 Little Brite 4:31

Websites
westernvinyl.com
www.myspace.com/sleepwhale

The M M & M 1000 – part 34

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Another Load of Ms.

GLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS – Midnight Train to Georgia / Window Raising Granny (Buddah 383 1973)
“I’d rather live in his world than without him in mine“. This is a song about a culture clash. She’s a sophisticated northern city bred girl. He’s from the rural south. Finding it impossible to adjust to the different pace of life, he yearns to return to his roots, and she has to decide whether she’s more attached to hers or to him. I remember seeing a skit on the Richard Pryor TV show some years back where he was convinced that they could save money having the Pips perform without Gladys. It was very funny seeing them do the backing vocals and dance routines without her lead, but it also highlighted how brilliantly tight they were both in terms of their singing and choreography.

HELEN HUMES – Million Dollar Secret / I’m Gonna Let Him Ride (Modern 779 1950)
Helen Humes was typical of the sassy female R&B singers of the forties and fifties who oozed sexuality, but in a funny, take-no-bullshit way. “Million Dollar Secret” was recorded live, and you can hear the audience cheering her on as she imparts her tale of shameless gold-digging. “Now I’ve got a man who’s seventy-eight / And I’m just thirty-three / Everybody thinks I’m crazy / But his will’s made out to me!”.

DELTA FIVE – Mind Your Own Business / Now That You’re Gone (Rough Trade 31 1979)
Part Gang of Four, part Raincoats, the Delta Five were typical of the wave of post-punk gobby feminist groups that seemed to cluster around Rough Trade. Both the singing and the production were flat and glamourless, but they had a rough-edged funk to them that talked to the feet. And if the choruses had a bit of the protest march sloganeering about them, they stuck in the head. It’s kind of depressing that thirty years on, women in pop are back to being manufactured teen puppets. Even self-proclaimed feminists like the Gossip are more image and packaging than content.

CAB CALLOWAY & HIS ORCHESTRA – Minnie the Moocher / Doin’ the Rhumba (Brunswick 6074 1931)
I’m sure virtually everybody knows this classic from the dawn of the Swing era, largely due to the “hi-de-hi” nonsense chorus. It almost sounds like it’s played for laughs, but away from that chorus it tells a sad tale of a girl who dreams of a fantasy life of untold riches, but who’s stuck with a no-good cokehead who “showed her how to kick the gong around“, or in other words, got her into opium smoking.

DICK DALE – Misirlou / Eight Till Midnight (Del-Tone 5019 1962)
This is a song with a long history that has crossed continents, styles and cultures since it was first penned in Greece as a rebetiko tune back in 1927 by a Greek exile from Turkey called Michalis Patrinos. It became a standard in both Greek and Arab cultures in the years before World War Two. In 1941, a Greek-American called Nick Roubanis did a commercial jazz version, and noticing that the tune had never been published in the US, credited himself as composer. It was soon given English lyrics which bore no relation whatsoever to the originals. Dick Dale, being of Lebanese-American stock, knew the tune in the form that had evolved in the Arab world. He picked out the basic melody on guitar, increased it to warp-speed, and a legendary surf tune was born. Thanks to Tarantino, it’s by far the best-known version in the west today, and a staple in any surf-garage band’s repertoire.

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – Missing / mixes (Blanco Y Negro NEG84T 1995)
Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn were contemporaries of mine at Hull University. But I was never much of a fan of their music, although I really liked the Marine Girls and a few other early tracks like “Plain Sailing” and their cover of “Night and Day”. Massive Attack brought Tracey on board for the Protection album, and she absolutely shone in that setting. The duo obviously thought so too, as they made a complete change in their sound for “Missing” in 1994. The Todd Terry remix that came out the following year is the one that everyone knows. It plays to the strengths of her voice, by giving the tune a late night, chilled tempo dripping with melancholy, and yet with enough oomph for the dancefloor.

DEL THA FUNKEE HOMOSAPIEN – Mistadobalina / Burnt (Elektra 142 1991)
It’s just one of those records that you hear once and can’t forget. As everyone probably knows, Del is Ice Cube’s cousin, and cuz produces here. It’s good time vibe really couldn’t be further away from NWA, and it still sounds fresh.

FRANÇOISE HARDY – Mon Amie la Rose / Je n’Attends plus Personne (Vogue 1252 1964)
Funny, I’ve just checked the history of this song and discovered that this was the original version. I’d always thought that it was already a standard when Françoise Hardy recorded it. It sounds timeless, with a sad and vulnerable but sultry feel that somehow only seems genuine when sung in French. Hardy’s voice is an aural aphrodisiac, as far as I’m concerned. Natacha Atlas’s version is brilliant too.

BO DIDDLEY – Mona / Hey Bo Diddley (Checker 860 1957)
For me, this is the song that encapsulates everything that was great about Bo Diddley. The riff and the groove never sounded better than on “Mona”.

CLYDE McPHATTER & THE DRIFTERS – Money Honey / The Way I Feel (Atlantic 1006 1953)
“Money Honey” is just one of a long tradition of songs that place the green folding stuff above love, life and happiness. Especially when you’ve got none. The 1953 original model Drifters shared no members with the 1958 Ben E King version, let alone the groups that continue to this day. But they’ve become an institution, and will probably still be around long after I’m worm food.

VALENTINE BROTHERS – Money’s Too Tight To Mention / instrumental (Bridge 1982 1982)
Forget Simply Red’s version if you can. John and William Valentine were one-hit wonders who didn’t even have a proper hit, if that makes sense. But this song (written by the pair) was an absolute belter. It sounded out of time in 1982 when soul music had split into post-disco electro stuff, and glossy bedroom crooners. This was a record that harked back to classic pre-disco seventies soul, but with elements of smooth jazz to it too. The only thing that pins it down to the early eighties is the mention of Reaganomics. They did an album called First Take which I’ve never seen, let alone heard.

PIXIES – Monkey Gone to Heaven / Manta Ray (4AD 904 1989)
I haven’t the foggiest idea what it’s about. It’s probably still a staple of indie discos – not that I go to indie discos. I think the bands of that era – Pixies, Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr etc were the last generation of rock bands that took the simple guitar / bass / drums format and made something both original and exciting. All of the interesting bands since have fused rock with other stuff. OK, a massive generalisation, but I can’t think of anyone in the last 20 years who has taken the basic form further forward.

DAVE BARTHOLOMEW – The Monkey / Shufflin’ Time (Imperial 5438 1957)
New Orleans legend Dave Bartholomew provided an interesting twist to the theory of evolution with this witty little song. Two monkeys debate Darwin’s theory, but come to the conclusion that it’s flawed because they can’t believe that their ancestors evolved into something as crass and stupid as human beings.

COLOURBOX – The Moon is Blue / You Keep Me Hanging On (4AD 507 1985)
It must be one of the strangest disappearing acts ever. Colourbox blazed a trail that took elements of pop history and mixed them with contemporary electropop and ahead of their time sampling. The Young brothers then went on to have a massive worldwide hit as part of M/A/R/R/S and then promptly vanished. “The Moon is Blue” is a 1980s take on doowop, with Lorita Grahame’s powerful voice swinging through a ballad that sounds like it comes from a parallel universe’s version of a fifties Harlem street corner.

BOSTON – More Than a Feeling / Smokin’ (Epic 50266 1976)
Guilty pleasure time. Airbrushed harmonies and produced to within an inch of its life, there’s something extraordinarily uplifting about this track. It’s got guitar solos that it’s impossible to resist getting out the air guitar for. And of course, it’s got that bassline – the one that Kurt Cobain nicked wholesale for a certain tune that proved quite popular fifteen years later.

TIM BUCKLEY – Morning Glory / Once I Was (Elektra 45623 1967)
I know you’re supposed to prefer the more freeform, jazz-influenced albums that came later, but Goodbye and Hello is the Tim Buckley album I always return to. Its combination of psychedelic folk, baroque pop and grandiose suites seldom put a foot wrong. “Morning Glory” is an unassuming little ballad of exquisite beauty and one of the record’s many highlights.

SLOWDIVE – Morningrise / She Calls / Losing Today (Creation 98 1991)
Has there ever been a band so derided by the mainstream rock press and yet so influential? I was an early convert. Their albums (bar the swansong Pygmalion) always seemed a bit uneven, but the EPs showed them at their best. “Morningrise” has a couple of moments when the guitars go to places that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s impossible to describe how some music has a genuinely physical effect like that. One has to admire Neil Halstead for following his muse and plugging away at his countryish singer-songwriter stuff to a disinterested world when a reformed Slowdive could probably rake it in. They’d miss Rachel Goswell, though. I think she suffers from some ear condition that would make it impossible for her to return to playing stuff at Slowdive’s volume.

GUIDED BY VOICES – Motor Away / Color of My Blade (Matador 148 1995)
Guided By Voices at their most polished, most basic and least wayward. Simply an exciting and uplifting piece of punk-pop.

HANK WILLIAMS – Move It On Over / I Heard You Cryin’ In Your Sleep (MGM 1003 1947)
Hank’s in his missus’ bad books and has to share the kennel with the dog for the night. A witty piece of whimsy that is a rock ‘n’ roll tune in all but name.

CURTIS MAYFIELD – Move On Up / Give It Up (Buddah 2011080 1971)
For some odd reason, his American record company didn’t see this as a single. In Britain they knew better. If you want positive, life-affirming, spiritual soul music that makes you want to bounce around in unfettered joy, there can’t be many tunes better than this. Possibly the most irresistable horn riff in pop, too.

More soon.