by Vinyl301 -

King Of The Slums: Dandelions

Dandelions_6

Midnight Music 1989. CHIME 01.04 D

Discogs

It’s been too long since I posted anything by this band, so here’s their debut album.  It’s more of the same, not that there’s anything wrong with that – angry people with noisy guitars and a manic violinist is good as far as I’m concerned.  There should be more violins in rock music.

This doesn’t quite have the impact of the Vicious British Boyfriend EP, but nevertheless it’s a consistently strong album; there’s no filler here.

Everything they did was deleted long ago, but there’s some stuff on the hateful itunes apparently.

by Vinyl301 -

Ultra Vivid Scene: Mercy Seat

Mercy Seat

4AD 1989.  BAD906

Discogs

This single was, I think, the pinnacle of Kurt Ralske’s musical career.  This is a re-recording of the song, the original being on his debut album where it stood head and shoulders above the rest of what was an excellent album.  This much longer version gains most of the extra time from an extended intro which builds to the song itself over around three minutes.  Normally these things are just padding to justify the 12″ format, but here the majesty of the song, both lyrically and musically needs this build-up to really work its magic.  There’s less guitar distortion here than in the original, but more delicate meandering around the melody which gives the track a fragility which suits it.  The mesmerising bass line is still much in evidence though.  Somewhat surprisingly a very young Moby plays guitar on this.

The single includes the album version of the track as a closer and a couple of exclusives, which while completely overshadowed by the title track are well worth hearing.