by Vinyl301 -

Bill Drummond: The King Of Joy

Folder

Creation 1987. CRE039T

Discogs

Hallelujah.  After a long wait my turntable is up and running again (new phono stage if you’re interested), so here’s the first vinyl rip.

Bill Drummond’s career has been endlessly interesting, right back to his stint as manager of The Teardrop Explodes and Echo And The Bunnymen.  Since then he’s best know for his commercial success with The KLF, as the guy who burnt a million quid, and more recently as artist and author.

Between the Manager phase and the KLF phase was a short lived period as a solo artist on Creation which yielded an album (The Man) and this single.  It is one of the most uplifting  records I own; I’ve spent far too much time this morning gyrating around the house to it.  While completely different in style to what he did next, the quality of these two tracks shows that the appeal of the records he made with Jimmy Cauty was grounded not in the pranks, but in the ability to write and produce great material.

The title track, King Of Joy is lifted from the album I’ve already mentioned.  Drummond himself says the song which is his “theme” is True To The Trail, a country style ditty from The Man, but for me King Of Joy does the job much better.  It’s a great song, and I’m a total sucker for pop songs with trumpet parts.  Never mind that ol’ Bill isn’t much of a singer – the overall effect is great and works all the better for his Scottish accent.

I Want That Girl is also on the album, but this is an instrumental version including a beautiful trumpet part by Henry Lowther.  It also has a Hammond solo too – could it get any better?

The B side is the spoken word The Manager, apparently the soundtrack to a film, although I’ve never seen it.  He’s ranting about the state of the music industry and what he’d do to fix it in his usual slightly unhinged but very entertaining way.  It works as a kind of statement of intent for what he was to become famous for.  You can hear True To The Trail playing in the background at the start.

Further listening?  Well there’s nothing available.  His Creation material is long deleted and the KLF and related stuff was all ceremonially deleted by Drummond and Cauty when they left the music industry.  He’s written quite a few books over the years, most of which are also out of print and very rare, but right now you can get 45 pretty easily which is a great read about his rather idiosyncratic take on the music industry.  It’s also worth keeping an eye on his web site.

The album is available (for a short time) here

by Vinyl301 -

Adorable: Sistine Chapel Ceiling

sistine

Creation 1993.  CRESCD153

Discogs

Adorable were short lived (1990 – 4) and had a crap name, but they made some great guitary indiepop for Creation.  This was their fourth single, and like their debut, was single of the week in NME.

I bought a couple of Adorable singles, and while I liked  them, I never got really into them.  Maybe I’d heard too much of this sort of stuff by then – and according to this article on Creation’s web site it was all very badly timed anyway.

Twenty years down the line, I’m writing this because I feel like listening to some 90s indiepop, and it sounds pretty good to me.  I guess they deserved more success than they got.

by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: The Bridge, A Tribute To Neil Young

R-688837-1201824631

Caroline Records 1989.  CAR CD 5

Discogs

This album is from the days when tribute albums were quite a new idea, and it has a most impressive list of contributing artists; impressive enough to make it worth having for most people interested enough in music to end up reading this blog.

As is always the case, the album is less than the sum of its parts.  Sometimes it just provokes an overwhelming desire to dig out the Neil Young originals, which of course is no bad thing.  Loop for example are so faithful to the original that there doesn’t seem much point, but Bongwater take Mr Soul somewhere entirely new.  Sonic Youth, The Pixies, Dinosaur Jr and Nick Cave all contribute in ways that are entirely predictable, but they were on such great form in 1989 that predictability works here.

If you’re not familiar with Neil Young and like the songs here, you could do worse than get a compilation like Decade which has the original versions of some of these tracks.

by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: Home

home

Sheer Joy 1990.  Sheer CD001

Discogs

An interesting Manchester compilation this with some exclusive tracks from bands worth hearing.

The most interesting is The Fall’s Theme From Error-Orrori.  I have no idea what Error-Orrori actually is, but it’s a Fall track unavailable elsewhere which is all you need to know.  Weirdly it’s credited not to The Fall, but to the individual band members.   Mark E Smith said in an interview recently that “if it’s me and your Granny on bongos it’s The Fall”, so I make no apology for changing the tagging accordingly.

For me the other essential track is the New Fast Automatic Daffodils’ Jaggerbog, again, unavailable elsewhere.  It’s not as polished as their usual output but well worth the price of admission.

The Paris Angels were another Manchester band full of promise who were soon swallowed up by major label crapness – another one worth a listen.

If you’re into New Order, Revenge are half of them (but I forget which half) and you may know World Of Twist and What? Noise.

by Vinyl301 -

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Happy Child/Forest Time

R-240869-1254390971

Drag City 2003; DC232

Discogs

This has no artist credit, although it’s listed on Discogs as Will Oldham. I’ve put it as Bonnie “Prince” Billy because his various monikers are just confusing, so I tend to stick to the most common.

This disc gathers together a couple of rarities. The first track, Happy Child is actually by Tweaker (from their album The Attraction To All Things Uncertain), but was written and sung by Will Oldham.  As a result it’s quite different to his usual material – lots of loud effects laden guitars used to good effect.  In some ways, the band drown out the vocals too much – the intense delivery is what I like about him, but overall this works well I think.

Forest Time originally appeared as a single sided 10″ single in 2002, a collaborative project with photographer Erik Wessels.  As is so often the case with his vinyl only releases, it sounded as though it was pressed up in someone’s shed on recycled plastic bags, so it was nice to get a clean copy of the track on this CD.  It’s more usual Will Oldham fayre; just him and an acoustic guitar, beautiful as always.

Since this stuff is credited to Will Oldham, the recommendation has to be the best album he recorded under that name; Joya.

by Vinyl301 -

Ultra Vivid Scene: Joy 1967 – 1990

Folder

4AD 1990.  CAD0005

Discogs

I posted UVS’s debut album the other day and it’s been popular, so here’s the follow up.

The title is the inscription on a fictional tombstone, death being one of Kurt Ralske’s obsessions.  However the album isn’t at all as bleak as you might expect; if anything it’s uplifting.  If you’ve heard the first album, this very much continues the journey, but the sound, thanks to producer Hugh Jones and a bunch of session musicians is fuller and more open.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing – the strangely claustrophobic and sparse sound of the first album is like no other and reflects Ralske’s insularity.

Obvious stand out is the single, Special One which feature The Pixies’ singer Kim Deal as a guest vocalist.  I’ll post the single version another time.

by Vinyl301 -

Levitation: World Around

189719

Rough Trade, 1992; R2853

Discogs

My interest in Levitation was, I guess the same as most people’s back then, the presence of the ex House Of Love guitarist Terry Bickers.  You don’t need to be particularly familiar with the House Of Love to spot his work here, although Levitation were a very different band to House Of Love.

This is great psychedelic rock; some people call it proggy, but I’ve never thought that.  I guess it comes from a technical proficiency which is obvious even to a non-musician like me.  It was well reviewed at the time and they had a decent fan base, but Bickers’ mental state, which had led to the demise of the House Of Love meant that the band was doomed from the outset, lasting only 3 years from 1990 – 3.  He’s much better now and is back with the House Of Love, although there’s been no new material since 2005.

Their album, Coterie is superb and not so hard to find these days.  I also have a few 7″ singles which I’ll post here at some point.

 

by Vinyl301 -

Ultra Vivid Scene: Ultra Vivid Scene

ultravivid279004

1988 4AD; CAD809

Discogs

This is in effect a solo release by Kurt Ralske (although Moby plays guitar on Mercy Seat), and is in my view one of the best albums from the late 80s.  The heavily distorted guitar work and twisted lyrics are reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, although Ralske absurdly claimed at the time that he didn’t listen to music and wasn’t influenced by anything.  As is almost always the case it’s the song writing which really elevates this release, Mercy Seat and The Whore Of God being stand-outs for me, but really there’s no weak material here at all.  The worst than can be said about it is that the overbearing drumming is too 80s, but then, it was recorded in the 80s, and the overall effect is superb.  Actually I like records which bear the marks of the era during which they were recorded.

I also have the 12″ single of Mercy Seat which is even better than the album version.  I’ll post it here at some point, but it looks like another two weeks before my vinyl ripping gear is back in service.

Further purchases?  Well there’s nothing available.  UVS seem to have been forgotten about.  None of it’s collectable though, so it’s cheap second hand, and since he never really put a foot wrong artistically, it’s worth getting whatever you come across.

 

by Vinyl301 -

Stephen Duffy: Natalie

Rock, metal Płyta: Stephen Duffy - Natalie

Parlophone 1993. CDR 6339

Discogs

By far the most popular post on my blog so far has been the swordfish version of The Lilac Time’s debut album, so here’s the only other Stephen Duffy material I have, the 1993 solo single, Natalie.  It has much in common with The Lilac Time as you might expect and shares the same excellent songwriting.  In fact, considering how much I’ve played this and the LT album over the years, I can’t understand why I never bought more.

Nigel Kennedy, the famously irritating violinist who (rather bravely I thought) ran off with The Fall’s Mark E Smith’s wife (Brix Smith) plays on this single, and the accompanying, easy to find album Music In Colours.  Natalie is taken from that album but the other three titles here are exclusives.

by Vinyl301 -

Primal Scream, Irvine Welsh & On-U Sound: The Big Man And The Scream Team Meet The Barmy Army Uptown

irvine

Creation 1996.  crescd 194

Discogs

A marriage made in heaven, this.  Primal Scream are absolutely at their peak, Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting and I’ve been nuts about On-U ever since their bargain Pay It All Back sampler tempted me into the world of dub for the first time.

What we have is classic Primal, dubbed up by On-U with Welsh reading from Trainspotting over the top, made for the European Cup in 1996.  Of the three versions, it’s only the first which is really essential listening.

It wasn’t the only time On-U got involved with football – under the moniker The Barmy Army  they did a album full of football crowd samples called The English Disease.  If the useless slacker sorting my phono stage ever finishes it, I’ll rip my vinyl copy and post it here.  In the meantime, it’s CDs only I’m afraid.

I can’t imagine anyone needs further recommendations for Primal Scream, but just in case, Screamadelica is the one to have, but I also like Xtrmntr and their pretty decent attempt to be Exile On Main St era Stones on Give Out But Don’t Give Up.  Yes, I know most people hate that one, but I’m not most people.