Coil, Horse Rotorvator (1986)

Where bought? La Face Cachee in Metz. The version I have (German copy on Recordvox) now goes for about £40 minimum, making it one of the few records I own that has actually appreciated in value.

Throbbing Gristle and associated projects for me are hit and miss, though I do like the unashamed provocation of most of it. Ultimately provocation and being on the right side only gets you so far: I'm a tunes man to the end of time, and so it shall be. Coil are really only nephews of TG, anyway, a side-project of Psychic TV gone in their own bizarre and pointed tangent.

Cocteau Twins, Treasure (1984)

Where bought? I've been lugging this one around for years, well over a decade, and as such I can't remember where I would have acquired it. I can't even remember what kind of mindset I'd have been in to think "ooh, Cocteau Twins, I'll have some of that!", which makes me think I came into owning it by accident or something. 

I've know a few people to like Cocteau Twins - historically, the kind of women that I liked in my late teens and early twenties tended to like them, whatever that means I do not know - but the spell of their enchanted tundra indie-goth never quite rubbed off on me at the time. One of them was a superfan, had Robin Guthrie's email, went to Cocteau Twins fancons, the works. Wonder what she's up to now.

Cluster, Cluster II (1972)

Where bought? I have a distinct memory of picking this up in Liverpool, so probably Probe, who have always been a bit better than anywhere in Manchester with kosmiche and European progressive music.

 
I do miss the days of picking music up only half aware of what it might contain. Had I been in the market for a Cluster record now (I suppose I am) I'd have gravitated toward their late 70s work, or maybe one of their Eno collaborations, or the Michael Rother collaborations under the name Harmonia (in fact, a shop in town has Deluxe for 17 smackers, might get it). But back then, idiot fool me went for this because I preferred the cover to the slightly cheesy font used on Zuckerzeit or the inscrutable drawing on Grosses Wasser.

Clikatat Ikatowi, River of Souls (1998)

Where bought? From a friend of a friend who was having a bit of a fire sale. I can't remember his name but he lived around the corner from said pal in about 2006/2007 and he said 'come and knock on my door about 7.30pm' so we did. He only answered the door at about 8.05pm having forgotten about the arrangement and was so deep into a one-man noise jam that he lost track of time.

Hey that cover looks familiar!

Chrome, 3rd From The Sun (1982)

Where bought? Mod Lang in Ludlow, which is a great record shop for a quiet market town in rural England. The shop actually began in Berkeley, CA, but the owner moved (back?) to England and brought the name and ethos with him.

Sometimes I think that Chrome are my favourite 'post-punk' group, particular their late 70s to early 80s run of records before Damon fell in love with a French girl, moved to Europe, and became a bit of a tragic case. There's no direct antecedent what they did (Pere Ubu, maybe, but not really) and yet traces of their sound can be found in a lot of places in the 21st century. They're also completely non po-faced and decidedly not boring ever.

Cheer-Accident, Introducing Lemon (2003)

Where bought? I feel like I've been lugging this mf around for years but the only place it makes sense for me to have bought it is the Alans overstock sale pop-up in 2012. No idea really.

Here's another opportunity for experential music reviewing as the best you will get out of me in a Proustian sense is "listened to this once and hated it and wonder why I still have the bastard following me around all my life." That was quite some time ago now, and my mind and mood change on lots of things. My recollection of it was that it was a bit wacky and turning on a dime faster than I could establish that what my ears had heard was indeed a dime. So to speak.

La Chasse, Noir Plus Noir Que Le Noir (2017)

Where bought? La Face Cachee in Metz.

I am one of those suckers who is influenced by hearing something good in a record shop, and ownership of this record is testament. Then again, this record is a lot of fun, so who is the sucker?

Johnny Cash, At San Quentin (1969)

Where bought? I've had this a really long time but its provenance escapes me. It was very cheap and in poor condition when I got it and the years have seen it suffer several moves. There's surface noise galore, scratches, and the grooves barely take the needle. But it is still going, and in some respects, perfect.

This record has soundtracked several things that I am sure Mr. Cash didn't hope for, such as getting stoned with friends or playing Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast, and much of it is braintape including the between-song patter.

Can, Ege Bamyasi (1972)

Where bought? Crocodile Records, in the Manchester University student union, in approximately 2002.

 
Whilst I suppose it is not impossible to overstate things, this record is an incredibly important milestone in my own listening and confidence in self-discovery. For one, it was the first record I actually bought on vinyl, and for quite a while would be played through and the loop back to the beginning to enjoy it all again.

The Can, Monster Movie (1969)

Where bought? This feels like a rare appearance for Probe in Liverpool, a record shop that disappoints more than it should. I wish them all the best, and their psych selections have always been ahead of the curve, but feels like they could be doing more in a city like that.

Music criticism used to be so powerful to me that it would affect entire narratives of how I would approach certain groups, eras, albums, etc. This album is a strong case-in-point. In the late 90s Can were still not quite at the point of critical reappraisal they would reach a few years later, and what writing in English could be gotten hold of would often say that the Damo Suzuki years were great, while Malcolm Mooney was a 'poor' singer who said things that made no sense.

Kate Bush, The Whole Story (1986)

Where bought? I think I got this off the market in Worcester for a fiver. Don't usually go in for hits collections but I made an exception here.

This is fairly unimpeachable stuff really. 11 hits and one new composition (the worst thing on here, but it's fine). 'Wuthering Heights' has a newly-recorded vocal that I don't think beats the original, but it isn't wildly different in any fundamental sense ie. she phrases it much the same, adds a little bit of improv in the lovely string outro.

Burial, Untrue (2007)

Where bought? Struggling to remember this. What I can remember is that it didn't cost very much (under ten pounds) and that I wondered if the person selling it me knew what it was, but for the life of me I struggle to recall where I'd have picked it up from. 

 
The emergence of Burial is probably the last time that I bought into critical hype and also think it was completely worthwhile (there have been later flirtations that have slowly diminished the influence critics have on my purchases). The whole 'this is the sound of the London night bus, going past all the chicken shops and out through the edgelands' and the whole interlacing of theory and Mark Fisher and Iain Sinclair and all that, yep, this makes sense to me and in some respects I can't move past that critical lens.

Jean-Louis Bucchi, Reportages (1986)

Where bought? From the estimable La Face Cachee (The Hidden Face) in Metz, France. Undoubtedly a makeweight 3 euro purchase in a quite a large haul that I picked out of a rack marked 'weird'. I reckon he probably gave this to me for free after rounding down the price.

Confession: I have never given this a listen. This review, therefore, constitutes a largely experiential exercise in which I try to describe what is happening before my very ears. A bit of background first, though.

Bronski Beat, The Age of Consent (1984)

Where bought? Got it really cheap from Kaleidoscope in St. Helens. I went up for a particular 7" (Three Wise Men EP by Trout) but couldn't resist. 

I've always felt reasonably confident that I am a heterosexual man (or at least, if I have any other tendencies, I am happy enough in my self-repression!) but I have always found a huge inspiration in the resistance of uplifting, positive, angry, hi-NRG gay pop music. It seems lost on generations now how ridiculously hard it was just to exist back when this was made, with a Conservative government that were literally making legislation that forbade teaching about your existence and experience.

Broken Social Scene, Feel Good Lost (2001)

Where bought? Feels like Piccadilly Records in Manchester or Action Records in Preston. More likely the former, I'd say.

You may not like the Toronto-based turn of the century indie-rockers Broken Social Scene and that is fine - I saw them in December 2004 in Berlin and they were pretty brilliant, actually, with such an incredible live sound for a band with FIVE guitarists - but unless you're also familiar with this album too, please throw all of your conceptions of the band out of the window before approaching this record.

Broadcast, Extended Play Two (2000)

Where bought? I have to come clean and say that I stole this from an old housemate. Well. Borrowed from his room and never gave back. I didn't intend to keep it but it was in my possession when he moved out in a hurry to start up a business with his partner.

My former housemate literally never contacted me again, nor did I know a way to get back in touch and haven't seen him since then (2006-ish?). I've been in his places of business and never seen him in there, either. Life does not want him to have his copy of Extended Play Two back, and frankly, he can afford to replace it if he does.

David Bowie, Let's Dance (1983)

Where bought? I think this might have been out of a cut-out bin in the big sale at Alans when it re-opened for a week to get rid of stock. This might have been from the Static Records pile, but I'm pretty sure I got it from my home town. £3. 

In my esteemed opinion Let's Dance is the fourth best David Bowie solo LP; ahead of Low, ahead of "Heroes", ahead of Scary Monsters, Hunky Dory, or Lodger. I'm not a big hot takes monster but I believe this at least until faced with new evidence.

David Bowie, Station to Station (1976)

Where bought? Without meaning to sound like a stuck record I am fairly sure this was Rise in Worcester. I'd seen it in there for a while and meant to get it, and then discounted it after going way too hard in the post-death rush.

After David Bowie died, a forum I used decided to listen to all of his studio albums one-by-one and post thoughts about them. I'd been relatively Bowie agnostic for most of my life: his singles were good and there were lots of them, so who needed deep cuts? Especially when there's so many of them, in different styles, and of wildly varying quality?

Bowery Electric, Beat (1996)

Where bought? Purchased the reissue brand new, likely from Rise in Worcester. 

Those early days in Worcester were reasonably exciting for me. I was earning a nice wage to research something I was interested in, I had begun to lecture and develop confidence in public speaking, I had colleagues for the first time that I liked and was happy to socialise with, and I had started a romantic relationship not long after ending one (normally I would go years).

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Master and Everyone (2003)

Where bought? This was a present for my 20th birthday, and it had come out the week before. It was given to me by my friends Jude and Angie, who had just become a couple (and still are). I am going to assume they got it from Crocodile Records in the SU of University of Manchester, but I thought better than to ask.

Though I was hoping for more of a blend of electric and acoustic music as on I See A Darkness, I liked Master and Everyone from day one and still like it to this day. It is confident in its sparseness, and probably the least irony-laced of his lengthy back catalogue. My favourite one is the Hermann Hesse reflecting 'Wolf Among Wolves'.

James Blackshaw, The Cloud of Unknowing (2007)

Where bought? 99.9% sure this is Piccadilly Records in Manchester. I was living there then, it is where I met James, it is where the people who got me into his stuff lived, and it is entirely braintape from those days.

The recent years have been quiet on the James Blackshaw front - no new album since 2015, and only one single on Adult Swim, which seems slightly misleading given the music he makes - which I mention as odd because having met and interviewed Blackshaw, seen him play, and heard a few of his records, he seems eminently the kind of lifer artist who will just knock new variants of his basic style out year on year to a devoted following. For a while that was the case, but there was a hiatus that seemed to end a year prior to the lockdown. I hope it hasn't scuppered his desires.

Big Black, Pigpile (1992)

Where bought? Crocodile Records, that used to be in the Student Union at the University of Manchester. Disappeared in the 00s.

 

 

On the day I bought this I needed to own a Big Black record, I had decided. All the places near where I lived didn't have Atomizer or Songs About Fucking so I just grabbed the nearest thing from the nearest place. I had no idea Pigpile was a live record, or really what the band sounded like. The internet existed but not in my student house at the time, so this was very much a hit and hope purchase. Maybe I even forced myself to like it at the time.

Big Black, Atomizer (1986)

Where bought? If I had to guess I'd say Piccadilly Records in Manchester. I associate 'acquiring loud records that have something to do with Steve Albini' with living in Manchester, and remember buying At Action Park by Shellac from the same place (subsequently sold).

Haven't heard this in quite a while and was ready to possibly accept that the days where I wanted to listen to a monolithic combination of skinny whiteboy rage over cheese-wire strung guitar and pounding drum machine beats were long behind me.

The B-52's, The B-52's (1979)

Where bought? I am really not sure. Had it for a while. Feels like I could have grabbed this from anywhere between 2008 and 2014. Manchester? A record I forgot that I owned, as I went and picked up the 'Rock Lobster' 7" later on.

Well this brings back a particular time and place. In 2004 and 2005 I was, essentially, a tour manager for a local band with big ideas of making it in the world. They didn't, and that's a shame because they were good and better than a lot of their peers. The singer is now low-level indie famous and the rest are in normal jobs.

La Bergerie, Transhumance (2018)

Where bought? Should say "where acquired" - this was posted to me gratis by the label owner Florian. I must declare interest here as my own band is on the same label, though I think I can be honest without ruffling too many feathers. 

I own quite a lot of reasonably obscure French records; I'm no extra-giddy Francophile but I've travelled there quite a bit and made friends along the way, so things tickle my ear and people want to give me things in the spirit of generosity. There'll be a few more like this along the way.

Bee Gees, Spirits Having Flown (1979)

Where bought? Good Time Records in Walton, north Liverpool. Went for a lockdown walk there when record shops were allowed to open and bought this and a couple of other cheap things. 

12 years on from First is almost a completely different band with two whole careers worth of drama, success, and change under their belts. This is post-Saturday Night Fever, a band of global megastars responding to the task of producing something that exists in the world that punk was about to change.

Bee Gees, Bee Gees' 1st (1967)

Where bought? Not sure. I owned it in Worcester, but quite late in my stay there (2015-2020). That means I couldn't have got it from Rise as it closed, and I never bothered much with the overpriced guy upstairs in the market. Doesn't feel like I got it from the outdoor market guy either. This narrows things down to Sound in Stroud, Mod Lang in Ludlow, or Carnival in Great Malvern. But it doesn't ring any bells with visits there either. Hmmmmmmmm.

In later years I've definitely latched onto the Bee Gees. They defy theorisation and are so much more than their disco years and the major hits. In the early days they were a proper band and not just the 'Brothers Gibb' - the Aussies Colin and Vince are definitely a part of their sound, and I feel losing them was quite a blow.

The Beatles, 1962-1966 (1973)

Where bought? I didn't buy this. I came into possession of it in my teenage years along with a number of 7" records. I think they used to belong to my mum, though I don't particularly associate this record with her as much as I do the David Bowie and ABBA 7" records I came into ownership of.

Do I like the Beatles? Yes. Absolutely. They were fine tunesmiths and generous of wit and melody. Though their image was carefully managed and crafted, they seemed like a decent bunch of guys who developed a restless thirst to develop from being a straight-up beat group to something much more interesting - without disappearing into indulgence or self-parody.

Mulatu Astatke and his Ethiopian Quintet, Afro-Latin Soul (1966)

Where bought? This feels like I got it out of the huge box of £10 jazz records in Rise Records, Worcester. At some point in the vinyl revival I guess some people bought out the rights to loads of old jazz albums and re-pressed them, hence their latter-day proliferation and those 'jazz starter' deals you can get where they mail you about 10 albums for sixty quid.

The first time I put this on I really didn't like it. Oh I've bought a shit album is what I remember saying to myself in my galley kitchen in the little flat I rented above a hairdressers. I was probably doing the dishes at the time, which I seemed to do quite a lot considering i. I lived alone ii. I ate out a lot iii. I spent a lot of time in my office using the cups/spoons there.

Joan Armatrading, Steppin' Out (1979)

Where bought? I didn't. It belongs to my partner, N, and I think it used to belong to her dad.

My partner doesn't own many records, but the few she has are mixed in with mine. Her taste in music is pretty hard to pin down, ranging from intensely cool and modern electro-acoustic weirdness, dark techno, and very mainstream pop from the pre-00s. She seems to like most things that I put on, which is a positive. Her favourite song is 'You Can Call Me Al'.

AR Kane, i (1989)

Where bought? Definitely a second-hand in-person purchase because I can remember the thrill of finding it in amongst a large raft of total crap. That says to me that I possibly found it in X Records in Bolton, which just accumulates so much stuff that you can barely flip through the records anymore.

Thesis: AR Kane could have become one of the biggest bands in the world. They clearly didn't, and I doubt they troubled the UK top 30 except for the time they took part in a one-off collaboration called M/A/R/R/S, they of 'Pump Up Tha Volume'. Apparently they mainly wrote the lesser-heralded B-side, so don't even look to that song for a potential signpost.

Ariel Pink, Sit 'N Spin (2021)

Where bought? This is going to sound odd but this was kind of an experimental purchase: Ariel had been, for want of a better word, cancelled and his label had dropped him before this album was due out. Some fans were reporting that their pre-orders hadn't turned up, but I had wagered on a forum that these records had been pressed ages ago and were sitting in a warehouse awaiting distribution. I ordered it via the Ariel Pink website and it showed up a week later with two Mexican Summer (the label that had dropped him) stickers. I win!

OK so there are other reasons to buy this. Namely that I was keen to see what Rosenberg had been up to since ditching lo-fi production in 2004 and serving up Mature Themes in 2012, his first album of mostly new songs.

Ariel Pink, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson (2017)

Where bought? Rise Records in Worcester. On the way home from lecturing one day. Remember it clear as day, even though it was a totally mundane occurrence.

The most recent studio release and the first one I bought. It's a great tight pop record with some weirdnesses by the standards of his contemporaries. Dials down the 'LA melancholia' and the novelty grabs of pom-pom (which I don't own). Some of the songs - 'Kitchen Witch', 'I Wanna Be Young', 'Feels Like Heaven' - feel like mainstream pop songs he wrote for various other artists and was turned down, so he did them himself.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Mature Themes (2012)

Where bought? 100% without a shadow of a doubt I bought this from Those Old Records in Rugeley. I'd been keen to visit Rugeley since I read an article about it in the Financial Times re: it housing the UK's largest Amazon depot. I'd also travelled up in the hope they had this Thinking Fellers LP they had listed on their website. They didn't, so I bought this instead.

While 'Round and Round' is seen as the big hit, on Spotify it has half as many listens as 'Baby', the Donnie and Joe Emerson cover and main single from this. Sadly, APHG released that on a 7" and didn't include it on the LP, though it found its way onto the CD and subsequent digital releases.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Before Today (2010)

Where bought? Something tells me that I got it through the 4AD website. I nearly sent it back because the centre hole was really tight and no amount of fashioning could get it to sit on the turntable. Seems to be fine now.

Real Arielheads know that, in a way, Before Today is kind of a joke played on the late adopters. Nearly every song here had existed in some form previously, often on an obscure rarities compilation or an off-hand moment buried deep within another track. By my estimation only the intro track and 'Fright Night (Nevermore)' are original compositions written for the album: seven are re-recorded excavations and two are covers.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, House Arrest (2002) [2020 reissue]

Where bought? Banquet Records in Kingston-upon-Thames, but online. Took ages getting it through the post because of the pandemic and the backlogs and generally postmen have a bad time finding our flat.

Once upon a time my old band opened for House Arrest-era Ariel Pink at a pub in Lancaster. We interacted a couple of times. Suffice to say that he is a complete space cadet. I remember he wore some really ugly clogs and was annoyed that the other band on the bill had insufficiently protected his gear at a previous gig, leading someone to steal his backing cassettes. His review of my set: "that was wild, I loved that out of tune shit." Owned.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Worn Copy (2003) [2020 reissue]

Where bought? Norman Records, online.

If The Doldrums is a relatively homogenous lo-fi goth record then Worn Copy is more obviously a work of psychedelic bricolage. Some of this is apparent in just one track: the opener 'Trepanated Earth' cycles through spoken interludes, odd lurching synthwave, noise pop, pop, Amon Duul-ish pastoral psychouts, and then something not a million miles from American '70s rock.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The Doldrums (2000) [2020 reissue]

Where bought? Loathe as I sometimes am to buy online via Norman Records (they're a great independent stockist with a peerless selection from a UK buyer's perspective, but their descriptions of records they actually sell can be annoying - often records I am interested in buying - can be very much in the record store asshole mould) I got this through them. Took a while because of the pandemic but they were very good via email.

If you're not a fan of Ariel Pink then you'd be advised to turn your RSS off for the next few entries. One of many things I find interesting about Mr. Rosenberg is that quite often his own fans have a distinct awareness of i. how this music could rub people up the wrong way and ii. that its maker is a diamond-studded asshat.

Arcwelder, Pull (1992)

Where bought? Almost certainly this was picked up when there was a week-long pop-up in 2012 when Alans in Wigan moved premise. They had ceased selling records (Alans is a BMX and skate shop) years before but had tons of overstock that they put out for cheap and had a few nights of bands, which I was fortunate enough to play at.

Bought this for £3 and threw it on. Didn't like it and it has followed me around for years, barely touched and listened to.

Anxiety, S/T (2016)

Where bought? Through the band on Bandcamp. I can remember getting the free download in the Bandcamp app, which was patchy and annoying, and thus became my only album in the Bandcamp app.

This is a rarity in my collection in that I associate it with a recent-ish and particular time in my life, and that nearly all experiences of this record seem to interweave with memories of that time. Quite often records that I own come to stand apart from any individual moment in time, and generally-speaking I'm not a sentimentalist in that record=moment sense.

Anjou, Epithymía (2017)

Where bought: this feels like I got it from Rise in Worcester. It's new but I don't remember travelling specifically to buy it. Rather, it was a pay-day impulse purchase. Or something like that.

There can't be too many people in the world as enamoured of 90s ambient/rock group Labradford as me. They were an inscrutable bunch, making what Neil Kulkarni called 'melted songs' rather than 'ambient' music. That is to say - there were often vocals, structures, and thematic developments - only there were often buried in the soundworld. If you're going to get one, try their S/T record from 1996.

AH Kraken, Elle avait peut-être 19 ans mais pour moi elle en aura toujours 12 (2008)

Where bought: Here's one I do remember. I bought it from In The Red, the label AH Kraken were on. Memorably, for an online transaction, ITR sent a second copy as I thought the first one was lost in the post. That copy turned up six months later while the second one took about a fortnight.

Thinking about what happened next will probably be the main theme of this write-up.

I went on Facebook and said "I've got a second copy of this record that I guess most of you won't know, but I can send it to you for free or trade it" and described the sound as best I could. The taker was one Joey Chainsaw, who sent me two CDs of his own music.

ABC, The Lexicon of Love (1982)

Where bought: again - unsure. There are two old style price logos on my copy for £6.99 that could be from the original release or my picking it up as a second hand record. I definitely got this more recently, which says possibly Mod Lang in Ludlow or the market in Worcester.

 

ABBA, Arrival (1976)

Where bought: not sure. This purchase screams to me 'had a twenty pound note and bought something costing about 14 quid and bulked out the buy with something random from the second-hand bin'. If I had to take a guess I think it was from Sound Records in Stroud. But I wouldn't swear on it with my life.

Intro post

As I might perhaps have imagined, a lot of people have taken the time afforded by COVID-19 to take stock of themselves and re-connect with the things they had accrued.

That is probably what this looks like and to some extent it is true, though I had always planned to do something like this whether there was a pandemic or not.

What is 'something like this'? Simply: I will listen to all of the albums I have on vinyl and write about them here.

Hopefully the exercise is more Marcel Proust than Record Collector, but there might be a few anal details and pedantic points in and amongst the attempt to capture more ludic elements.

I think I've got about 300 records in total; I sold some in penury many years ago. Since the age of digital and streaming and never being rich anyway, I haven't got back to where I was in terms of LPs and CDs many moons ago. New purchases are guided by a deep need to own, rather than speculation.

What I do have I mostly like, though there are a few hangers-on and never-listened-tos. Hopefully in a year I can have finished this project and sell the ones that don't feel so essential to me anymore.

Join me, both of you, won't you?