Gal Costa - Gal Costa (Não Identificado)

Gal Costa - Gal Costa (Não Identificado, 1969)

I'm on a tropicalia kick again, but where most of my American contemporaries find themselves prone to worshiping at the altar of Os Mutantes when it comes to the ephemeral but kaleidoscopic musical movement — or more accurately, the small collective of psychedelia-loveswept musicians that spear-headed it — I typically find myself coming back to Gal Costa's first self-titled album (of two) from 1969, which I acquired on Brazilian import a few years back. Plenty has been written about the circumstances surrounding the album's recording, but in a nutshell: oppressive right-wing Brazilian military junta + inept students who thought the tropicalia movement too radical + socialists that found Caetano Veloso/Gilberto Gil/et al. and their love of psychedelic pop too imperialist + riots at national music contests + overall societal upheaval = "If you are the same in politics as you are in aesthetics, we're done for!" [The aforementioned quote being Veloso's during a performance of the Situationist-inspired "É Proibido Proibir" with Os Mutantes at one of the national music contests in question, the Festival International de Canção.]

As for the music, we have an utterly delectable brew of psychedelia, jazz, samba/bossa nova/MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), occasional atonality, lush arrangements, and THAT luscious voice teetering from soft and playful to startlingly commanding and excitable. I would love to really get into depth about this record, but I'd rather you listen and discover this album's delights for yourself. However, personal highlights for me include Costa's rapid-fire delivery on "Sebastiana", the swinging "Se Você Pensa", the heart-meltingly lovely "Baby" and political pop at its finest — replete with the greatest exclamation(s) of "WOW!" this writer has ever heard — on the Veloso-penned "Divino Maravilhoso". The Dusty Groove label issued Costa's other, wilder — and possibly even more mind-blowing for it — self-titled album (often referred to as Cinema Olympia on account of its opening track) in the States last year; hopefully they'll do the same with this one soon.

The Auteurs - Interview/Acoustic CD

The Auteurs - Interview/Acoustic CD

Yes, it has the same bloody cover as How I Learned To Love The Bootboys. I bought this years ago because I thought it *was* How I Learned To Love The Bootboys and I thought I'd got me a bargain for a couple of quid for a fairly new album. As it was, I picked up a rather nice curio instead. This is a promo CD containing an interview with Luke Haines and four acoustic songs from Bootboys. Well, I say interview....it's the answers to an interview that you can conduct with the questions that were on the back cover, even has a couple of idents. Very industrious.

Acoustic tracks are the Rubettes, 1967, Some Changes and Lights Out. I've sort of misplaced the scanner (and finding it would involve tidying up. No ta), so you'll have to work out the questions yourself. Such larks.

Breathless - Moonstone

Breathless - Moonstone

Normally, I would feel inclined to share my wholehearted affinity for Breathless' astoundingly lush, darkly romantic and dishearteningly overlooked 1986 debut The Glass Bead Game. However, that album can be found a little more easily than this extremely rare effort, which features two extended ambient pieces comprising a limited edition bonus disc for their fifth album, 1999's Blue Moon. It took the author of this entry five years to track down one of the 1000 earliest pressings made of the aforementioned album. All four members provide spacy, crepuscular droning synth washes that gradually build up, but guitarist Gary Mundy (also of noisemongers Ramleh and an early Skullflower collaborator) and bassist Ari Neufeld respectively and additionally contribute occasional bits of not-too-grating noise and low-end pulses. It's a slight diversion from their normal material — which tends to widen the demarcation dispute between dream-pop, space-rock and the more downcast tendencies of post-punk — but worthwhile for fans who have not been able to track this down.

Manicured Noise - Faith

Manicured Noise - Faith

Second and final single from Manchester's Manicured Noise, who recently had a collection of their two singles and other bits and bobs released on CD. Faith is one of the great lost post punk songs, it was in the right place at the right time but the band fell apart before anything came of it. They did manage to record a Kid Jensen session before the end though, so the collection (Manicured Noise - Northern Stories) is well worth tracking down.

Future Bible Heroes - Lonely Days EP

Future Bible Heroes - Lonely Days EP

This is the best thing Stephin Merritt has ever been associated with in my not remotely humble opinion. I got hold of this roughly when it came out and as I was living in a small shitty village dreaming of leaving I found it struck a chord. "And there's nobody to fall in love with, so I don't". Kitchen sink glumness summing up perfectly the true horror of the wilds of suburbia. Navigating cardboard cutouts and dodging early evening weekend television on our way to glamour, fame and fortune. En masse yet alone, here we fucking go.

Anyway yes. There is more than just the title track, an alternate version of Hopeless sung by Merritt and a fantastic cover of Love Is Blue are the highlights but it's all good. In fact it's bloody brilliant.

Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

Single from 1998, a very different version to what would appear on 2004's "I". B-side is When I'm Not Looking, You're Not There, which is up there with Rats In The Garbage Of The Western World as a great lost Magnetic Fields song.

The Fatima Mansions - Western Union Steakout

The Fatima Mansions - Western Union Steakout

Praise be for harder-edged rock music that doesn't make you feel stupid for listening to it. This rare promotional disc features a live performance recorded in New York City during November 1994 while the Mansions were on tour for their final album — and arguably most trenchant offering — Lost in the Former West. Four songs from the aforementioned full-length appear here alongside "Evil Man" from their third album Valhalla Avenue, the initially non-LP single "Blues for Ceauşescu" and two songs from Viva Dead Ponies. The most recent numbers sound fairly under-rehearsed, with "Belong Nowhere" coming closest to matching the ire of its studio counterpart. The aforementioned "Blues for Ceauşescu" moves at a quicker clip than the original and seems a bit less threatening musically than before, but the extra ad-libs, one-liners and anecdotes from Cathal Coughlan make up for the slight decrease in signal distortion. The songs from Viva Dead Ponies improve upon their comparatively fussier album arrangements; the band's in incendiary top-form on these tracks and Coughlan will rip your fucking head clean off and use it as a latrine. His banter between songs is pretty goddamn savory, too.

The Male Nurse - My Own Private Patrick Swayze

The Male Nurse - My Own Private Patrick Swayze

Infamous Glasgow band compared to the Fall more often than not. Another favorite of John Peel at the time as well, recording a couple of Sessions I think. The cover looks like it was drawn using Deluxe Paint 3 on a dodgy Amiga and it's a song about having a small portable Patrick Swayze for your own pleasure and amusement.

Swayze, you're crazy.
Swayze, you're crazy.
Swayze, you're crazy.

Oh yes.

B-side (Deep Fried) is about as lo-fi as you get. And I mean *low*, we're talking ninth level of hell knocking back a six pack 'o blood with Satan discussing Chelsea *low*. Still smashing though.

You may notice that this is not the original cover, I'm having scanner jip so I can't scan in my copy, and I can't find it on the internet either so I have taken the liberty of updating the sleeve via my own godlike artistic talent to show today's Patrick Swayze. He has stubble, shorter hair and wrinkles. He is also on the beach because everyone likes the beach.

Long Fin Killie - Hollywood Gem/The Heads of Dead Surfers

Long Fin KIllie - Hollywood Gem/The Heads of Dead Surfers

The second EP from this defunct Scottish quartet features the two titular tracks — also available on their own as a 7" before they appeared on their oceanically evocative debut album Houdini — and two additional B-sides, "Flaccid Tabloid" and "Stacked". The musically filigree "Hollywood Gem" presents a parable on racism in the film industry, and although most groups would kill to pen a single like this one, it remains one of my least favorite LFK numbers. Mark E. Smith appeared toward the end of the aging surfer dude sketch "The Heads of Dead Surfers" — a favorite on the John Peel Show for reasons obvious to anyone in the know. "Flaccid Tabloid" showcases a serious soft/loud dynamic by featuring gentle verses brutally interrupted by guitar squalls, rat-a-tat snare hits and somewhat ill-advised saxophone. The briskly-paced "Stacked" is the standout here, musically presaging the fiery textures of their second album Valentino while mocking the culture behind plastic surgery. Any song that opens with the phrase "perfect foreskin" cannot be denied.

Hunters & Collectors - Hunters & Collectors (1982)

Hunters & Collectors - Hunters & Collectors

This record is not to be confused with their 1983 self-titled compilation issued in North America and Europe, which featured two of the tracks from this album (well, three if you count Mike Howlett's slightly varispeeded remix of "Talking to a Stranger") and the entirety of their second EP, 1982's Payload. Hunters & Collectors are pretty heavily revered in their native Australia for their later pop and pub-rock efforts, but their debut — released only in their homeland — provides dark post-punk soundscapes and incessant scrap-heap polyrhythmic grooves melded with Mark Seymour's squally wails, not to mention the occasional bit of brass from the coolly dubbed "Horns of Contempt." Picture Shriekback or A Certain Ratio with more menace, add extra tinges of The Birthday Party, early Savage Republic and mid-period Can (a 1976 song of theirs provided the band's name), then top it off with the exclamations of a man who sounds a bit like Julian Cope if he wandered a bit too far from the Stuart Highway into the Woomera Test Range and lost control of his larynx and all his fucking marbles. For every part of the record that teeters a little too much into lyrical silliness or lacks a bit of imagination in its arrangements — namely "Boo Boo Kiss" — numbers like "Skin of Our Teeth" and the aforementioned "Talking to a Stranger" (whose video reportedly terrified legions of Aussie children back in the day) provide a highly compelling sense of dread. A reissue tacked on their debut 1981 EP World of Stone, also included in the link above.

Coming Up Roses - I Said Ballroom

Coming Up Roses - I Said Ballroom

Posted this one up for a chum but it seems a shame not to share it with a wider audience as it seems to be quite sought after. The post Dolly Mixture project from Debsey (probably most famous for her vocals on St Etienne's Who Do You Think You Are?) and Hester Smith. Here be pop most excellent, bit more polished that the earlier Dolly Mixture stuff but no less charming.

Howard Hughes & The Western Approaches - Say Western 12"

Howard Hughes & The Western Approaches - Say Western 12"

A request! Howard Hughes & The Western Approaches released four singles in the mid/later 80's and this one is from 1988. Considering it was released in the era of horribly over produced pap, it's a pretty good pop record by all accounts.

Fun Fact! Howard Hughes produced singles for Plastic Fantastic and DexDexter back in the heady days 'o Romo.....

Pulp - Black Session 1992

Pulp - Black Session 1992

Exactly what it says on the tin m'dears, Pulp in front of an audience for a Black Session back in 1992. Vintage Pulp here, with a version of Live On (which wouldn't see it's studio version released until years later) and best of all a cover of The Night by the Four Seasons. They'd do two more Black Sessions in '94 and '95, but this is probably my favourite.

Expect more Pulp rarities in the coming days/weeks......