Innehållsförteckning för Issue 554 från Record Collector

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEFENESTRATION OF CHRIS WHEATLEY TO: rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk, or to Record Collector, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, London W5 3TA, or via social media rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag Hello, and welcome to rc554 This month's Record Collector is available with two different front covers – the first time we've offered readers a choice since May 2019 when we presented a story on the parallel journeys undertaken by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones circa Let It Be and Let It Bleed. The two cover images on offer in this instance are of David Bowie – the one shows him around Diamond Dogs; the other, slightly later, captures him around Young Americans. The story itself is essentially the story…

On 11 January, the Royal Mail issued 32 varieties of Spice Girls commemorative stamps and associated items, marking the group's 30 years since their formation in 1994. The merchandise includes a presentation pack of 10 different stamps, along with a sheet, mini-sheet, framed sheet, prestige/book, gold stamps, Brit Awards' fan sheet, Wembley fan sheet, stamp sets, prints, collector's sheet, fan mini-sheets, character pack mini-sheet, First Day Covers, First Day mini-sheets, envelope, souvenir, press sheet, and postcards. See shop.royalmail.com.…

Regular readers of this irregular column can bask in the warm comfort of the fact that I am about to flick a low-flying V-sign at Brian Eno again. The private dentist from Suffolk, who has a side hustle being a pop 'thinker', is one of my favourite coconut shys, and will continue to be so until at least one other person agrees with me. So, in 1974, Big Brian released his fourth LP, Discreet Music; essentially four variations of Pachelbel's Canon in D major, 'treated' and then marketed to be played very quietly. This, dear followers of primo egg-brain Brian, was Ambient music, as previously invented by, ooh, let's see: Yves Klein, Eric Satie, about 5,000 other people, but here, 'represented' in a super-70s 'clever pop music' way by our…

There has never been another band quite like Rush, who formed in 1968 and blew people's minds worldwide for the next 47 years. An intellectual trio of master musicians who delivered high-fantasy flights of fancy in the 70s, ascended synth-and riff-heavy commercial heights in the 80s and settled neatly into classic rock iconhood in the 90s, they represented the ultimate triumph of mind over marketing. With a very Canadian reputation for polite eccentricity, the trio – Geddy Lee (vocals, bass and keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitar) and Neil Peart (drums) – should, by rights, have never made it big, but in fact they were huge, especially at the triumphant back end of their careers, when they played arena tours worldwide. If you caught them on one of those dates, you'll recall…

Sleater-Kinney were midway through the creation of Little Rope, their 11th LP and first since 2021's Path Of Wellness, when guitarist Carrie Brownstein received the call. It was the US Embassy in Italy. They'd been trying to reach her for days. The news they imparted floored her. Her mother and stepfather had been killed in a car crash, four days earlier while on vacation in Italy. “What happened isn't really in the content of the record,” says Brownstein today. “But what happened definitely shaped the process of making the record. We've been volleying vocals back and forth for years, but because of the state I was in when we made the record, Corin ended up singing much more than I did.” Brownstein told multiple outlets last year that she found…

How to buy The Guess Who Wheatfield Soul (RCA, 1969) £15 1966's It's Time was decent enough, but this is where The Guess Who legend really begins. Artfully crafted pop-rock with splashes of psychedelia. These Eyes and Lightfoot (a tribute to fellow Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot) are standouts. Canned Wheat (RCA, US, 1969) £15 The band's fifth album runs the full gamut of their repertoire, from unabashed folk-pop (Laughing) to sinewy jazz (the Dylan-inspired Undun, featuring Burton Cummings' flute solo), to the countrified No Time. American Woman (RCA, 1970) £15 Tougher and more overtly rockist, typified by the title track (driven by Bachman's Zep-like riff and Cummings' intense vocal). The medley No Sugar Tonight/ New Mother Nature is The Guess Who at their explorative best. Share The Land (RCA, 1970)…

BOWIE '74 “A lady said, 'I don't know if I want to meet him, I have a feeling he's into black magic,'” the urbanely hip US talk show host, Dick Cavett, tells his guest, David Bowie, on 2 November 1974. “And other people just see you as a very skilful performer who changes from time to time, from one thing to another.” The white-suited Cavett leans back with almost horizontal ease in his chair, a picture of post-hippie cool, but the Englishman's body language now offers a crazed contrast. Maybe it's the mention of black magic, maybe some inner synaptic frenzy, but Bowie almost jumps out of his tautly drawn skin, biting on his nervously flying fingers, eyes and mouth bouncing through multiple startled expressions in a manic split-second, as…

Cocteau Twins co-founder Robin Guthrie looks back on the band's final album. What comes to mind when you listen to Milk & Kisses? This was [a] record where I actually still got my own way about everything. I hadn't buckled and said, “OK, if you want to do something different, then whatever” because from the minute I started doing a Cocteau Twins record I knew how I wanted it to finish. I made the thing exactly as I wanted. I never had to compromise. Maybe the others felt they had to compromise. That's fair enough, I get that now. What was happening around the band at the time? There was a lot of trauma, drama and torment, with too many chiefs and not enough Indians. We had management and fucking…

Paul McCartney & Wings Band On The Run (50th Anniversary Edition) Capitol/MPL 5543562 (2LP/1LP/2CD) Fifty years on, Band On The Run remains the most important album in Paul McCartney's solo career. Although distance and the freedom from the tight diktats of the early 70s music press show that the four albums prior to its release were hardly the patchy affairs of lore, Band On The Run evinced a return to the production values and songcraft of 1969's Beatles swansong Abbey Road. With the strong single commercial successes of My Love and Live And Let Die in the bag in the months leading up to recording, it was time for McCartney to reassert his album-length authority. Even those with a passing knowledge are familiar with the story of the album. Wishing…

Spiritualized Amazing Grace Fat Possum FP 18271/2 (CD, LP) Released amid label shifts to a somewhat muted critical reception in 2003, Spiritualized's fifth album has developed something of an aura as the 'lost' Spaceman album. Twenty years on, in all its ragged radiance, Amazing Grace remains abundantly worthy of rediscovery. Not merely the radical 'garage' break from symphonic predecessor Let It Come Down it was flagged as being, the record upholds Jason Pierce's fierce consistency amid seemingly extreme change: now as then, his gospel holds true to his driving purpose. Alongside Pierce's work with experimental electronic/jazz explorers Springheel Jack, that purpose was sharpened during the Let It Come Down tour, which started out with 13 band members playing to the gods then shifted to a seven-piece operation. At Brixton Academy,…

Cardiacs bassist Jim Smith on his late brother, more reissues and how the band evolved over the years. Jim, are you the man behind the Alphabet Business Concern imprint? I've kind of been left with it, so yeah, I suppose I am. I've become my nemesis! But it's not a oneman dictatorship: I've got a little team who deal with Paypal and artwork and stuff like that. The reissues are a team effort: we run these projects past each other and go, 'Is this a good idea?' This is a really special album to us, so we've given it a bit of treatment. It encapsulates the vibe of the band, and the 1987 live show in the box captures that era, which is nice. What kind of man was your brother…

The Smile Wall Of Eyes XL Recordings 1394 LP (CD, LP) It was perhaps inevitable that when The Smile appeared out of nowhere to perform a debut gig for Glastonbury's Live at Worthy Farm lockdown livestream in May 2021, one big question hung in the air. It had nothing to do with the quality of the music: the songs that went on to make up their 2022 debut album, A Light For Attracting Attention, were some of the finest Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood – with help from jazz drummer Tom Skinner – had conjured in some time. Yet people couldn't help but wonder what this all meant for Radiohead, on hiatus since 2017. The ambiguity is no doubt deliberately cultivated. The Smile have done no proper interviews, leaving fans…

The Life And Times Of Little Richard Charles White Omnibus, £16.99 IBSN 9781915841216, 304 pages The other side of Mr Penniman “Homosexuality is contagious. It's not something you're born with,” protests the late Richard Penniman on page 11 of this update of his authorised biography of 1984. Statements like this seem to come from another world entirely, a frightening one in which the subject was never able to reconcile his homosexuality and his Christian faith, not helped by the abusive, racist environment of his childhood in 1940s Macon, Georgia: “Sometimes white men would pick me up in their car and try to get me to suck them,” he adds. In this context, the amusing popular image of Little Richard as the crazed preacher of early rock'n'roll, terrifying middle America with…

Married for 33 years, Spud and Nikki Dibley are joint owners of Rocket Records, which they opened in September 2021. Nikki had worked as a registered nurse in the NHS for over 30 years and retired from her job as a Cancer Matron. Spud worked for a charity. These music lovers, who met at Reading Festival, tell Steve Burniston about their shop. How did you come to own a record shop? We had always planned to retire from our jobs in 2020, with the aim of taking a year out to travel around the world. We're both passionate about music and had actually met at Reading Festival in 1988. When the pandemic thwarted our travel plans, as we looked for new jobs, we spotted an empty shop locally. That same…

ABC February (5) Brighton Dome (6) Nottingham RCH (8) Sheffield City Hall (9) Glasgow RCH (10) Gateshead Sage (12) Birmingham Symphony Hall (13) Bath Forum (15) Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (16) Manchester Bridgewater Hall (17) London Palladium Big Country, The Icicle Works February (9) Bristol O2 Academy (10) Nottingham Trent Uni SU (16) Gillingham Factory Bar (17) Brighton Chalk (23) Swansea Patti Pavilion (29) Norwich Epic Studios March (1) Northampton Roadmender (7) Ipswich Corn Exchange (8) Cambridge Junction (16) Manchester O2 Ritz (22) Southampton 1865 (30) Blackburn King George's April (27) Bath Forum Bowling For Soup February (16) Wolverhampton Civic Hall (17) Manchester Academy (18) Leeds Uni Union (19) Newcastle O2 City Hall (21) Hull Bonus Arena (22) Glasgow O2 Academy (23) Cardiff International Arena (24) London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo Chase…

This month: The Connells “I have no problem with being known for that song at all. For the longest time, we didn't think we'd have a song that would do anything.” So says The Connells singer Doug MacMillan of the North Carolina rockers' trademark 1993 hit, '74-'75. By the time '74-'75 became their sole UK chart entry, The Connells were college radio favourites on their fifth album, seemingly destined to be mentioned alongside The dB's and The Replacements: critical darlings without commercial success. Made with The Goo Goo Dolls and Sugar producer Lou Giordano, '74-'75's parent album, Ring, had seemed set to follow The Connells' pattern of acclaim. “Ring was doing OK, but I was sensing a glass ceiling,” admits MacMillan. “We thought it was a really good record, but…

This month: Martin Gordon Modern-day musicians may need to be pretty adaptable to keep their careers afloat, but that flexible mindset has long been in place among players savvy enough to supplement their creative output with session and production work. This has allowed former Sparks bassist Martin Gordon to thrive in a variety of musical guises (Jet, Radio Stars, sessions with Blur, Kylie, and The Rolling Stones, production work) over the years, and as a solo artist in the new millennium, reaching his audience directly via his website, home to his Radiant Future label. On new album Greatest Sh!ts, Gordon's customary sharp humour guillotines a rogues gallery of politicians, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists in a manner liable to make a conventional record label squeamish. Readers familiar with his music…

This month: Elton John, Edinburgh Usher Hall, 21 May 1976 After a hugely successful period touring around the US, Elton John made very few appearances in the UK around 1974 and 1975. However, in 1976, he announced his Louder Than Concorde tour of the UK and I managed to secure tickets for the Edinburgh show on 21 May 1976, for the total sum of £3!! It was my very first music concert, which was to be held at the Usher Hall, a short walking distance from both railway stations in Edinburgh. The support that night was Murray Head and, after a short interval, on came Elton with his new band. Out went two of the original band members, Nigel Olsson on drums and Dee Murray on bass guitar. Instead, we had…

Paris-born, Tokyo-raised, Berlin-based French DJ, music producer, sound designer and label owner Alex Prat's father was a music enthusiastic and huge fan of blues and rock. “He used to take me with him every weekend to record stores growing up in Tokyo,” he recalls. “I started buying mostly hip-hop and dance music-related records on a regular basis when I was a teenager in the late 80s with some friends, just when I started to DJ at international school dance parties and to get into the underground club scene in Tokyo. The city had amazing record stores importing the latest records from all around the world. For more than 30 years, I have been buying all sorts of records for my own listening pleasure to play at home and for my…

NEAL MORSE Ex-Spock's Beard frontman on his latest religious opus What film could your new set soundtrack? Joseph, The Prince Of Egypt. Is there anything still unissued? Tons, including cassettes of me and my brothers rehearsing in the 80s. When did you first hear one of your songs on vinyl? 1984, Sus Russo's Switch To Rock'n'Roll. What was your favourite record shop when you started out? Moby Disc, Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, California. It's where I first heard music that enthralled me – Steve Morse. What records made you want to go pro? The Beatles albums. Was anyone in your family a musician? My father was a Choir Director/music teacher, and uncle Bob was in The Hi-Los jazz vocal group. Did you ever write songs 'under the influence'? Marijuana –…

Rush – 2112 (1976) In career doldrums and facing label opposition, Rush gritted their teeth and dug into sticky lyrical inspirations such as Ayn Rand (Google her and duck) for this überprog monster. Why write multiple songs for Side One when you can have a single, 20-minute behemoth? Rush – Permanent Waves (1980) Just listen to The Spirit Of Radio if you want to understand this album. With its taut, relatively short, poppy songs, Permanent Waves made it clear that Rush were ready to cast aside the prog craziness and score some mainstream hits. Rush – Moving Pictures (1981) This is the obvious big Rush album, but with the singles Limelight, Tom Sawyer and Vital Signs all hitting bullseye, you'd be mad to omit it. YYZ is the best rock…

Dig Me Out (Matador, OLE 269-1, UK, LP, 1997) £25 The breakthrough record and the debut of Weiss on drums. These two facts are likely connected, but this overtly feminist collection of songs was the band's strongest to this point. All Hands On The Bad One (Matador, OLE 440-1, UK, LP, 2000) £20 John Goodmanson, who had manned the desk for Dig Me Out, returned for a release that took bold creative leaps – closer The Swimmer was essentially an avant-garde torch song. “We wanted to be doing difficult work. We wanted to be expanding as musicians,” said Tucker. The Woods (Sub Pop, SP 670, US, LP, 2005) £25 The band's undisputed masterpiece saw them edge closer to the territory of hard rock and psychedelia than the spirited riot grrrl of…

Bowie's plainly titled first live album, David Live, was already an antique on its 29 October 1974 release. Drawn from July's stand at the Tower Theater on Philadelphia's outskirts, towards the end of the Diamond Dogs tour's initial leg, the ongoing gigs had already moved on to Young Americans. David Live also suffered from what Tony Visconti considered sub-standard taping, as he and Bowie hunkered down to mix it at New York's Electric Ladyland studio, and it received Bowie's most withering 70s reviews. It's a nevertheless valuable document of the tour's early, rearranged music. A slow Sweet Thing/Candidate brings out Diamond Dogs' rueful reflection on the 60s aftermath (“Cassius Clay, Charlie Manson…”); Michael Kamen's Latin reworking of Aladdin Sane includes a long, fresh Mike Garson solo which quotes On Broadway…

With his Swedish ancestry and St. Louis roots, vibraphonist CAL TJADER was not your average Latin music star. Rising to fame in the 1950s by fusing cool jazz with spicy mambo rhythms, he became an unlikely pioneer of Latin jazz. Tjader is captured at the top of his game on a superb new 2CD/3LP compilation, Catch The Groove: Live At The Penthouse 1963-1967 Jazz Detective), sourced from impeccably recorded radio broadcasts made in a Seattle nightclub. Tjader's forte was delivering uptempo Latin grooves that swung hard and sizzled with a chili-pepper-fuelled intensity, like the chugging Along Comes Mary featuring noted Cuban conguero Armando Peraza and the super-lively Mambo Inn. But as his wonderful readings of the jazz standards Here's That Rainy Day and Lush Life reveal, Tjader was also an extraordinarily sensitive…

Radio Interview Special With Paul And Linda McCartney (National Features Corporation 174, USA, LP, white cardboard sleeve, 5-page script, 2 photos, US, 1973) £400 Beware counterfeits of this delectable item. Produced by venerated US celebrity interviewer Fred Robbins, who became something of a master at the open-ended interview disc. These discs allowed local radio DJs across America to use a cue sheet and make it sound just like Paul and Linda had taken time out from their busy schedule and come to their town to talk just for them. Band On The Run (3:50)/ Band On The Run (5:09) (Apple R 5997, 'Demo Record Not For Sale' on 4-prong push-out centre, 7”, 7YCE 21746 DJ on run out, UK, 1974) £180 The multi-part mini-symphony – released by popular demand after Jet had led…

Jason Pierce on fortune, beauty and “the great lineage”… This album feels like the one that got away. Do you feel a particular affection towards it for that reason? Yeah, kind of. Coming on the back of two albums that were sort of epic in nature, it was almost like because this record wasn't that, it didn't have the same kind of gravitas for some people. But so much of this game relies on luck. People are so loath, especially in music, where people's egos are involved, to say there's any luck involved or any kind of financial push behind it. But so much of where things land relies on luck to an extent. Did working with Springheel Jack give you the confidence to record in a different way? Springheel Jack…

Fantastic Voyage: New Sounds For The European Canon 1977 – 1981 Ace XXQLP 2124 RT (CD, 2LP) Classy collection of oncefuturistic canon fodder “It's a very modern world,” sang Bowie on the song from which this set takes its title, “but nobody's perfect.” Like almost any compilation, this – curated by Bob Stanley and Jason Wood as a sequel to their Cafe Exil – offers both paragons and padding. Capturing the chilly charm of synth-stroking electronica of the era, it bursts in with Simple Minds' unimpeachable Theme For Great Cities, and tracks from Cabaret Voltaire, The Associates and Ryuichi Sakamoto sizzle. Mediocre chaff from Daryl Hall and Chas Jankel is there for surprise value, but honour is restored by Scott Walker and Peter Gabriel. The pre-eminent piece comes from Harald…

MGMT Loss Of Life Mom+Pop MP 731 (CD, LP) A funny thing happened to MGMT in 2020. Twelve years after the everywhereat-once smash of Oracular Spectacular and its followup forays into off-piste psychedelic perversity – a broad summation, perhaps, but not recklessly off-beam – the title track from their fourth album, Little Dark Age (2018), became a TikTok meme. Bandmates Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser didn't engineer this, much less anticipate it. If that kind of thing could happen without any steer, why bust a gut trying to force anything? The result on this fifth MGMT album is the most effortless the duo have sounded in some time. Of course, other factors are in play. Heading towards their forties and courting domesticity is one; leaving behind a major label for…

Donovan The Tinker & The Crab/Wear Your Love Like Heaven The State51 Conspiracy CON 200017 S Mono mixes from A Gift From A Flower To A Garden on a limited-ed 7” in a lush purple and gold sleeve. I rate Donovan highly, though his delivery on The Tinker And The Crab feels a little too mannered, and I know it's ridiculous to complain when anyone from this side of the pond elects not to sing like an American. Harold McNair's flute seems overly cute, too, but really, who makes music this genuinely innocent these days? No qualms whatsoever about Wear Your Love Like Heaven; it's the perfect expression of 1967's ethos, a lovely optimistic dream from which we were stupid enough to wake up. Delicious nurdling organ, ticking drums, pipping…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or Email listings@recordcollectormag.com NEXT ISSUE: MARCH 2024 (on sale 22 FEBRUARY) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 29 JANUARY Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Postal address: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Ltd, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, London W5 3TA Following issue: APRIL 2024 (on sale 21 MARCH) Deadline: Monday 26 FEBRUARY…

John Lennon And Yoko Ono Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (Apple APCOR 2, LP, mono, black inner, no tracklisting, UK, 1968) £3000 There's a case to be made for Two Virgins being the most controversial record ever made. The first of three experimental albums by John Lennon and Yoko Ono – then the most hated woman in Britain – it features no discernible hits and came in a brown paper bag on account of the couple's nakedness. I Want To Hold Your Hand it isn't. To steal a quote from George Harrison, it's more “avant-garde a clue” than avant-garde, though what comes through clearly is the mutual adoration between its creators. Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band Yoko Ono (Apple SAPCOR 17, LP, UK, 1970) £60 Yoko Ono – the album…

Watching David Bowie's last UK tour in 2003, Nick Hasted was disconcerted by his blue-jeaned normality. For this month's RC cover story, Nick hears how Bowie went from dogman to soulman in '74 (p72), making even this unlikely future possible. Nick's bestselling Eminem biography has a new edition out this year. A former RC staffer and editor of Bass Player (RIP), Joel McIver quizzes Geddy Lee (p46). There's no Rush-related book yet in Joel's 35-volume bibliography, but it's only a matter of time, he tells us. James McMahon spoke to Sleater-Kinney (p60). Ex-NME and Kerrang!, he has a memoir – though he prefers “a tale of surviving the madness of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, with funny rock star stories” – due for publication. He hosts The James McMahon Music Podcast. After…

How come you're back now? I've been planning the album since 2006, when myself, my son, Sean, and my producer, Graeme Pleeth, went to Nashville to record extra tracks for a hits compilation marking my 50th year in music. I went back there to record a country album, then we took our time collecting and demoing songs with various top session-players. During that process, Graeme built what he felt was the perfect band for this record. It's the best album that I've ever made and, if it's the last one, I'm happy to leave it as my legacy. I've re-recorded many of my old hits, totally re-imagined, and they're better than the originals. Every day was a blast. The banter between the musicians in-between takes had me in hysterics. Jerry…

TROY WEIGHT IN GOLD I was, and remain, a huge Beatles fan – so much so that back in the 60s and up to 1970 I literally bought each and every Fab Four record as it came out. My enthusiasm even extended to the acts that the boys signed to their Apple label. This included the Doris Troy singles Ain't That Cute in a picture sleeve, the follow-up Jacob's Ladder, and the LP Doris Troy. When going through my singles the other day I discovered that I had another by Doris Troy – I'll Do Anything (He Wants Me To Do)/But I Love Him – on the Cameo Parkway label. I must have bought it in my Appleinspired enthusiasm for Troy some time in 1970 or 1971. I read that…

OPINION The Vanilla Fudge drumming legend discusses the long-awaited official 50th anniversary Beck, Bogart and Appice Live In Japan box set, losing Jeff, learning from Rod and smokin' with Jimi. The 1973 Beck, Bogart And Appice Live In Japan album finally gets an official box set release. What was the story? It was recorded for Epic Records in Japan only and we don't know anything about it, it just came out! It was a great package, but we listened to it and went, “Oh, my god!” as there were mistakes on it, things like Tim [Bogert, bass] goofing and cursing. This was our first tour of Japan and, mostly, our first tour as BBA. It sold something like 100,000 copies and became a bit of a cult classic. The new…

Based in Bristol, between 1987 and 1995 Sarah was the most independent of indie labels. Co-founders Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes were driven by feminism, ethics and a passion to truly embrace the DIY attitude of the post-punk scene. Wadd and Haynes were not concerned with forming a capitalist monolith to rival Virgin or EMI. Instead, they eschewed the posturing and vanity of the pop charts and focused on promoting the kind of bands the major labels would be too scared to touch. Fans were drawn to the label from day one. I've even seen copies of two handwritten letters from a certain Polly Jean Harvey in Dorset wanting to buy a copy of the Shadow Factory compilation (“or, as you informed me of its proper name, L'Usine des Ombres”) back…

Cymande Cymande (Alaska ALKA 100, LP, UK, 1972) £100 Fanfaring their arrival, their John Schroederproduced eponymous debut is a genuine classic, a pioneering mix of soul, funk, reggae and afrocentric past, present and future sounds. Providing a score to their UK black experience, it's both cerebral a lyrical response to racial, political and social injustice – and incredibly danceable. One of the foundations of hip-hop, it charted in the US but did nothing in the UK. Cymande Second Time Round (Janus Records JLS 3054, LP, US, 1973) £40 Building on their first album, the group, straight off their US tour, return to the studio with John Schroeder at the controls and produce a manifesto for the times. Their innovative grooves sounding like no other band before, they were too ahead…

Cocteau Twins Milk & Kisses Universal/Proper UMCLP 083 (LP) Seventeen years and eight albums into their careers, Grangemouth's Cocteau Twins were on excellent creative form in 1996, issuing Milk & Kisses without giving a damn that most of the public were listening to Britpop, house music and the tail-end of grunge. Like all of their albums since the mid-80s, the Cocteaus' sound was based on Liz Fraser's startling, operatic vocals and shimmering layers of guitar from Robin Guthrie, although critics struggled – just as they always had – to describe the music without drowning in flowery adjectives. It's still hard not to go over the top with the ol' prose when defining the songs, which in the case of Milk & Kisses have now been reissued on 140g vinyl after…

GIL SCOTT-HERON's Free Will ( Kent) was the poet, activist's 1972 third and final album for the Flying Dutchman label. Produced by Bob Thiele and recorded in New York's RCA Studios, it captures his two sides. On the first side, he's taking communion with musical foil Brian Jackson and a full band including flutist Hubert Laws, guitarist David Spinozzi and drummer Pretty Purdie; Did You Hear What They Said? is a moving evocation on Vietnam that aligns him to Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, The Get Out Of The Ghetto Blues views slum living through a cultural studies lens. The second side, meanwhile, sets Heron's spoken word against percussion and occasional flute as he takes aim at police policy (No Knock) and celebrates John Coltrane (… And Then He Wrote Meditations).…

DANDY, born Robert Thompson in Jamaica in 1943, settled in east London as a teenager. For a decade from 1964, his indefatigable work as a singer, musician, songwriter and producer would make an indelible mark on the UK black music scene. His big break came in 1966 when he started working with Rita and Benny King, who were setting up their new Giant label to market the rock steady music which was fast gaining popularity. Over the next two years, Dandy produced numerous singles for the label, which also released his first and Giant's only LP, which forms the core of the double CD Rock Steady With ( Doctor Bird). The original tracks blend Dandy compositions like You're No Hustler and Play It Cool, covers ranging from a very good…

Cardiacs A Little Man And A House And The Whole World Window: Special Edition Alphabet Business Concern ALPHBOOK 007 (4CD, LP) The late Cardiacs leader Tim Smith observed in 2005 that his band's music “makes people hate us with a terrifying vengeance, or love us so dearly and passionately that it becomes a worry”. But he omitted a third category of listener: people who didn't know what the hell to make of it. Prog-rock without the capes, punk without the attitude, indie without the seriousness, the songs on the five albums the band released from 1988 to 1999 were impossible to pin down. The beyond-surreal art direction didn't help: once you saw Smith's psychotic, Joker-like grin and make-up, it was never forgotten. Whether you loved, hated, or missed the point…

Idles Tangk Partisan PTKF3041-1 (CD, LP) Idles “isn't a fucking punk band”, frontman Joe Talbot once said about his Bristol quintet, despite the fact they very much sounded and acted exactly like a punk band. Across their early albums the group raged against the government and their policies on austerity, Brexit and the NHS, their punk sentiment chiming with a generation who felt abandoned by Westminster. Their last two records, however, 2020's Ultra Mono and 2021's Crawler, veered away from politics – and from what some critics deemed sloganeering. “We wanted to murder the idea of what Idles was to everyone else,” Talbot said, something they did by rooting lyrics in the personal. Crawler was certainly a transitional album and an unlikely teamup with rap producer Kenny Beats led to…

MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser on maturity, memes and magic… What was the mission statement this time? BG: If anything the inspiration was internal to the band and about wanting to get back to our creative roots. Just coming from a place of pure expression, relating to our friendship and everything we've been through. Also, with not being tied to a record label or anything like that it felt like a lot of the things that might have gotten in the way in the past had sort of washed away. AVW: It's like we were freely expressing ourselves. When we do that, that's when the MGMT magic happens. There's like an alchemical thing that the combination of our two brains makes. Dancing In Babylon is your 80s tribute, right?…

Call on 020 8752 8172 or email stockists@metropolis.co.uk for more information or to sign up today! SOUTH EAST 101 Collectors Records – 'Established in 1991. Now under new management. Buying and selling new and second hand vinyl and cd's. Stock a range of quality artist merchandise in store.' 101 West Street, Farnham, GU9 7EN. Tel: 01252 734409. richard.101collectorsrecords@hotmail.com www.101collectorsrecords.com Across the Tracks – 'On busiest corner of hippest city, open seven days. Thousands of rarities in the shop that aren't on the net. All genres, including classical and new CD promos, nothing mundane. Collections bought.' 110 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AF. Tel: 01273 677906. edfrombrighton@tiscali.co.uk www.acrossthetracksrecords.com Ben's Collectors Records – Long standing record shop in the heart of Guildford with an ever changing large stock of records cds & cassettes at…

London: Colosseum, 4 February, Yellowjackets, 15 May, Camden Forge. ■ Burna Boy, London Stadium, 29 June. ■ The Kills, Limehouse Troxy, 1 May. ■ Tricky, 14 March, Hard-Fi, 30 November, Camden Roundhouse. ■ Ellie Goulding, 11 April, Joss Stone, 8 July, Royal Albert Hall. ■ The Pioneers, Camden Forge, 19 October. ■ M People's Heather Small, 24 March, Karol G, 18 June, Greenwich IndigO2. ■ bDavid Gray, Southwark Omeara, 30 January. ■ Bloc Party, Crystal Palace Park, 7 July. ■ Five Finger Death Punch, 23 May, Scorpions, Extreme, 8 June, ZZ Top, 11 July, Wembley OVO Arena. ■ Betty Boo, Islington Assembly Hall, 15 June. ■ From The Jam, Cadogan Hall, 24 May. ■ Pixie Lott, Palladium, 16 March. Also: New Model Army Northampton Roadmender, 27 February. ■ Richard Ashcroft, Wigan Robin…

Phil Harris & Bruce Reitherman The Bare Necessities (on The Jungle Book, Disneyland ST 3948, LP, UK, 1967) £10 I grew up the youngest of four kids in a little market town called Newton-le-Willows, not far from Manchester. We had a record player in the living room, and it was always a fight to get what we each wanted on. My sister wanted Marvin Gaye, Genesis or The Beatles, one of my brothers was really into A Night At The Opera by Queen and prog, my other brother was in the middle ground somewhere and I wanted The Bare Necessities. I loved Baloo, he was such a cuddly character. The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone PMC 7027, LP, UK, 1967) £150 My sister loved the later, more…