Innehållsförteckning för Issue 563 från Record Collector

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag GEN EXCESS I enjoyed the Genesis article [RC 562]. I've read various accounts of the process over the years. I bought the double-cassette when the album was released and then the LP on my birthday. It just so happened to be my introduction to real ‘live' music, at the tender age of 16 (after buying the ticket at face value, off a mate). I witnessed the feast of colour and sound that was The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. The encores were Watcher Of The Skies and The Musical Box. What a night… Over the rest of 1975, I saw Earth, Wind & Fire supporting Santana, Uriah Heep, Joan Armatrading, and The Movies supporting Supertramp. The Gaumont, Southampton (now The Mayflower), had…

Jeremy Allen has been fascinated by Laurie Anderson (p48) ever since seeing Legs & Co perform a baffling interpretation of O Superman on Top Of The Pops in 1981. The polymath met RC to discuss pop stardom and the avant garde Johnnie Johnstone has spent most of 2024 trying to convince others that Josef K were the quintessential post-punk band. But the most important was undoubtedly Magazine (p54). He explores their uniqueness with original members. Chris Roberts interviewed the near-mythical Bryan Ferry (p72) at the singer's studio and encouraged the ruminative Roxy man to reminisce about his half-century long solo career, neglecting to declare that he was rarely happier than when covering Manifesto for a Roxy tribute album in 2009. Spencer Leigh writes about 45 Liverpool 45s (p68), and you…

COLLECTING Martin Christoph, aka Tex Dixigas, runs Red Lounge, a label which, he says, “has released some of my faves like Incredible Kidda Band, Hard-Ons, Spits, Nervous Patterns with Jay Reatard just to name a few… and helped with psychedelic label RD Records from tracker legends Miguel Rodriguez and Raymond Dumond. “These days,” he adds, “I run a record shop Called Dixigas Records with my business partner, Marco Sommer, in my hometown of Karlsruhe, Germany, right by the main train station. I DJ locally and have done a radio show for 10 years called Radio Dixigas, now on Mixcloud.” What do you collect, and why? I collect everything related to The Velvet Underground, including solo efforts from John Cale, Nico, Lou Reed, Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Sterling Morrison. I…

OPINION Singer, songwriter, multiinstrumentalist and Eels frontman Mark ‘E' Everett has been through the ringer. But after open heart surgery following Eels' 2023 Lockdown Hurricane tour, he's back with a new Eels album, Eels Time. “It was scary,” he tells Record Collector. “We'd had the whole culture shock of going back out on the road after the pandemic and then I got told I had an aortic aneurysm and needed a new aorta. It was a wake-,up call. But I'm good as new now.” Everett started out as a solo act, issuing 1991's A Man Called E and 93's Broken Toy Shop before launching Eels with their debut album, 1996's Beautiful Freak. Eels Time is the group's 15th album. “It just has to come out of me,” he says. Where…

Whether you heard it as a jingle alongside Edgar Winter's Frankenstein on Alan Freeman's Radio 1 Saturday show or at high volume over the PA at the Reading Festival – where the inebriated crowd added their own irreverent lyrics – Hocus Pocus was hard to escape in the early 70s. Largely instrumental, as were all the band's offerings, it combined the searing electric guitar of Jan Akkerman with the organ and manic yodelling of fellow frontman, Thijs van Leer. Two songs jammed together, it combined Akkerman's jagged opening riff with van Leer's keyboard-underlaid vocal gymnastics. “I wanted Focus to move more into the rock vein,” Akkerman told this writer in 2000, “so I came up with the lick when we were rehearsing in the castle where van Leer lived –…

Bryan Ferry's career outside Roxy Music began barely a year after the band released their self-titled debut. Chris Roberts surveys a back catalogue spanning 45 years and 15 albums. These Foolish Things (Island, 1973) “A very catholic selection”, said Ferry of his solo debut of “readymades”, which had critics debating where the line between art and trash stood, something art student Ferry was way ahead of them on. Released a fortnight before Bowie's Pin Ups. Another Time, Another Place (Island, 1974) Leaning into what Rolling Stone called his “dandy of the bizarre” image, Ferry doubled down on his redefinition of cool, even crooning You Are My Sunshine among crossover hits like an incendiary The “In” Crowd and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. In Your Mind (E.G., 1977) As Roxy took…

Though he hasn't blown a horn since 2014, when health issues forced him to retire his beloved tenor saxophone, 94-year-old SONNY ROLLINS has remained actively engaged in promoting his career, contributing his thoughts and recollections to the liner notes of several authorised reissues of his recordings. The latest is the exceptional Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings Resonance), where Rollins shares with producer Zev Feldman his reflections on leading a trio in Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, and France in March 1959. The resulting performances have been much-bootlegged over the years so the prospect of an official release in the shape of a lavish 4LP/3CD set with much-improved sound is an exciting one. Accompanied by bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Pete La Roca (replaced on a few tracks by Joe Harris…

Why have you decided that now is the time to celebrate the history of Lightning Seeds? Well, 35 years is a pretty long time. I think it was partly the fact that the first two albums [Cloudcuckcooland and Sense] were on an indie label and they just disappeared and never paid me. And we had no access to the rights for a long while. About 18 months ago, we managed to come to an arrangement to buy the rights back. Having them back in the fold kind of prompted it. That's quite a big deal for me. How do you look back across the 35 years of Lightning Seeds? I think the whole career and all the records have been so dysfunctional. It starts off with Pure – no band,…

Laura Marling Patterns In Repeat Chrysalis/Partisan Records BRC 266 (CD, LP) The last time we heard from Laura Marling, her forays in LUMP aside, she was singing to an imagined child on For You, from 2020's Song For Our Daughter. For Marling, that album was about a broad, figurative idea of daughters, not an actual child. That unrealised “miracle” has become reality in the years since, and Marling's worldview and philosophical mindset have opened, broadened and stretched to accommodate the change. Far from the “enemy of good art”, as Cyril Connolly had it, “the pram in the hallway” here co-delivers Marling's most intimate, searching record to date. At its most open, the record is uncommonly, unguardedly beautiful. Written when she was “high as fuck” (says Marling) in the early days…

You Will Never Work In Television Again/The Smoke (XL Recordings, no cat no, 7”, UK, 2022) £250 If it's good enough for school fairs, it's good enough for international rock stars kicking off their top-secret new project. The trio's debut release was only available via a raffle, with tickets to win a copy given away in record shops across the world. Though 430 were made available for the competition, there has been an online sighting of #450 so the exact number of copies out there isn't certain. A Light For Attracting Attention (XL Recordings XL 1196 LPEP 2, 2LP+CD, UK & US, 2022) £100 This 2,000-copy run was released to mark the band's debut being voted No 2 in Rough Trade's Albums Of The Year list. It has alternate sleeve artwork and…

Garbo's Celluloid Heroes Only Death Is Fatal / Won't You Come To My Funeral Think Like A Key TLAS 007 Garbo's Celluloid Heroes were led by Chris Evans (not that one) who'd previously played in psych-poppers World Of Oz, best known for 1968's daft single, The Muffin Man. Ten years on, the Birmingham punk scene was flourishing and Evans reinvented his image accordingly. Only Death Is Fatal is a rapid, energetic and defiant number with highpitched vocals. While it's certifiably pogo-friendly, there are echoes of Evans' background in the song's singalong catchiness. It's a bit like Status Quo with a few extra safety pins. And that is, of course, meant as a compliment. Despite its morbid lyrics, the B-side is much slower, dreamier and even less distant from the sounds…

The Brand New Heavies November (1) Sheffield Foundry (8) Cambridge Corn Exchange (9) Coventry HMV Empire (16) Newcastle Boiler Shop (22) Brighton Dome (23) Cardiff Tramshed (30) Frome Cheese & Grain December (20) Birmingham Town Hall Ex-The Stanglers' Hugh Cornwell, EXTC November (20) Reading Sub89 (22) Edinburgh Queen's Hall (23) Sunderland Fire Station (27) Southampton Brook (29) London Camden Electric Ballroom (29) Manchester Academy (30) Northampton Roadmender Charli XCX November (27) Manchester Co-op Live Arena (28) London Greenwich O2 (29) Birmingham Resorts World Arena December (2) Glasgow OVO Hydro Arena Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds November (2) Leeds First Direct Arena (3) Glasgow OVO Hydro (5) Manchester AO Arena (6) Cardiff Utilita Arena (8) London Greenwich O2 (15) Birmingham Resorts World Arena Cradle Of Filth October (27) Bristol O2…

To celebrate the release of the new book Passing A Message: The Lyrics And Artwork of Conor J. O'Brien (out now on Faber), Domino is repressing Villagers' back catalogue with a new range of coloured vinyl. Passing A Message presents the lyrics of over 80 songs from the Villagers songbook with O'Brien's drawings, photographs and previously unseen notebook lyric drafts. To be in with a chance of winning a signed deluxe edition of the book alongside new coloured vinyl editions of Villagers albums #1 (Becoming A Jackal) and #5 (Fever Dreams), please complete and submit this month's crossword.…

Jack Scott vastly outperformed fellow firstgeneration rockers like Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran on the American charts. Between 1958 and 1961 there were six Top 30 hits and a further 13 that reached lower levels of the Billboard Hot 100, an achievement the others came nowhere near matching. But Perkins, Vincent and Cochran are now hallowed names, while few recall Scott, even if his back catalogue reveals an individualistic artist of charisma, humour and versatility. Scott (real name Giovanni Domenico Scafone) was born of first generation Italian-American stock in Ontario, Canada, in 1936. When he was 10, his family migrated a couple of miles over the border to Detroit, Michigan. Perhaps his heritage and northern base, adrift from first-hand acquaintance with the southern country and blues influences of…

Out Of Darkness Out Of Darkness (Key KL006, LP, UK, 1970) £150 In terms of Christian rock history, the Brits did it first. In Blighty there were teenage bands like The Crossbeats (who played the Cavern Club) and The Pilgrims (whose singer Tony Goodman joined Out Of Darkness) who alienated many older Christians with their loud electric guitars and nonChristians with their songs about Jesus. A small-time label, Key Records, signed Out Of Darkness, who featured a West Indian-born guitarist, Wray Powell, who could give Hendrix a run for his money. The album sold well but “well” to Key Records was selling out its initial pressing of 500. Larry Norman Only Visiting This Planet (Verve V6-5092, LP, US, 1972) £150 After years of rejection both from the mainstream music world…

With Bolan and Bowie gone, Bryan Ferry is the last glam aesthete standing. There was the lumpen glam of Slade and Sweet, and there was Roxy Music. Paragons of postmodernism. They had ideas, and an intensity that suggested they had consumed the extreme art of the 20th century and were offering a compressed version of same. NME writer, Paul Morley, once noted the distinction between the two camps (and only one of them was camp): the Bowie/Ferry/Bolan axis was glam, whereas Glitter et al were glam ROCK. Both had their appeal, but the difference was clear. Ferry, like Fury before him, and (Martin) Fry after him, was, more than a rock'n'roller, a crooner out of time. A thirties singer transplanted to the 70s; an 80s voice 10 years early, and…

YOU SAY MATATA I have an album called Air Fiesta by the band Matata. I actually bought it after seeing them play live in the early 70s. It's an LP that I played for a bit but then it got swallowed up in a collection that now runs to over 5,000 albums. I'd say that it's in Excellent condition. But what's it worth? Brian Powell via email Matata evolved out of a nine-piece band called Air Fiesta who came together to play at the Starlight club in Nairobi, Kenya. They slimmed down to a line-up of seven and changed their name to Matata, which is Swahili for “fire”. The leading light in the band was lead vocalist Anwar Richards who also played the organ. Their first big breakthrough came in…

BOB DYLAN Handwritten lyrics $10,500 An unpublished Bob Dylan lyric manuscript when Dylan was working on his album Infidels. Released in October 1983 and drawing inspiration from Biblical themes, it was written on a page from a New York City Ritz Carlton Hotel telephone message pad. Supplied by Lion Heart Autographs THE DOG THAT BIT PEOPLE The Dog That Bit People (Parlophone PCS 7125) £650 Born out of the ashes of the band, Locomotive, this is their 1971, self-titled debut and only LP by the Birmingham prog group. Supplied by Omega Auctions LEAD BELLY Letter £6,000 The letter mentions Lead Belly's wife, Martha Promise Ledbetter (1904-1968), who sang with him at his last concert at the University of Texas at Austin, and his previous manager Austin Wilder whose company Marjorie…

Everyone loves The Residents. That's not a glib statement, it's a Stasi fact issued as a command that you could imagine being blasted out over an injection-moulded plastic East German-style Tannoy in a future/present dystopia. Or if that's too romantic and retro for your authoritarian fantasy just think of a chip in your head (planted by Bill Gates, of course) that informs you every five minutes that “you love The Residents”. In many ways – post-The Residents' formation in serial killer Dirty Harry early 70s San Francisco whence came our lovable Art Collective Conceptual Freaks – We Are All The Residents. Taylor Swift (the last real life pop star before the AI pop stars take over) is The Residents. K-pop is The Residents. President Trump (surely, a character from a…

LAURIE ANDERSON Laurie Anderson is as you might expect in person: small, upstanding and brighter than the sun. Her brain appears to be a conduit for fascinating information, and she has an innate ability to express it in ways that are clear and yet invariably offbeat and often hilarious. Lou Reed once asked the chat show host Charlie Rose, “How many people can do everything?” in reference to his wife, and while he might have been biased, there does appear to be no limit to her talents. The 77-year-old Anderson – who RC meets in a swish hotel in central London – exudes warmth, something her late husband couldn't always be accused of, especially in the company of music journalists, though perhaps he had his reasons… more on that later.…

When music from Merseyside is talked about, it's no surprise that one act springs to mind above all others, but The Beatles are only a part of a consistently fertile musical tradition that has threaded from this part of the UK through British music across more than 60 years. Some fine examples are set out below. It was more difficult to pick which acts not to include, so feel free to write in and nominate your own potential inclusions – and if they prompt further investigation of the city's rock'n'roll heritage, we can also recommend Liverpool Music Icons tours, which are hosted by Peter Hooton and Keith Mullin, both from The Farm, and Brian “Nasher” Nash from Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Meanwhile, Steve Rotheram, the Metro Mayor for Liverpool City…

86 From The Vaults 96 New Albums 102 Books/Movies 104 Singles 116 Lives Frank Zappa Apostrophe (') Super Deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition UMC 6563990 (5CD/BD, 2LP/7”) For many, 1974's Apostrophe (') is the quintessential early 70s Frank Zappa album, a relatively accessible entry point crammed with hulking riffs, tricksy time signatures and offbeat humour that showcases one of his greatest bands. There's even a jazz/blues-rock suite focusing on a dream involving an animal rights activist Inuit named Nanook who blinds a fur-trapper intent on harming his favourite baby seal, and the villain's intrepid hulk across the arctic in search of a remedy – an unlikely novelty hit when edited and released as Don't Eat The Yellow Snow. The lyrical subject matter wasn't the only unconventional thing about Apostrophe ('). Rather…

From Camden, Alabama but growing up in Pontiac, Michigan, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter RONNIE MCNEIR took classical piano lessons at 10 but stopped soon after and taught himself to play along to Motown records instead. In 1966, aged 15, he won a talent contest which led to a single Sitting In My Class on De-To Records. McNeir also had an interest in basketball but after an injury caused by a car crash, he returned to music and moving to LA in 1971, played keyboards in a church choir featuring Micky Stevenson and Kim Weston. Weston hired him as her own musical director and the pair facilitated his 1972 debut album Ronnie McNeir Music On Vinyl) originally issued on RCA Victor and reissued here on red vinyl. Tapping into the early 70s…

Kevin Ayers All This Crazy Gift Of Time – The Recordings 1969-1973 Esoteric QECLEC 102888 (9CD/BD) The early solo career of one of rock music's great iconoclasts finally has the comprehensive ribbons and bows treatment it so richly deserves. This ninedisc plus Blu-ray box set spans the years 1969 to 1973, the period when Kevin Ayers, burned out by his two-year stint in the Soft Machine but now creatively restored by chill-out time in the Balearics, made four highly original solo albums for EMI's Harvest imprint. After which, he signed for Island Records who spent a couple of fruitless years hoping to mould him into a star, a mission always doomed to failure given that Ayers would habitually retreat to warmer climes at the sound of a Beaujolais cork popping.…

Laura Marling on new beginnings in life and art… Did becoming a parent illuminate something about songwriting that you perhaps couldn't have accessed previously? I think just getting older has given me some perspective on the whole project of songwriting, though parenthood of course nudges you further into making sense of the entire business of being. I also recently came across a box of lyric notebooks I'd forgotten I had shipped back from LA several years ago – reading them, I found them boring and selfconscious; I got the strong urge to burn them. It made me think, I want to see the conclusion, not the working out. “Parenthood nudges you further into making sense of the entire business of being” The album was written during snatched moments in the first…

MC5 Heavy Lifting EarMUSIC 0219310 EMU (CD/2CD, LP/2LP) With cruel irony after decades of failed nominations, MC5 are finally being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after last surviving original members Wayne Kramer and Dennis ‘Machine Gun' Thompson passed away earlier this year. On hearing the news, Thompson succinctly yelled “It's about fuckin' time!” and planned attending October's ceremony before sadly dying in May; joining singer Rob Tyner, guitarist Fred ‘Sonic' Smith, bassist Michael Davis and Kramer, who succumbed to cancer in February. Essentially a solo album in the MC5 spirit, Kramer recorded Heavy Lifting with veteran producer Bob Ezrin in 2022. It's now released the day before October's posthumous Hall of Fame induction, completing the journey that started as revolutionary Detroit punks when incendiary debut Kick…

NEXT ISSUE: DECEMBER 2024 (on sale 31 OCTOBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 7 OCTOBER Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Limited, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP Following issue: CHRISTMAS 2024 (on sale 28 NOVEMBER) Deadline: Monday 4 NOVEMBER…

Recorded at Rockfield and Olympic studios in 1972, Doremi Fasol Latido followed on the success of Hawkwind's hit single Silver Machine and was their first LP to feature one Lemmy Kilmister on bass and vocals along with an array of classic tracks such as Brainstorm and Space Is Deep. Fast forward across time and space to 2024 and Cherry Red have remastered the album from the original tapes and included a bonus single. To be in with a chance of winning one of two copies on vinyl, please tell us which track from this album would later be recorded by Lemmy's Motörhead: a) The Watcher, b) Brainstorm, c) Lord Of Light?…

Arranger and composer, John Cameron, has been negotiating the diverse plains of jazz, folk, library, funk, and classical since the early 60s. Born into a musical Essex household, Cameron started playing piano at the age of four. With a pianist mother and fiddle-playing father, he drew inspiration from everywhere. “Beethoven, Tommy Steele, Gene Vincent… my dad taught me all the standards, often in the wrong key,” Cameron tells RC. It wasn't long before the teenage Cameron was working the pubs of Croydon or, when holidays would allow, playing round the country with Ronnie Rand & The Blue Rockets and bandleader Colin Hulme. In 1962, Cameron headed to Cambridge where he split his time between the Footlights and the alternative jazz scene, performing cabaret with Eric Idle. “The one thing that…

This month: Nirvana, Reading Festival, 23 August 1991 I was there. The FIRST time Nirvana played Reading Festival. They were halfway down the bill among a host of early 90s shoegaze bands. Nevermind hadn't been released yet and only a few people ‘in the know' had heard of them. Luckily, I was camping with people who knew what the score was. We had camped so close to the main arena that we were flitting in and out all weekend, just watching whichever bands took our fancy. “This ‘Nirvana' band are supposed to be good,” someone said. In we trudged. To say they livened up the whole day would be an understatement. The passion, the energy, the songs. It was all somehow different to everyone else. Kurt jumped into the drum…

THE COLOURS OF CLOUDBUSTING Joe Isaacs examines seven versions of Kate Bush's thunderous October 1985 hit Peaking at UK No 20 in 1985 and faring even better in Belgium (18), Ireland (13) and the Netherlands (11), Cloudbusting was the second single from Bush's fifth album, Hounds Of Love. The song was inspired by the relationship between Peter Reich and his father, the psychoanalyst and scientist Wilhelm Reich. Bush found Reich Jr's 1973 memoir, A Book Of Dreams, in an occult bookshop. “It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it, I was very moved by the magic of it. It's about a special relationship between a young son and his father.” Wilhelm Reich is one of the most remarkable people of the 20th century. A student…

MÖTORHEAD The Löst Tapes Vol.5 (BMG BMGCAT 6862 LP) £2,425 Sealed copy containing two discs on yellow vinyl featuring content from the Download Festival 2008. (eBay item number: 256458562269) Supplied by eBay THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO (Verve V6 5008) £11,333 Uncensored and sealed, this mono first pressing arrives with the image of actor Eric Emerson. (eBay item number: 156248043330) Supplied by eBay FREDDIE MERCURY I Can Hear Music (no label no cat no) £11,000 With Goin' Back by Larry Lurex on the flip, this is a double-sided Trident studios acetate. (eBay item number: 156334150542) Supplied by eBay WHITNEY HOUSTON Live Brunei (Sensible Music RL 1) £10,000 A few CDs were manufactured as a souvenir of the show authorised by Houston and the Brunei Royal Family for private use only.…

WILLIE WATSON Old Crow Medicine Show mainstay on his latest solo outing What film could your new set soundtrack? Mas Max. If you could revisit any of your albums, what'd you change? I'd go back and try to sing like I do now – stronger Is there anything still unissued? A lot of cassettes in my mum's basement. My first band, and a ton of Old Crow Medicine Show, including VHS tapes. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? I played eight instruments on Langhorne Slim's version of Meet Me In The City. With whom would you like to make a split 7”? Kurt Vile. Who'd you like to produce? Nat Myers. What was your favourite record shop when you started out? College Town, Ithaca, New York.…

Big Science (Warner Bros. K 57002, LP, 1982) £10 Anderson's debut is still the best place to start with her oeuvre: a quirky electronic masterpiece that still sounds incredible 42 years later. Seek out United States Live from her multimedia show for the widescreen vision (sadly, it was never filmed). Mister Heartbreak (Warner Bros. 925 077-1, LP, 1982) £8 The playful follow-up to Big Science, Mister Heartbreak has bigger pop tunes and wilder, weirder stories. With guest appearances from Peter Gabriel and William Burroughs and guitars by Adrian Belew and Bill Laswell. Bright Red (Warner Bros. 9362-45534-2, CD, 1993) £8 The fifth studio album ventures into some ambient – and sometimes hypnagogic – pop with Brian Eno at the helm. Bright Red includes an early duet with Lou Reed (In…

Roger Dean's artwork has graced albums by such prog and rock notables as Yes, Asia, Uriah Heep, Osibisa and Budgie. Here he tells RC about his association with the Dutch mavericks. How did you get involved with the band, when and at whose instigation? Which was your first sleeve of theirs? I met them frequently at [UK south coast venue] Trading Boundaries where they played and I had a gallery. I can't remember who instigated it, but it felt like a natural evolution of circumstances. In 2012 I painted a series of spires for them for what was Focus X. What attracted you to work with them? ‘Sir' Thijs Van Leer. Besides being a musical genius, he has a great sense of humour and is a lot of fun to…

What is it about this period of your father's career that's special for you? When I think about my dad, the look of Apostrophe ('), that 70s hair – that's what he looks like in my mind's eye. And growing up, music from this period was played the most around the house. I was very premature as a child, I almost died and I've heard all about how stressful that was [Ahmet was born two months after Apostrophe (') was released]. I was in the hospital for a really long time. I had a collapsed lung. They were like, here's your new boy. Frank said, “He's not breathing, please do something.” And they were like, “Sure, what do you know – a musician, man with long hair.” So my dad…

Lightning Seeds Tomorrow's Here Today: 35 Years Of Lightning Seeds BMG 196558870871 (CD, 2LP/LP) In 1989, not even Ian Broudie would have dreamed that he would be celebrating a 35th anniversary as frontman of one of Britain's most lovable bands. By his own admission, he'd never wanted to be a famous singer: he'd been the quiet man of Liverpool's late-70's post-punk scene at Eric's Club, surrounded by flamboyant characters – Ian McCulloch, Julian Cope, Holly Johnson, Pete Burns – who very much did want to be famous singers. Instead, though he played in bands (Big In Japan, Original Mirrors, Care), he found an accidental niche as the city's tunnel-visioned producer, shaping the sounds of Echo & The Bunnymen and The Fall But in 1989, he wrote one song that changed…

RICHARD PINHAS recorded Winter Music OtherSide) when he made 1979's Iceland. Alas, it was too long to fit on that LP. After appearing on CD reissues, it's now available on vinyl. The single piece that runs for over 20 minutes is split across two sides. This means it has to be interrupted halfway through which is a bit of a shame. The advantage of wax is the fuller depth of sound, however. Influenced by Fripp & Eno, it's one of Pinhas' most ambient releases; a placid yet continually shifting soundscape, well suited to unwinding after a long day of crate digging. In the late 90s, Pinhas revived HELDON after a long break for Only Chaos Is Real. That album remains to be reissued as a whole, perhaps because it divided fans by…

The Smile Cutouts XL Recordings XL 1445 (CD, LP, cassette) Thirty seconds into Foreign Spies, the opening track of The Smile's second album of 2024, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they are a band transformed. We're gently ushered into a radiant sonic landscape – all warm, analogue synths, as if Vangelis had joined Cluster. Thom Yorke emerges, sounding awestruck at the heavenly sounds that surround him as he sings, “In a beautiful world”. The brilliantly haywire jazz-rock freakouts, tetchy and convulsive kosmische and doomily beautiful ballads of the trio's first two albums seem a world away from this ambrosial new dawn. When Yorke follows it up with a plaintive, “We are melting”, it's a reassuring sign that normal, end-times service is resumed. But while that comforting lyrical sting in…

Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain William and Jim Reid with Ben Thompson White Rabbit, £25 ISBN 9781339604109, 286 pages Impressively detailed account of Scottish duo's fraternal lives and career Barely a page of the new memoir by the brothers at the heart of The Jesus & Mary Chain has passed when William has already been upset by Jim – it's 1961, and his brother has just been born. Fast-forward a few years to the pair's teens, however, and William has got his own back with some low-level bullying. Although it's credited to the Reids, their writing accomplice Ben Thompson must have done much heavy lifting in faithfully transcribing the duo's words into a laconic, give-a-shit, dryly humorous tennis match. Their very Scottish voices are captured well, as they…

Spaceship To Mars (out now via Creation Youth Records) epitomises the spirit of Lee ‘Scratch' Perry, a man said to have made something in the region of 2,000 albums. This album, though, is one he started with Youth (dubbed “the Phil Spector of dub” in last month's five-star RC review) and in the process created a sublime tapestry of tracks harking back to 70s-era Scratch. To be with the chance of winning one of two copies on vinyl, please tell us who Lee Perry's Upsetters rode again with back in 1970: a) Lee Marvin, b) Clint Eastwood, c) Charles Bronson?…

ENGELBERT: Mark McVeigh EDDIE: John Huttly ELECTRONICA: Paul Williams, Andy Knott All entries with your address to rccompetitions@metropolis.co.uk or to Record Collector Competitions, Diamond Publishing Limited, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP, by 31 October unless otherwise stated. Only enter once per competition – if submitting via post please include your phone number. recordcollectormag.com/competition-terms-and-conditions OCTOBER Solution…

CODA The Beatles A Hard Day's Night (United Artists UAL 3366, LP, US, 1964) £10 The first LP I bought… I was nine. My parents, late '64, had already seen – and grown concerned by! – their son's interest in pop music and things they thought superficial. They said if you want it, use your own money, so I raked leaves, mowed lawns and did other jobs for elderly ladies. Of course, this is the US version with incidental music included, and pales beside the British album. But still, that opening chord – bang! It's the starting gun of what we call the 60s. Four Tops Greatest Hits (Motown MS 662, LP, US, 1967) £10 Abdul Fakir, last surviving member, died in July, and it got me thinking how good…