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PENTANGLE Sweet Child
Jazzy folky stuff from late 60s London based Northerners.
The bass here is by Danny Thompson so is dashed fine Bert Jansch was
one of the best acoustic guitarists from a pretty good scene. John
Renbourn wasn't far behind. Jackie McShee's vocals are sweet and
Terry Cox's drumming really swings.
Theres also a couple of Mingus covers and 'I've got A feeling ' which
is based on Miles Davis 'All Blues', a track that both Tim Buckley
and julie Driscoll/Brian Auger did songs based on.

MICHAEL NESMITH Magnetic South & Loose Salute
Pairing of ex Monkee's first 2 psychedelic country lps.
Pretty melifluous yodelsome, primely poppy. what more can I say?
He seems to be the one exMonkee whose music came to fruition after he
left the band. I think Dolenz and Tork did some stuff later but they
certainly don't seem to be known for it. Dolenz possibly being better
known for work with film after his teenpop years.

JOHN HOLT 1000 Volts of Holt
I picked this up on the strength of Ali Baba which I've got on that
Mojo freebie.
Thunk there was something special about something in his voice. Heard
the first disc here which is Jamaican MOR and thought, God what've I
got. 2nd disc easily makes up for that though it's a full length best
of his full early career. From the Paragons onwards. First disc also
has the original Jamaican track mixes if they're any good ta ya.

OTIS REDDING the very best of
Great soul vocalist backed by the Bar-kays. I love the Stax sound,
the gospel influence really gets me. I keep wondering where this
influence filters through. On first hearing this set last week while
reading articles on The Clash I figured they probably picked up on
this stuff and from there I wondered if their influence
disseminated the stuff much further.

EYES ADRIFT
New project from Meat Puppets Kirkwood and Nirvana's Novoselic with
drummer Bud Gaugh ex Sublime. Pretty great guitar playing throughout.
Almost a reform to mid period Meat Puppets form plus 15 minutes of
guitar workout on Pasted. Certainly sounds like a more mature band
though still pretty rocking
Great jazz influence throughout possibly most recognisable in the
horns/zither on opening track Sleight Of Hand. Is the bassline on the
next track Alaska borrowed heavily from Watt on Pedro on the
wrestling lp?
Just looking this lp up on line and found out that Inquiring Minds
the first track here featuring Novoselic singing is about the media
overkill on the killing of a 6 year old girl. Couldn't tell what he
was singing when he sung 'they put flowers on your grave JonBenét'
til then. He sounds roughly Stipe-ish and there is an air of REM in
places here.

NORAH JONES Come Away With Me
Smoky jazz cd by latest grammy winner. Hope the latter don't decrease
from this lp I just got given it and told that she was the secret
daughter of Ravi Shankar.
Great version of Cold Cold heart here , I've got this on cdr so can't
see the credits but she's backed here by the likes of Bill Frisell.
I'm somewhat reminded of that Roberta Flack irst lp First Take or
Julie London or something. A little surprised that this is that
mainstream that she gets 5 grammys but I guess its prety classic.

BLACK FLAG Damaged
One of the archetypal hardcore lps. Rollins has just joined so is
covering material originally sung by the previous vocalists for the
most part , lyrics largely by guitarist Gregg Ginn who is not quite
as sprawling here as he gets later. There's something quasi Ramonic
about the band at this stage. The sound is mixed for impact not hi-fi.
I've heard the drums described as mixed like a punch in the guts. The
intros on here are as intense as these things come. Then finally you
get Damaged I , a track that in its earlier version has nearly
Toublefunk like rhythm, strange when thinking that Rollins was
supposed to be the DC connection who introed the band to that sound.

GONG You
Mid 70s hippy spacefunk. Daevid Allen joined by Steve Hillage on
their last 70s apearances on Gong stuff. The in-jokes may p some
people off but this is way more instrumental than earlier stuff.
A sprinkling of clouds predated the mid 90s ambient scene by a good
20 years. This shows that there was some decent stuff happening in
the unlikeliest places mid 70s.

SUNS OF ARQA Solar Activity: 1979-2001
best of Manchester basedWorld music/psych/dub crew.
Here with guest appearances by the likes of John Cooper Clarke,
prince far i , a guy called gerald and adrian sherwood and covers of
stuff like Tommorrow Never Knows. Rerally trippy if you like this
kind of thing which I do muchly.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE Loves You Disc2
The 67 to 69 era stuff from San Francisco greats' box set. Here bes
everything from joke material cut with Frank Zappa to excerpts from
the Woodstock appearance. Ranges from the earmelting alternative take
on The Ballad of You, Me and Pooneil to the softness of Things are
better In The East (which still has a gorgeous tuneBTW)

AGITATION FREE Malesch
Early 70s German Arabic influenced guitar workouts. Some elements of
a cross between early Floyd and the QMS. Intercut with tapework
apparently cut on a trip to Saudi. Still can't work out exactly
what's happening with the pilot talk. If you're interested in
checking out Krautrock at all this is a pretty decent place to start
if you can find it. I remember buying this and wondering if the
picture i the centre of the gatefold read anything but had been
shrunk to small

GUN CLUB Pastoral Hide And Seek/ Divinity
The last 2 studio lps featuring Kid Congo (actually Divinity has one
live side which is the only official live stuff featuring Nick
Sanderson) Pastoral Hide and Seek features a production from JLP
himself that sounds strangely unsympathetic. It is heavily influenced
by late 60s Frisco stuff, which is echoed in the band'scover of
Eskimo Blue Day which is a bonus track on this disc. Flowing has
weird echoes of the Airplane and Temptation And I is almost a rewrite
of the Big Brother and tHe Holding co take on Piece of My Heart.
Divinity features a couple of great covers alongside the great Sorrow
Knows which is one of my fav ever songs anfd features Jlp's
Verlaine/Hendrixisms over presumably Romi Mori's JB style rhythm
guitar. The song comes off like a continuation of
`I Cover The Waterfront'.

GRATEFUL DEAD Dicks Picks 16
3cds of the Dead live from 69. After the very siomngform first cd
theres 2 ˝ hours of freeflight jazz takes on their more open ended
stuff culminating in a 25 minute `Lovelight'

JANES ADDICTION Ritual De Lo Habitual
One of the most iconic lps of the late 80s alongside its predecessor.
I was surprised by the mix of elements that go into this Folk, Ethnic
jazz and zep like metal. Finally bought this last year after seeing
the band at the ICA in the mid 80s. The night when the audience got
herded out in to the November night cos the band's dry ice had set
off the fire alarms.

dc BASEHEAD Plays with Toys
Weird, childlike hip-hop from Michael Ivey which has a strange lo-fi
folk thing flowing through it.
Apparently very influential on people like New Kingdom though this is
way lighter sounding. very spacey, the guy sounds blasted.
Stevo
NpEskimo Blue Day Gun Club