The Listening Club - 8th July 2018

Howdy folks,

Back from the fests and feeling good, DTRH was very nice indeed, excellent sets from Mr. Cave, Mr. Byrne, The belowmentioned Breeders, and a whole bunch more, and possibly the nicest location to have to withstand near 30°C every day whilst doing so. Also great to be home in a couple of hours, makes quite a change from that Glastonbury. Back off out again today to a local world / roots fest, so another afternoon of lying in the sun, sipping beer, eating spicy food and listening to oddball tunes awaits... no complaints.

Big thanks to @emmaprice for helming things last week, and for her pick of The Breeders' latest, "All Nerve", selections from which sounded mighty fine to these ears last week live at the fest, tho they didn't do the cover of "Archangel's Thunderbird" which was a shame. Thanks to Emma for getting it all together with aplomb, and sailing the frisbee across London to @ohmyliver, who's here with this week's deliberations...

"So, the frisbee was thrown over to me this week. 

I can’t speak for anywhere else, but in my South London neck of the woods, it’s been almost insufferably hot.  Which means, in my case, a hazy sleep deprivation born of heat addled insomnia. My ginger genes have made me somewhat ill-prepared for climate change.

At the beginning of the week I was eyeing up Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, an amazing gospel album recorded in 1971 to raise money for the church that Aretha started her illustrious singing career when she was at the peak of her career.  It’s almost good enough to cause conversions. Almost. 

Then as the sleep deprivation started making things fuzzy I turned to Raymond Scott’s 1964 album of minimal ambient electronica Soothing Songs For Baby which I’ve been listening to out of curiosity.  Despite being really quite childish sometimes, I didn’t find it soothing enough.

By the end of the week, I had turned to a genre that works well in the heat, and with the somewhat spacy head state of not really sleeping enough for days on end, which would be Reggae.  I then progressed through the at times excellent live recordings of Saxon Sound featuring Daddy Freddy, Tipper Irie, Smiley Culture, etc in ‘84/85 and ended up here.

Here being 1982 album from the first female Dancehall DJ, which at times get a bit preachy, with a killer stand out track that you’ll probably know through hearing it out, and from it being sampled by people like Jay Z,  It’s not a new discovery, but it’s an album with enough charm to cause my periodic return to it over the years. 

Make sure you’ve got a decent bass response on your speakers or headphones, and if you’re drinking break out the Wray and Nephews. "

Okay and dokay. Direct download is here or here, and the HearBeSpoilers stream is below:

See you at 8pm BST (GMT+1) tonight for playback!