The Listening Club - 9th October 2022

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing good. Cool but bright weekend here in Amsterdam, which is nice, he says, standing in a sunny window sipping coffee and watching a variety of tourists wandering off the beaten track and getting lost. No gig to go to tonight, which makes a change after three Sunday gigs in a row, but I'll be making up for it next weekend with a gig excursion to foreign climes, therefore I'll be needing someone to run things here, please let me know if you can help, thanks!

Last Sunday saw @saucer in the chair, slicing off the first "disc" of the new Stereolab complation, "Pulse Of The Early Brain", which included their collaborations with Nurse With Wound (which pleases me considerably, as I've always hoped NWW would end up here somehow by a process of collective osmosis). As expected it delighted and boggled in equal measures, so thanks to Murray for the pick and for sailing the frisb over to @ohmyliver, who's here with tonight's intro...

"Sometimes albums come to you like they're fated.  Like the universe is saying ‘this should be your soundtrack for now’.  I had rinsed a track from this last year, but never got around to listening to the rest of it until a few weeks ago.  

The album’s title is tragically ironic. It’s full of rhythm and blues, funky, replete with funk tropes like the sort of utterances that a buttoned-up cat like myself can only make if I stub my toe really badly. It also has an obvious nod towards late 60s heavy rock. It grooves, but in places it also moves.  There seems to be a pretty dark backstory to it as well, going by an interview with one of the musicians who worked on it that I recently watched on YouTube.

This album has been sampled by a veritable who's-who of ‘80s and ‘90s Hip Hop. From Public Enemy, to A Tribe Called Quest, to The Sugar Hill Gang, to Eric B and Rakim, to Double Dee and Steinski, to The Wu Tang Clan, etc etc. Also the call and response spoken, vocals  on one of the tracks is clearly a precursor to hip-hop. 

The artist was famed for gigging constantly for years, but only released a handful of singles, and this album, in the years they were active. It’s got a fairly well known producer, who you might be able to name by the fx/production/percussion on some of the tracks.  Both the producer, and band, were part of a close knit scene of influential Chicago soul musicians/groups

There’s a good chance that people might know the album, but it’s a mostly great album which hasn’t been picked before, so I’m taking that risk.

Drinking recommendations for those who do, is a specific brand of fortified wine, popular in the late 80s/early 90s with British students, goths, punks, and assorted people whose cash-strapped need to get drunk outstripped the needs of their taste buds."

Right then, download's here, stream's below:

See you 8pm BST (GMT+1 while stocks last!)