The Listening Club - 22nd March 2026

Greetings folks,

Hope you're doing okay. A quiet week here in Amsterdam, still nice and sunny, but sadly not bringing the temperatures to match, so stooping season will have to wait a little longer, as the tulips keep pushing themselves out of the earth, we watch the buds appear on the lilac and wisteria, and sip on the last of the seasonal winter bock beers (always buy too many, but they're so very tasty).

Note that it's nearly the end of the month, so we're looking for a #vortex theme for next Sunday, so bring your ideas and shout 'em out later on... thanks in advance!

Last Sunday saw @ThatNewSound in the chair, sending everyone an emotional curveball in the shape of Apparat's new album "A Hum Of Maybe", which seemed to go down well with most of the assembled. Thanks extended for the pick, and for sailing the frisb over to me, @kleptones, so it's time for me to go into character... 

*quickly dives behind curtain*

 ... 

*curtain rises*

"What a time we're living in, O my brothers and sisters, what a time, when not a day goes by without another slice of your personal freedom being surgically removed or another wholly unneccesary war starting, truly one cannot be blamed for turning on the wireless and choosing to indulge in some carefree, light-hearted pop music to soothe the spirits and remind yourselves of those simpler days of yesteryear.

Pop music, eh? Not something I often pick for Listening Club, some might say, but, in my defence, it's all pop music to me, mate. But hey now, here comes some actual English pop music, featuring some actual English pop stars (here and there) and a couple of Top 20 hits (in the UK, natch). Despite that, this album never made it past No.45 for a week in the (UK) charts and has now been tagged by some as a "cult classic", although the actual size of that cult, I'm not quite sure. It certainly did pass me by at the time, and even though I purchased several of those aforementioned singles (at least one of which you may well recognise), I didn't think a whole album by this artiste would be worth a punt, so I gave it a wide berth. Fortunately, for some reason this album got itself re-issued last year and fell into my world-famous "In-Tray" and well, reader, I must now consider myself seriously corrected... and like I said at the start, right now we need the occasional decent distraction from all the shite, and, imho, this is as good as you'll get, I reckon. From me, anyway. So I hope you agree!

Drinking club: Pint of Best for me and a Strawberry Daiquiri for the lady."

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

See you 20:00 GMT later on. (Our clocks change next Sunday, btw)