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ISAAC HAYES: Shaft – Music From The Soundtrack (2LP, Stax 2659-007, 1971)

Isn’t Isaac Hayes cool? Look at him up there in the top right hand corner, he’s all untouchable hipster, shades, slaphead and all. Was it him that did the album called (I think) Hot Buttered Soul or something like that, with a cover depicting nothing but an extreme close up of his bald bonce? If […]

BLUR: Song 2 (7″, Food FOOD 93, 1997)

Twelve years on and this still sounds fresh as a daisy – one of Blur’s musical pinnacles. There were many. This cover is great and it sums up the song perfectly: a stupid, brightly-coloured American car comin’ straight for you. And it’s, er, flying across some kind of Martian landscape for no good reason. The […]

VARIOUS: Different For Domeheads (LP, Creation CRELP5, 1985)

Creation Records don’t half cop a lot of flak these days; mainly, I guess, as a side effect of bringing Oasis to the masses (I love them myself, but you can’t sell that many records without a lot of people getting snarky), and also perhaps because of head man Alan McGee’s increasingly out-of-touch, I-used-to-be-somebody ranting […]

MAKITA: Rover (7″, The Great Pop Supplement GPS03, ?)

Another release on the always-beautiful Great Pop Supplement label: this one looks particularly fine, with its tracing paper wraparound sleeve, hand-finished with a stamp and a comic strip cut from what looks to be an old Dandy or Beano. This is one of GPS’ earlier releases, back when every one came as a limited run […]

SONIC BOOM: (I Love You) To The Moon And Back (7″, Silvertone SONIC 2, 1991)

I can’t remember where it was that I picked up this record. It’s a promo-only 33 1/3 rpm single that marks the point at which Sonic Boom began using the Spectrum name for his music. Whilst the labels state Sonic Boom as the writer of the two tracks here, it’s difficult to miss out on […]

FREE: The Free Story (2LP, Island ISLD 4, 1973)

Wow: this two-album compilation is a line drawn in the sands of self-belief. You won’t find many bands that a mere five years after their inception merit a collection of such perceived importance and value as this one. Gatefold sleeve; numbered (“The Free Story is released in a limited edition”, state the huffy liner notes); […]

EARTH: Extra-Capsular Extraction (LP, Sub Pop SP 123, 1991)

Well, what are the chances. Out of the huge range of random-number-generator-driven possibilities that were available for this post, it’s another Earth album. I’ve already written about Earth 2 on here in the past. I bought this at the same time as that. This is their first album, featuring some dude named Kurt Kobain (sic) […]

THE GO-BETWEENS: Streets Of Your Town (7″, Beggars Banquet BEG 232, 1989)

I’m not normally much of a ‘multi-formatter’ – I don’t tend to buy the same release on every format that a record company feels the need to issue. I’ve never reached the level of fanboy obession that’s driven many to covet the same songs on 7″, 12″, CD1, CD2, tape, eight track, flexi, wax cylinder […]

RODAN: Rusty (LP, Quarterstick QS 24, 1994)

Back in the early ’90s I remember picking up on a musical thread that often seemed to pop up, almost in passing, in many of the fanzines I was reading at the time. I kept reading the phrase ‘post-rock’, without really giving much thought to what it meant, beyond being another handy yet meaningless hook […]