People often bang on about the fashion/style wasteland of the 1970s, but I’d suggest that the mid-to-late 1980s were in fact one of the darkest times in Britain’s sartorial history. I remember, as a naive teenager, sporting the horrific combination of a pair of sand-coloured chinos*, a striped shirt and a reversible bomber jacket with […]
Author: simonminter
SUEDE: Animal Nitrate (12″, Nude NUD 4T, 1993)
Sleeve designed by Andrew Biscomb & Peter Barrett. I only picked this record up a couple of years ago, along with a couple of other Suede 12″s, from an Oxfam shop. I recall though, way back around the time this came out, thinking what a nice sleeve design it was – very simple, very effective, […]
VARIOUS: By The Fruits… You Shall Know The Roots (3LP, Time-Lag/Eclipse FRUITS/ROOTS, ?)
This triple album could be seen as an important part of the early development of a now-popular ‘new psychedelic folk’ scene. I’m not sure when it came out, but it was several years ago, before all kinds of mainstream attention started getting paid to weirdo neo-folk singers and bands who were picking up the strands […]
C JOYNES: The Running Board (7″, The Great Pop Supplement GPS29, 2008)
Here’s an interesting situation. For the first time, my random number generator has pointed me at a record that I know I own, but which has become misplaced in my carefully-arranged (or perhaps, not so carefully arranged) A to Z seven inch shelves. It’s just not to be found. Can’t find it either under J […]
CALVADOS BEAM TRIO: [Untitled] (7″, Bearos BEAROS014, ?)
Groovy packaging on this record. I’m a big fan of the use of transaparency and opacity effects in design, especially when it’s used to mess with your mind a little bit. Not sure that it’ll come out in the photograph, but the sleeve contains a clear insert with green lettering. This lettering is arranged with […]
FEDERATION X: Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman (7″, Wäntage USA WAN-024, ?)
What a great cover design. Totally meaningless, seemingly unconnected to anything, but bold and striking enough to make me ponder at length about how and why some bird-headed warriors on horseback are representative of Federation X, this record, the songs on this record, or something related to one or more of those things. Nice bit […]
THEE HYPNOTICS: Floatin’ In My Hoodoo Dream (12″, Situation Two SIT 73T, 1990)
This was a charity shop purchase at some point during the 1990s. Thee Hypnotics weren’t (indeed, aren’t) a band I felt particularly desperate to hear, but at the time my thinking would have been influenced by two factors: This was a record released on Situation Two. That label also released the early output of The […]
COMET GAIN: Strength (7″, Wiiija WIJ66, 1997)
This is a great record. ‘Strength’ is a little slice of girl-group/Motown-infused indie-pop that is a lot more proficient and ‘together’-sounding than pretty much anything else you might hear by Comet Gain. That might sound disparaging, but it’s not supposed to be – I really liked Comet Gain (or should that be ‘like’? – are […]
MECCA NORMAL: Rose (7″, K IPU 32, 1992)
This is another choice from a pile of seven inch singles that I purchased from a kindly Brighton-based seller on eBay some years ago. I think I’ve mentioned this transaction on here before. It was a set of K Records and other US indie label releases, and it was a joy to receive them in […]
VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA/THE TELESCOPES: Live at AUDIOSCOPE04 (10″, Fourier Transform TRANSFORM007, 2005)
Aha, good work, random number generator. You’ve selected a record that I have several interests in. Firstly, I created this record. Kind of. Now, I wasn’t involved in the music, you understand, but Fourier Transform is my record label. It used to be a label owned and run by my good pal Simon (yes, another […]