My random number generator, before picking this record for me, suggested five or six 7″ singles – problematic, as my 7″s are still not in an easy-to-handle order, meaning that I can’t quickly track down any of them in particular. Note to self: sort this out. Anyway, to the first record picked that I can easily locate. […]
Category: 12″
GUMBALL: Light Shines Through (12″, Paperhouse PAPER 012 T, 1991)
I don’t remember where I picked up this record, but I’ve a feeling it was one of those ‘randomly acquired in a record shop’ purchases – on one of those record-shopping trips where I’m not looking for anything in particular, but usually emerge with a stack of unexpected new things that I didn’t realise I […]
SHIT AND SHINE: Find Out What Happens When People Start Being Polite For A Fucking Change (12″, Gangsigns GS004, 2013)
Shit And Shine are an extraordinarily enigmatic, shapeshifting band. It’s difficult to tell at any point in their history so far – they’ve been going for five, ten, twenty, fifty years? – who is in the band, where they are from, who decides what they are going to release (and how), and, vitally, what they’re […]
DESERT HEAT: Cat Mask At Huggie Temple (12″, MIE 020, ?)
MIE is a UK record label with a pretty impressive back catalogue of releases. Their early releases tended toward exquisite packaging, with no end of hand-stitched, screenprinted and hand-assembled artwork being on offer. More recently they’ve toned down the (labour-intensive) hand-finished stuff, but retain an eye for a good-looking sleeve. This record is a 12″ […]
PRIMAL SCREAM: Kowalski (12″, Creation CRE 245T, 1997)
This came out in 1997 – really? – thirteen years ago! Wow. It genuinely doesn’t seem that long ago. For me, ‘Kowalski’ and the Vanishing Point album from which it was taken are pretty much the high point in what’s been an amazingly long career for Primal Scream. At this stage, they were at the […]
PASSING CLOUDS: Protect Your Baby Ears EP (12″, Bite Back! BB! 022, 1991)
My sister, who is a few years older than I, went to University in Norwich. Knowing that I was a music fan, she used to tell me, now and then, about what was going on musically in Norwich. Sometimes these stories would involve a band called Passing Clouds, a member of whom was friends with […]
THE GROOVE FARM: The Big Black Plastic Explosion! (12″, Subway SUBWAY 19T, 1988)
‘Big Black’ in this record’s title refers to the glory of a twelve-inch piece of vinyl, of course, and not to Steve Albini’s thundering industrial rock band. The Groove Farm were thundering, too, but in an altogether more indie-pop fashion. Thunderingly cute and perky. A twelve-inch record being released by an indie-pop band was a […]
EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL: I Don’t Want To Talk About It (12″, Blanco Y Negro NEG 34T, 1988)
The concept of ‘perfect pop’ is a long-standing one amongst indie kids. It’s a term often thrown back at critics of songs, almost a defense mechanism: ‘yes, it’s very badly-recorded, but it’s perfect pop!’, ‘I know it’s Girls Aloud, and they’re completely manufactured, but it’s just a perfect pop song!’, and so forth. It’s a […]
THE SOUP DRAGONS: Hang-Ten! E.P. (12″, Raw TV Products RTV 121, 1986)
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 […]
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, […]