Before even a note was struck, Yard Act’s singer James Smith was setting the bar high. “Over the past two days everyone we’ve met in Glasgow has been telling us this is the best gig we’ll ever play”, he declared, as soon as the Leeds band arrived onstage. They then proceeded over the following 70 minutes to deliver on that expectation, with an evening that’s among the best the storied old Barrowland has ever seen.

One of the essays in the booklet accompanying Loma Northern Soul describes the titular label as an “outlet aimed at secondary or tertiary record markets, issuing product that it was hoped would prove strong in R&B radio, yet had the potential to crossover and do battle with Motown in the pop charts”.

My associate for the evening has recently returned from Breaking Convention, a conference on psychedelics, celebrating their renaissance in recent years. He’s been microdosing regularly. Around us the crowd sways, many with eyes closed, bobbing, silhouetted by two screens and a stage backdrop on which a dancing silver-grey blob-humanoid grooves itself to liquid, splatters flowing off it.

Four trombones, four trumpets and five saxophones, six percussionists – this Afro-Cuban inspired band packs an irresistible punch and it’s loud!  This is a big band sound that revives the glory days of Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie, a 1940s fusion of Latin and jazz, as incendiary as it comes. A true wonder that London should produce music of this power and vibrancy, but the New Regency Orchestra (NRO) do just that, keeping the energy going for the full length of a 90-minute set.

March 1960’s I Hear A New World EP was British pop at its most extraordinary. As its liner notes put it, it was “a strange record”: one seeking to aurally reflect life on the moon and in outer space. Musique concrète, pop and studio-only sonic manipulation were rolled into one. Its creator was producer Joe Meek.

Record Store Day is nearly here. At theartsdesk on Vinyl we have a selection of goodies which are appearing exclusively in record shops. See anything you fancy?

THEARTSDESK ON VINYL’S VINYL OF RECORD STORE DAY APRIL 2023

Suicide A Way of Life Rareties (BMG)

There will be two theartsdesk on Vinyls this week. The first is here, an epic 11,000 words on a multitude of new releases in every genre, from reissues of classics to spanking new strangeness. There’s something for everyone. On Thursday we’ll have a special edition in honour of Record Store Day this coming Saturday, so watch out for that too. For now, though, dive in!

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Elsa Bergman Playon Crayon (B.Inspelningar)

It might be nigh on six months since Scandinavian shamen (and women) Goat released their latest opus, Oh Death, but it has taken until now for them to finally bring their energetic live show back to the UK. On Sunday’s evidence, it is a wait that now feels like a small price to pay though, as Brummies young and old blew their minds and danced their socks off to intoxicating sounds that provoked a seriously ecstatic response.

Promises attracted a lot of attention upon its 2020 release. The album brought together UK electronica artist Floating Points, The London Symphony Orchestra and storied US jazz individualist Pharoah Sanders, who died in September 2022. It became his last album. Promises – composed by Sam Sheperd in his Floating Points guise – cannot though have been conceived to be as high profile as it became.

The last time I saw the Damned live in concert was in a big tent in Finsbury Park in 1986, to celebrate the band’s 10th anniversary. It remains, without any doubt, the most violent gig that I’ve found myself experiencing to this day.