Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
Axis: Bold As Love, the second album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, was released in the UK during the first week of December 1967. In America, it came out in January 1968. Now, it is the subject of a multi-disc box set titled Bold As Love.Why this puzzling new title – “Bold as Love” is the track closing the album – has been chosen is unknown. No reason for losing the word “Axis” is given in the accompanying book, or in the promotional material: which describes this as a “box set containing [the] landmark 1967 album Axis: Bold As Love.”
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Kieron Tyler
“Mrs Bluebird” is one of the great singles. Released in May 1968, it is airy yet lush. The filigreed harmony vocals are like velvet, the rhythm is insistent but soft. Overall, there is a sense of distance; that what’s heard is not quite within reach. When a guitar solo comes, it is sharp but muted. This is archetypal American harmony pop – but with a distinct freeze-dried character.It was the top side of the third single by Eternity’s Children, and made 69 in Billboard’s singles chart. It got to 54 in the Cash Box ranking. A UK release of “Mrs Bluebird” suggested there was chance this Read more ...
Tim Cumming
If you want a peek into a lost world of rock n roll degeneracy and decadence, you won’t find a better glory hole than the grubby, outlandish view offered by the video for “Hey Negrita” from the Rolling Stones’ 1976 album, Black & Blue.
It’s on the band’s YouTube channel, Jagger flouncing about in some lime green Latina blouse, vocally molesting pianist Billy Preston on the breakdown, and Keith and new boy Ronnie posing about in shades, their battered guitars locking in to that song’s unspeakably brilliant, filthy, sleazy groove.
Black & Blue is not high in the canon of Great Rolling Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Issued in September 1974, Hall of the Mountain Grill was Hawkwind’s fifth LP. The follow-up to 1973’s live double album The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London, it found the band in a position which seemed unlikely considering their roots in, and continued commitment to, West London’s freak scene. Their June 1972 single “Silver Machine” had charted and, irrespective of what they represented or espoused, Hawkwind had breached the mainstream.Nonetheless, Hall of the Mountain Grill didn’t chart high – in the UK, it peaked at 16 in late September 1974: when Mike Oldfield’s Hergest Ridge Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Heard now, 50 years after its release, Tangerine Dream’s Rubycon sounds like what it became: part of the musical template for Jean-Michel Jarre’s 1976 international breakthrough and also as an integral component of the records The Orb began attracting attention with in the early Nineties. Beyond the aesthetic ripples, a specific aspect of the May 1975 album was and is also significant.Rubycon was one of the first albums by a rock – in its loosest meaning – band to seamlessly incorporate the use of a sequencer. Those with the budget for the gear and the attendant technical know-how could Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The opening track initially seems straightforward. To begin “Sons of Art,” Michael Garrick runs up and down his piano keyboard. Norma Winstone adds wordless vocals which weave in and out of his sparkling arpeggios. Then, the bass arrives. Drums kick in. So do the tenor sax and trumpet. After a climax around the two-minute mark, what begins as pacific turns turbulent. The conventional has become unpredictably experimental.To conclude the album, an extraordinary nine-minute piece which, on one hand, sounds like dawn breaking and, on the other, a collision between the contrapuntal and a free- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Leisure Process issued four singles between March 1982 and May 1983. Signed to Epic Records, the electropop-inclined duo was primed for success. Debut 45 “Love Cascade” was Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell’s record of the week. At the other end of the coolness spectrum, John Peel also played the single. A Leisure Process Peel session was recorded on 10 March 1982.Another factor feeding into the perception Leisure Process was ready for take off was the identity of their producer: Martin Rushent. He was integral to shaping British pop of the period. His work with Altered Images, The Human League and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A curious mind, indeed. Outer space, and what may be there. Communicating with those in the hereafter. Spooks, vampires and other horror film perennials. The wild west. Deceased rock ’n’ rollers Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.Joe Meek’s preoccupations weren’t hidden. The records he produced and the songs he wrote reflected them. Much of his output was a form of musical autoportrait: auditory reportage expressing personal fixations. When he was at his commercial and creative peak in the early to mid Sixties, anyone could latch onto Meek’s obsessions via, say, a hit single like John Leyton’s “ Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Over 1965 to 1968 Brooklyn's Evie Sands issued a string of singles with classic top sides. Amongst them were “Take Me For a Little While,” “I Can't Let Go,” “Picture me Gone” and “Angel of the Morning.” For reasons which are tackled in the essay coming with I Can’t Let Go – the first-ever collection of Sands’ seven-inch A- and B-sides – all either charted low, or not at all.This is extraordinary and, from the perspective of 60-ish years later, inexplicable. These were fabulous soul-inclined pop records, and fabulous songs – as recognised by the extensive assortment of other, subsequent Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A month after Soft Cell’s "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" single peaked at number three in the UK charts, Marc Almond issued a single credited to Marc and the Mambas. March 1982’s "Sleaze (Take it, Shake it)" / "Fun City" was produced by his Soft Cell partner Dave Ball, who also contributed drums and synth.Over 1982 and 1983, Marc and the Mambas seemed to be on Almond’s mind as much as Soft Cell. There were albums and live shows. Radio sessions and TV appearances too. Running Marc and the Mambas in parallel with Soft Cell seemed –and seems – pretty burdensome.Yet it was seemingly what Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The reappearance of These Were The Earlies for its 21st-anniversary is a surprise. Although The Earlies' debut LP received a maximum-marks review from NME on its 2004 release – and widespread praise in general – it is not an album instantly shouting “cult item.” Nonetheless, as the reissue and a tie-in reformation of the band show, there is a residual affection.Playing These Were The Earlies confirms why. From its opening seconds, it sets itself up as top-notch modern psychedelia, with references – some overt, some subtle – to The Beach Boys, Love and, more contemporaneously, Mercury Rev. A Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“It's a Happening Thing,” January 1967’s debut single from California’s Peanut Butter Conspiracy, is one of the year’s best. Driving, with a full sound, a psychedelic edge, soaring vocal and immediate tune, it sounds like a hit.However, despite being issued by major label Columbia, it wasn’t. As it’s put in the booklet coming with The Most Up Till Now – A History 1966-1970 box set, the single “barely scraped into Billboard’s Hot 100, peaking at the number 93 slot.”The band’s next 45, March 1967’s "Dark on You Now” was as great. But, this time, no chart action at all. Their debut album, the Read more ...