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This Week's Featured Downloads Other Music Digital is continually welcoming new labels to our download store and one that we're most excited about bringing aboard is Cherry Red Records! A leading independent in the UK, Iain McNay started the imprint back in 1978 during the original punk explosion, and it still thrives today with a giant, varied catalog that includes great releases from Felt, the Monochrome Set, Free Design, the Passage, Momus, Link Wray, Kevin Coyne, Martin Newell, and Billy Childish, to name just a few, not to mention Cherry Red's many offshoot labels. What we have on the site right now is only a partial selection, with lots more of the catalog on its way, but here are some classics that you'll want to include in your collection.
While there's certainly no shortage of great folk reissues, Bridget St. John's first album (as well as her next two records) is right up there with Sandy Denny's and Nick Drake's best work, not to mention Linda Perhac's Parallelograms and Vashti Bunyan's seminal Just Another Diamond Day. Championed by John Peel, St. John would be one of the first signings to his Dandelion label; and following her single "To B Without a Hitch," her full-length would see release in September of 1969. Produced by Peel, with a few guest musicians including her good friend John Martyn and Occasional Word Ensemble's Rick Sanders, St. John's debut was recorded in only 10 hours, yet the beautifully understated playing is perfect for the gentle spirit of these tracks. Her deep voice is reminiscent of Nico's, though St. John's songs are much more reflective than dark, with detailed images of nature and cityscapes shaping her daydream stories. And while most of Ask Me No Questions was modestly produced, the title cut is amazing, bursting at the seams with rich layers of vocal harmonies and guitar, and offset against a background of church bells and birdsong. -Gerald Hammill
Post-punk completists and those of you who picked up the Avon Calling compilation will already be familiar with Bristol's Glaxo Babies. The rest of you, get ready for a major revelation. Formed in 1977, at the twilight of punk and pre-post punk, the hugely influential Glaxo Babies combined disparate influences such as Krautrock, Captain Beefheart, and dub to create a punk sound of their own. Dreams Interrupted compiles 20 tracks from their two Heartbeat albums, 12"s and singles (including both sides of the "Christine Keeler" seven-inch, perhaps their finest moment), and showcases the group's evolution from dissonant political punks to a more mature outfit, experimenting with funk, dub, and free jazz. All in all, a comprehensive collection documenting a band that were the forerunners of a scene that spawned other post-punk mainstays, including the Pop Group, Maximum Joy, and Rip, Rig & Panic. -Andreas Knutsen
Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound is the kind of eclectic, adventurous collective missing in the art-noise-dub-punk fusion that's been recently happening in Brooklyn and around the world. Originally released in the mid-'80s, this collection of singles, overseen by producer Sherwood, includes Jah Woosh, Prince Far I, Sons of Arqa, the Mothmen, New Age Steppers and Judy Nylon. The essence of Britain's fusion of dub and post-punk was dark, imaginative and truly unique. A strong roots influence, great drumming, sharp effects and ethno-rock vibes, as well as political and inspired vocals, insured these artists their place in underground music's history. It sounds just as fresh today. Those who liked the Wild Dub comps, or any number of the more recent post-punk collections and reissues, should add this to their collection. Recommended to fans of Konk, Mark Stewart/Pop Group, Gang of Four, Liquid Liquid, Rip Rig and Panic and Sherwood's own Creation Rebel project. -Daniel Givens
The Marine Girls formed when schoolchums Tracey Thorn, Gina Hartman and Jane Fox formed a band (Jane's sister Alice replaced Gina early on). It was 1980, and their favorite group was Young Marble Giants. Somehow the Marine Girls became the only other band to use that stark sound, accentuated by the fact that Stuart Moxham from that group recorded Lazy Ways, actually their second album. Where do Marine Girls diverge from YMG? There's but the faintest echo of the girl group sound in their music, a shadow outline of Phil Spector in the harmonies and arrangements, reduced to a frame around an empty picture--like folksongs by Lesley Gore and Lulu, and also quite unlike that, too. There's a lure to the near-monotone which the three (they traded off on vocals) sang with, an enticing reserve that's quite British, feminine and at a complete, relaxed peace. Their music is the equivalent to someone talking intensely in a low voice -- so devastatingly intriguing, you have to lean in closer. Thorn's solo album followed this in a quite similar style, and you can still hear the residue of this charismatic stateliness in her later work with Everything but the Girl and Massive Attack. -Robin Edgerton
Another great dose of classic '80s pop by way of this collection of singles and sessions by London-based the Servants. Centered around the songwriting of David Westlake (who later went on to record a solo album for Creation), the Servants also included Phil King (Felt, Lush) and, later on, Luke Haines of the Auteurs and Black Box Recorder. The main strength of Reserved lies in Westlake's carefully sculpted Byrds-ian janglepop, as he tells stories of love and woe that are on par with the best of the era (Biff Bang Pow!, Jasmine Minks, Sea Urchins, the Pastels). The first two singles and the Peel Session from 1986 stand out, with an irresistible combination of youthful energy and melancholia. Twenty tracks in total, leaving out the later duds in the band's catalog, this is yet another fine document of a time when Britannia actually did rule. -Andreas Knutsen
Twenty years after his last Miniatures project (and nearly that long in the gathering), back in 2000 composer/compiler Morgan Fisher returned with 60 tiny, one-minute-long sound pieces, recorded specifically for a follow-up. Miniatures (1) stunningly captured a cross-section between punk, spoken word, and the avant-garde This one celebrates global culture and the avant-garde, and has, certainly, a difference due to maturity. While his aesthetic has shifted (and yes, there are about a handful of new-agey tracks that need to be skipped!), so has his locale -- the set of musicians is gathered from more of an Eastern perspective, including a lot of obscure Japanese composers and musicians. Acknowledging the equality of creative pursuits, among the 60 are John Paul Jones, Jane Campion, Howard Jones, Michael Nyman, Terry Riley, Moondog, Ottmar Liebert, Milladoiro, and fantastic tracks from Piero Milesi, Tananas, Daniel Figgis, Komitas Vardapet (rec. 1912!). The collection of a long-time musical networker, shared. -Robin Edgerton
I've never been a fan of the English music press and their rampant hyperbole, but all bets are off when it comes to the second Stack Waddy album. Originally released moments after the band called it a day in 1972 on John Peel's Dandelion label, Bugger Off! is the definitive statement in British thug R&B mayhem. From the first notes of album opener "Rosalyn" you know you're in for quite a ride and when the vocals come in (Singer John Knail sounds like he just came from an all night Captain Beefhart impersonation contest at his local pub) you know the ride's gonna be a good one. It would seem that writing songs was almost an afterthought with only three of the original album's tracks composed by the band but that certainly isn't a bad thing as they lay it down so thick and heavy they succeed by sheer excess. Really, this is one of the most extreme recorded moments of the 1970s or any other decade and it should not be missed. This new CD version also includes a long lost John Peel session from 1972 and the track from the Dandelion sampler. That's a lot of Stack Waddy and it's just about as dumb and fun as rock 'n' roll should be. -Dave Martin |
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