The Past Seven Days - Raindance 7", 1981

The Past Seven Days - Raindance/So Many Others... 7", 1981, WAV

The Past Seven Days - Raindance/So Many Others... 7", 1981, MP3

I've long resisted posting this one, because you can get the tracks on the Various Artists "Natures Mortes-Still Lives" CD, a compilation of early 4AD bands. I would also be willing to bet this record can be found on other people's blogs. But this is my favourite 7" single of ALL TIME by ANYONE, and THE best obscure post-punk band ever. Still makes the hairs on my arms stand on end after 20 years. The music is dark in nature, but it doesn't strike me as goth, really. There are some great synth sounds, but the music doesn't revolve around synths. I've decided to upload two versions of this single for you - one is in .wav format (higher quality sound-wise, but takes longer to download, obviously) and the other in regular mp3 format. This thing is so special I think it deserves to be heard in an uncompressed format. I guess I could have ripped these tracks from the CD, but I did it the old fashioned way and ripped them from the vinyl, because I think that's really the proper way to hear them.

And what an amazing sleeve! Believe it or not, the band themselves put this sleeve together, so you can't even look to the latter-day art design geniuses that made the 4AD record label so unique and special back in the day. I've tried to find some information about the members of this band, but I can't find any by googling. Certainly they didn't go on to release anything else, sadly. Apparently you can find some bio information about them in a book called Beats Working For A Living: Sheffield Popular Music 1973-1984 by Martin Lilliker, but this book goes for quite a bit of money and I'm just not at a stage in my life where I want to invest in any more music books.

Maybe I'm posting this record in the hopes that one of the band members will contact me. Yes, maybe that's the real reason. That would be a dream come true.

Last thing I'll say on this is it distresses me that in the scans of the sleeve I've done here, you can't really appreciate the shiny gloss of the thick paper sleeve. I wish I could show how it glistens in the light! :)