Armande Altai - Nocturne Flamboyant, 1983 (re-post)

Armande Altai - Nocturne Flamboyant, 1983

Here's a link to my previous post about this record.

Some wonderful soul named Matt asked me to repost this one (since ZShare seems to have gone AWOL) and even though I had to rip the entire record again, I didn't mind at all.

There is some serious Martin Hannett production GENIUS at work, here. Just listen to "Balance-toi-Lola" and HEAR the Joy Division-y guitars and the ICY PIANO. Then listen to "Ciel d'Hiver" and tell me this is not a goth heaven of some kind.

If you can't hear Hannett in this record, you're not a Hannett fan.

Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief, 1969

Good old fashioned English Folk-Rock, baby! Fuck, I can't figure out how to make the sleeve for this LP bigger. This album is fucking amazing. If you don't like this, you're not an anglophile, period. I wish I could die on English soil. If only I knew for sure that I would die on English soil, the peace it would bring me.

Dif Juz - No Motion, 1985

I can't remember if I posted this one already. But this is GOD right here. This is the second coming of a non-existent Jesus if there ever was one. I'm going to a desert island, baby and I know what I'm taking. Cocteau Twins fans listen up, if you don't know this band, you don't know nothing.



Look at that drummer, the way he meets your eyes, furtively, slyly. Incredible. Okay, I know I still need to put up their "Who Says So?" EP here, I know. I've made a grave omission which I will have to correct in the coming weeks. Sigh.

This blogging business...such work!!

Talking Heads - Psycho Killer, 1978

Their performance on Old Grey Whistle Test. I'm not much of a Talking Heads fan, but this just scorches me. Did someone say post-punk? Yikes. Music was clearly not in Kansas anymore when the likes of this showed up on the scene and wiped the vomit off punk's floor. All hail the avant garde new wave!

Donna Summer - Heaven Knows, 1978 (again)

I'm very disappointed that the amazing Donna Summer video I linked to earlier of this song was taken down off You Tube. She was absolutely gorgeous in her green tunic, and the sound was perfect as well. God, what a clip that was! Wish I'd downloaded it. :(

I feel the need to do something to rectify this, as I really think it might be my fave Donna Summer song ever. You can hear the song here, even if you don't get anything but a still photo of her to look at:



Or, if you're a bit more adventurous and you want to see some live action and don't mind a significant drop in sound quality, try this one:

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! :)

The Wendys - More Than Enough Promo 12", 1990

The Wendys - More Than Enough Promo 12", 1990

I'll be the first to admit there were a lot of crap or mediocre records released on the Factory label. But I think Northside & The Wendys were fabulous. The Wendys weren't quite as good as Northside, I don't think, but pretty close for awhile. Anyway, the key thing here is the A-side, a vocal version of "More Than Enough" that cannot be found elsewhere. The B-side, the instrumental version of the song, was released as the b-side of the "Pulling My Fingers Off" single.

I'm proud to say I saw the Wendys live in Manchester in 1991. There weren't many people there, but it was a thrill, I must say. I took home a Wendys poster someone gave me off the wall. Don't have it anymore, though, unfortunately. I'm aware they did do a second album "Sixfoot Wingspan" in 1999, but I'm really not sure how I feel about it, to be honest.