Space Is The Place (again)

Can it really be true that Windy & Carl have been making records for 20 years?  I guess the fact they are just about to release the "3rd & final installment" of their celebration of their "20th year of releasing music" on their own Blue Flea imprint means that it is!


That single and their adorable recent 7" for The Great Pop Supplement provide ample evidence that they are creating some of the most touching, effortless-sounding music of their career.  "Carnivale" - the B-side of the GPS single - is particularly great and is undoubtedly the single song I've listened to most to date in 2014.  Over a tinkling, all-percussion backing, Windy Weber sings in thee most heavenly voice, foregrounded as never before, about a scene that could have been lifted straight from a David Atttenborough nature documentary:

"Little crabs on hot sand
 Dancing on the hot sand
 Claws outstretched toward the sky
 Snapping claws, feet in time"

It just so exquisitely expresses the wonder of small, everyday things.  Both sides of the Blue Flea release and the A-side of the GPS 7" are more typical of their previous records (shimmering guitars, subdued atmospheres, buried melodies) but done so beautifully and with such understated emotion as to make them career highlights.  With Grouper's steady rise to a certain level of prominence over the last few years, hopefully the conditions are right for Windy & Carl to receive a little more recognition again.  There's no doubt that they deserve it.

Around the time I was first fully immersed in the spectral music of Windy & Carl and their Michigan peers (Fuxa, Auburn Lull, Mahogany, Once Dreamt etc.) I bought a little 4 track cdep of demos by Alison Statton's post-Young Marble Giants group Weekend.  It was flawless from start to finish and seemed to sit just right alongside the similarly elegant music made by those groups.  Earlier today, I was jolted from the tedium of work when I read the Twitter announcement from Norman Records that Blackest Ever Black is set to restore these demos to print, this time on 12" vinyl.  Now the end of February can't come soon enough!

Something Inside

When the reconvened Loop played Edinburgh's The Liquid Rooms in late 2013 they were supported by pummelling psycho-beat merchants The KVB.  Having enjoyed the early 80s housing scheme blues of their lp for Clan Destine, I made a of point of arriving in time to hear their set.  From 7:30pm - crazily early, if you ask me! - they unleashed blast after punishing blast of squalid noise assembled from hollow drum machines, squealing guitars, max-doom synths and submerged male vocals.  It was a wholly exhilarating experience!  At that point I had not yet bought their reissued and expanded "Minus One" record (on The Brian Jonestown Massacre's A Recordings) so I didn't know to pay special attention to the head-scrambling fuzz attack of "Something Inside":

I'm sure they played it and I'm sure it messed with my hair (they were that LOUD!) and my future hearing prospects.  With such darkness abounding it feels like the right time to pick up and then wallow in the sunglasses-after-dark underworld of the recent 39 Clocks vinyl reissue on Luxury Products:

My Secret world - The Story Of Sarah Records

2013 started in fine style with the excitement generated by the release of the trailer for the new Pastels lp.  A year on and it's the release of the trailer for the Sarah Records documentary that has got Not Unloved in a ferment:

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My Secret World - The Story Of Sarah Records. Trailer 2014 from Yes Please! Productions on Vimeo.

Hopefully, the producers will get distribution and their film will be seen.  Visit the film's website here and spread the good word if you can!

Most enjoyed lps 0f 2013

What a year 2013 was for lps!  For a chap with my predilections, the release of a new Pastels record was always going to be the main event and so it transpired.  From the songs which peppered their live shows over the years, I knew with some surety that "Slow Summits" was not going to disappoint, a sense that was only heightened when Annabel Wright's gorgeous sleeve art was revealed early in the year.  And "Slow Summits" is something special: refined, reflective and detailed.  For a while I listened to little else besides.  In Glasgow, it felt as if everyone got wise to the brilliance of Ela Orleans at almost exactly the same time. Her terrific double-lp "Tumult In Clouds" (currently out of print but soon to be re-pressed on her own Parental Guidance Records) was actually released in mid-December 2012 but only came to my attention via a Monorail Records tweet in early 2013 so I've decided to make it eligible for my list.  From the list below, it would appear that Not Unloved had treble in mind with The Mantles, Dick Diver, Ginnels, The Prophet Hens and many more releasing exquisite, jangly guitar saturated lps.  2014 can't possibly be better can it?  We'll see...

1. The Pastels “Slow Summits” (Domino)
2. Amor de Dias “House At Sea” (Merge)
3. Mazzy Star “Seasons of Your Day” (Rhymes of an Hour)
4. Ela Orleans “Tumult In Clouds” (Clan Destine)
5. Golden Grrrls “s/t” (Night School / Slumberland)
6. Veronica Falls “Waiting For Something To Happen” (Bella Union / Slumberland)
7. The Rosy Crucifixion / The Wharves “split” (Soft Power)
8. The Mantles “Long Enough To Leave” (Slumberland)
9. Dream Boys “s/t” (Art Fag)
10. My Bloody Valentine “mbv” (mbv)
11. Jacco Gardner “Cabinet of Curiosities” (Trouble In Mind)
12. Dick Diver “Calendar Days“ (Chapter Music)
13. Ginnels “Plumes” (Tenorio Cotobade)
14. The Focus Group “The Elektrik Karousel” (Ghost Box)
15. Joanna Gruesome “Weird Sister” (Fortuna Pop / Slumberland)
16. The Prophet Hens “Popular People Do Popular People” (Fishrider)
17. Counter Intuits “s/t” (Pyramid Scheme)
18. The Liminanas “Costa Blanca” (Trouble In Mind)
19. Parquet Courts “Light Up Gold” (What’s Your Rupture?)
20. Reiko Kudo “Mikan” (Hiyotan)

(Click the titles to hear a song!)

All The Time In The World

Volume 8 of Sequel Records' "Here Come The Girls" cd series contained two flawless dancers.  The first was Petula Clark's finest, most soulful moment, "Fancy Dancin' Man".  The second was this effortless swinger by The Paper Dolls:

Clapping along to "All The Time In The World" was actually made mandatory by an Act of Parliament in 1968.  In the 16 years since I bought the cd (from Glasgow's dearly departed John Smith's record department) it never once occurred to me to look for it on vinyl.  Then, a week or two back, a rather lovely looking (allegedly unplayed!) picture sleeve 7" with it on the b-side cropped up among a French ebay seller's items:

Strangely, nobody else bid on it so it was mine.  If I ever play records in a shambollic manner to an uninterested throng again, it'll be the first 45 in my box.

Midnight Hour

Wilson Pickett's classic version may be much more widely known but there's something about Michael and The Messengers' sprightlier, more youthful version that keeps me coming back to it.  Wisely, The Messengers didn't just try to replicate Pickett's version - how could they ever have won at that game?.  By quickening the tempo, replacing the horns with keyboards and rattling a tambourine for the entire 2min 32sec duration they upped the pop factor. It must have packed the dancefloors at high school record hops the length and breadth of Milwaukee!

Most enjoyed singles of 2013

New singles:

1. The Pastels “Check My Heart” (Domino)
2. Girls One and The Grease Guns “Driving Without Headlights (Once Again)” (Squirrel)
3. Veronica Falls “Teenage” (Bella Union)
4. Marnie “The Hunter” (Soft Power)
5. The Thanes “She’s Coming Back To Me” (State)
6. The Fireworks “Runaround” (Shelflife)
7. Joanna Gruesome "Sugarcrush" (Fortuna  Pop)
8. The Mentalettes “Fine Fine Fine” (Copase Disques)
9. Kids On A Crime Spree “Creep The Creeps” (Slumberland)
10. Veronica Falls “Broken Toy” (Bella Union)
11. Alpaca Sports “Telephone” (Duffelcoat)
12. Pups "Month Long Sleep" (Where It's At Is Where You Are Singles Club)
13. Bubblegum Lemonade “Have You Seen Faith?" (Matinee)
14. Heathers "Teenage Clothes" (Death Party)
15. Listening Center with Pye Corner Audio “Study Series 08: Projections” (Ghost Box)
16. The See See “Featherman” (Great Pop Supplement)
17. English Singles "Ordinary Girls" (Slumberland)
18. Jacco Gardner "The End of August" (Trouble In Mind)
19. The Jellies "The Conversation" (Emotional Rescue)
20. Mad Nanna "I Wanna See You" (Soft Abuse)

Reissue: 

Denise and Company "Boy, What'll You Do Then?" (Big Beat)

Should've been the A-side:

Sauna Youth "Oh Joel" (Static Shock) / Slushy "Pocket" (Randy Records)

Digital single that should've been on vinyl:

The Creeping Ivies "What Would Joey Ramone Do?"

What a year for the 7" single!

P.S. All titles above are links.