Another mix of new and old favourites this month. Top of the pile is the re-recording and reanimation of Marc Almond and JG Thirlwell’s cover of Suicide‘s ‘Ghost Rider’ in a new edition with three remixes by JG. A live favourite (seek out their performance from the 80s on YouTube), this ups the ante and also comes with a great video by Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. “America, America is killing its youth” – well indeed, one of my records of the year for sure. Dimensional Holographic Sound is back with a new album which doesn’t happen often and ‘Concept Record’ is packed with samples as you’d expect from Ben Stokes who is always worth a listen. Nate Krafft wasn’t a name I was familiar with but I did the cover art for this release sometime last year for Musique Pour La Danse, it went off to manufacture and I forgot about it. I didn’t actually realise it was even out until I stumbled across it on Bandcamp earlier this month, a double disc reissue of two hard to find techno/electro discs in one package.
Ferries were new to me too, a ‘secret’ band who’ve done a couple of albums so far of which ‘Eye Wander’ is the second. If you dig dubby, mellow, psychedelic krautrock then this might be for you, out now on World of Echo. Pentagrams of Discordia are a recent discovery too and their new album is full of their take on the darker occult side of electronica that Boards of Canada do so well. The LP with bonus 7″ sold out on the day of launch but don’t let that put you off. I can’t keep up with The Allergies, they put singles out so often around an album I lose track, I think there are now two physical singles so an album must be imminent. ‘Dig It Up’ is an excellent fast party rap track featuring Andy Cooper and Dutch MC, Blabbermouf with a fantastic animated video.
Andrew Poppy‘s ‘The Beating of Wings’ album, originally on ZTT, is 40 years old! Where did the time go? Probably my first exposure to modern classical composition / minimalism as a 16 year old and still sounds great today. Ramjac (aka Ramjac Corporation) has an equally long history in the rave scene and this new compilation of unreleased material from ’88-92 on Mental Groove Records. It comes complete with period adjacent artwork by Grant Fulton who did The Shamen‘s Synergy flyers of which Ramjac was a part way back in time. Lastly I thought I’d feature KiF Productions‘ ‘Passiflora’ again as it slipped out quietly last month on cassette via Music To Watch Seeds Grow By and I’d missed it. I saw Will from the group last week at Doug Shipton‘s Pour Decisions night at the Tate Modern and he played an excellent set of chilled tracks.
Right, back to work, lots to do… until next month!