REISSUES
#15 Starship Commander Wooooo Wooooo - Mastership (Left Ear)
Omer Coleman, Jr. must have cut quite the figure back in 1981, dressed as his alter-ego Starship Commander Wooooo Wooooo, driving through Kansas City, Missouri in an electric space-car built by his co-workers at the local steel mill. I first heard the marvellous "Master Ship" a couple of years back on the essential Personal Space comp, and was delighted to get it on vinyl here, along with six other cuts of spaced-out synth strangeness. Thanks Left Ear Records!
Starship Commander Wooooo Wooooo -"Master Ship"
#14 Cornelius - Fantasma (Lefse)
Brilliantly bonkers, fresh-as-a-daisy production masterwork from 1997. An extrovert crate-digging cousin to DJ Shadow's moody Endtroducing: while Shadow locked himself away in his bedroom preparing for midnight strolls of the soul, Cornelius was goofing around down the arcade, surfing in the sea and riding fairground rides high on candyfloss. Pressed on Fanta Orange vinyl, no less.
Cornelius - "New Music Machine"
#13 Mayo Thompson - Corky's Debt to His Father (Drag City)
Recorded in 1970 in downtime between Red Krayola projects, Corky's Debt to His Father by RK front man Mayo Thompson was notable at the time for its lack of free form freakouts. An intriguing little album of cryptic, endearingly shambling rock tales that recall Lou Reed and Alexander "Skip" Spence, it will now feel right at home next to Bill Callahan and Ty Segall in the Drag City catalogue. "Horses" was covered by Pere Ubu in 1980 when Thompson briefly joined the band as a guitarist, but start at the end with cracking closer "Worried Worried".
Mayo Thompson - "Worried Worried"
#12 Alice Clark - The Complete Studio Recordings (Ace)
Criminally, this 15-track collection represents the entire recorded output of this wonderful, versatile Brooklyn soul singer. You may well know and love the Northern Soul staple "You Hit Me (Right Where It Hurt Me)" but the other 14 tracks (recorded between 1968 and 1972) hit just as hard. "Say You'll Never (Never Leave Me)" reminds me of Little Jerry William's "You're My Everything", and, for me, deep soul doesn't get any better than that. The three Bobby Hebb-penned tunes - "Don't You Care", "Charms of the Arms of Love" and "Hard Hard Promises" - are all different, all absolutely magnificent. Clark's records have become highly desirable and cherished over the last 25 years or so - sadly, she died in 2004 at the age of 57, unaware that her music was finally starting to find the audience it always deserved.
Alice Clark - "Say You'll Never (Never Leave Me)"
#11 Niagara - Niagara (PMG)
Released in 1971, Niagara's debut LP was attention grabbing not just for that cover but for its wild yet considered, purely percussive sound. German Klaus Weiss - dubbed at the time as the only European drummer with American feeling - invited six other percussionists from the USA, England, Germany and Venezuela to accompany him on these two thrilling, lengthy workouts. Though many of the rhythms feel African-inspired, the driving nature of the music and whooshing production effects mean that the record also makes sense filed away in the Krautrock section.
Niagara - "Sangandongo"
#10 Osamu Kitajima - Benzaiten (Victory)
This was one of those moments where I was flicking through the racks, came across an album sleeve and instantly thought "I've got to get this". I'm very glad I did, as Benzaiten - meaning God of Music and Water - is a highly distinctive, bewitching and progressive merging of ancient Japanese instruments with Western jazz and rock forms. The electric guitar that thrillingly punctuates Side A disappears completely on Side B's two long, mesmeric meditations.
Osamu Kitajima - "Benzaiten (Repris)"
#9 The Replacements - The Sire Years (Rhino)
Rhino followed up last year's Twin/Tone Years box with The Sire Years, collecting together The Replacements' final four LPs. Tim is a near perfect alternative rock record: "Left of the Dial", "Bastards of Young", "Swingin Party"...anthem after anthem. I've been so chuffed to finally have a physical copy of this that I haven't spent nearly enough time with the later albums as yet. I look forward to getting better acquainted with them. I also look forward to reading Trouble Boys, Bob Mehr's extensive biography of the band and their excesses - it's been highly entertaining listening to my mate Grant recount selected tales of broken chandeliers, trashed rental vans and wanton self-destruction as he makes his way through the book.
The Replacements - "Left of the Dial"
#8 Eleanore Mills - This Is Eleanore Mills (Soul Brother)
It's become depressingly easy to be cynical about Record Store Day in recent years with it's unnecessary reissues of in-catalogue albums, pointless picture discs and £12 7-inch singles. Labels like Soul Brother Records do it right, however, with small runs of unearthed gems. In 2015 they gave us Linda Jones' amazing Hypnotized; this year it was this from former member of the Dixie Cups, Eleanore Mills. It's a sublime LP of sweeping mid-70s disco-soul. The real kicker, though, is the bonus 7-inch of "Something Is On Your Mind"/"Singing The Blues": absolutely KILLER!
Eleanore Mills - "How Can I Love You"
#7 The People's Workshop - Houston Talent Expo '82 (BBE)
The People's Workshop was set up at Texan Southern University to encourage young people to be creative and collaborative, gain proficiency in music recording and performance, and produce work that was true to their own realities. These 1982 recordings - written by members of the People's Workshop and performed by musicians from Houston - ape many of the funk/soul/gospel sounds of the 70s but exude an exuberance, cool and sense of mischief that's all their own: in these hands, a track about race equality is called "Chocolate-Coated People Song"; "Why do I need an education?" a children's choir gleefully asks when told to stick in at school. Stevie Wonderesque opener "Let's Get High" may say that "love is all you need" to get high, but its mellifluous groove suggests that the Workshop are well aware this sensation can also be achieved by other, medicinal means; they make this immediately and explicitly clear in the following track, the funky "Love, Love": "love, love...nice and mellow...love, love...sinsemilla". "Stand Up For Jesus" isn't some happy clappy gospel number but rather an impassioned keyboard/bass workout. A brilliant, big-hearted record with personality to spare.
The People's Workshop - "Let's Get High"
#6 Ned Doheny - Ned Doheny (Be With)
While Ned Doheny is probably best known for "Get It Up For Love", a set text for the slick, sunshiny, lightly funky sound now referred to as "soft rock" or "yacht rock", his self-titled debut is very much of a piece with the Laurel Canyon, singer-songwriter records of the early 70s (he was the first signing to David Geffen's Asylum record label, home to Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne; the distinctive voice harmonising with him on "On and On" is Graham Nash). It's a beautifully played collection of songs (highlights for me being "Take Me Faraway", "Lashambeaux" and "Fineline"), lovingly reissued by Be With Records who have had a stormer of a year putting out gems by AIR and Funk Factory (I still need to get these), Willie Hutch and Eddie Hazel...
Ned Doheny - "Fineline"
#5 Eddie Hazel - Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs (Be With)
My love and admiration for Funkadelic's madcap musical genius grows with each passing year, and though I'd read about Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs ("produced, pronounced, professed and prophesized by George Clinton and Eddie Hazel"), I only heard it for the first time this summer following its reissue on Be With Records. Hazel's lead guitar is furiously emotive across these seven cuts - standouts being the stoned "Frantic Moment" and a stonking reading of The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". Shout outs too to Lynn Mabry, Dawn Silva and Gary Cooper on "Babylonian be-bop background & diabolically diligent do-wops".
Eddie Hazel - "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"
#4 Manuel - Göttsching - E2-E4 (MG.ART)
E2-E4 is the most common opening move in chess and a very fitting title for the first piece of music released by Ash Ra Tempel's Manuel Göttsching under his own name. He recorded it in his studio one night in 1981, as part of a solo concert "just for myself". When he listened back he was amazed at how seamless and flawless the recording was. A near-hour of "playing around, but pretty good playing around" with synthesisers, sequencers and guitars using just two chords might not sound like the most enticing proposition, but it really is a wonderful, engrossing listening experience - it always feels a shame when, half an hour in, the LP comes to the end of Side A and its ever-evolving flow is disrupted. Transporting and timeless.
Manuel Göttsching - "E2-E4 (Segment)"
#3 Lee Moses - Time and Place (Future Days)
Funnily enough, I can pinpoint the exact time and place that I first heard a Lee Moses song - it was the Oran Mor on 2nd December 2008 when Eli "Paperboy" Reed covered "Bad Girl" as part of his set; when I went home and looked up the original, it made sense that he had - Reed, in his full-throated soul scream mode, being a dead ringer for Moses. "Bad Girl" was a great but unsuccessful single for Atlanta musician Moses in 1967; Time and Place appeared four years later. The title track is the equal of anything on Stax in the early 70s; "Free at Last" is as good as the Al Green track of the same name. As was apparently compulsory for soul records around that time, there are covers of "Hey Joe" and "California Dreaming". Reed's reading of "Hey Joe" is particularly strong - a menacing funk strut, complete with spoken word and incredible guitar playing from Moses, that builds in tension over its six minutes. "Got that will to learn" he sings with steely determination on "Got That Will", saying he's gonna work hard and "be a star one day" like Sly & the Family Stone, the Allman Brothers, Dionne Warwick and his old session buddy Jimi Hendrix. It didn't quite work out that way for Moses, but today 'Time and Place' is recognised as the superb deep soul LP it is.
Lee Moses - "Hey Joe"
#2 Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran (Omnivore)
An eccentric, ambitious, stylistically all-over-the-shop psych-folk record made at the end of the sixties by a husband and wife team. People couldn't get a handle on it in 1969 and are only starting to make sense of now. The tone shifts from track to track, from dark dread - the Summer of Love, which Yester had soundtracked as a member of The Lovin' Spoonful and as a producer for Tim Buckley and The Association, seemed like ancient history - to tender optimism - the couple's baby daughter having been born the previous year. Musically, we get dramatic blues-rock, medieval folk, sweeping chamber-pop, and - on the closing title track - a Moog-assisted sci-fi lullaby. This is a beautiful gatefold reissue with lovely liner notes and gorgeous orange marbled vinyl.
Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - "Charity"
#1: Arthur Verocai - Arthur Verocai (Mr. Bongo)
A classically trained musician and composer of stunningly inventive, sumptuously arranged orchestral jazz-funk - think a Brazilian David Axelrod - Arthur Verocai released his self-titled masterpiece in 1972. The arrangements of horns, strings, sax and flute are sun-drenched and cinematic, the ridiculously groovy guitar and drum breaks have kept hip-hop's hippest producers in hooks for years. "I could listen to the album everyday for the rest of my life", Madlib has said. You can see why he would.
Arthur Verocai - "Na Boca Do Sol"
COMPILATIONS
I don't buy too many compilations, but I did buy and love these three corkers...
Various - Aloha Got Soul (Strut)
Aloha Got Soul or, to give it its full name, Aloha Got Soul - Soul, AOR & Disco in Hawai'i 1979-1985 does exactly what it says on the tin. And it does it brilliantly. These fantastic tune - which, mostly, criminally, never made it outside of the islands - are stylistically of a piece with the expertly played, easy-on-the-ear, R&B-influenced tracks by artists featured on comps such as Too Slow to Disco (try listening to "Your Light" by 'Aina without wanting to sing Hall & Oates' "Las Vegas Turnaround), while being in possession of a sunnier, more spiritual disposition. "All we've got to do in life is love one another", sings Mike Lundy on "Love One Another". That "Aloha spirit" shines through across these 16 cuts.
Tender Leaf - "Countryside Beauty"
Various - Christians Catch Hell (Honest Jons)
Gospel, blues, funk and soul collide in barnstorming fashion on this righteous compilation, put together with typical love and attention-to-detail by Honest Jons. All 18 of these little-heard tracks (Pastor T.L. Barrett was the only name I was familiar with) were recorded between 1976 and 1979 for the Gospel Roots label, a subsidiary of Henry Stone's TK Records.
The Howard Lemon Singers - "For the Children"
Various - Space Echo (Analog Africa)
Space Echo is a mind-bending, mind-expanding document of what happened when residents of the West African island nation of Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) got their hands on synthesisers in the early 1970s. Traditional local music meets sci-fi synths on these irresistably infectious cuts. Dare you to sit still when listening to this!
Dionisio Maio - "Dia Ja Manche"
GIGS (16 from '16)
Super Furry Animals @ Glasgow Bandstand, 6th August
Joanna Newsom @ Royal Concert Hall, 2nd March
Father John Misty @ Astra Kulturhaus, Berlin, 25th May
Cate Le Bon @ Glasgow Art School, 19th December
Kamasi Washington @ Glasgow QMU, 27th June
Van Morrison @ Glasgow Bandstand, 4th August
Julia Holter @ SWG3, 19th February
The Coral @ Glasgow ABC, 5th March
The Heavy @ Oran Mor, 15th May
Ought @ Broadcast, 22nd April
Psych Sunday @ Broadcast, 25th September
Angel Olsen @ SWG3, 15th October
Steve Gunn @ Broadcast, 18th November
Sturgill Simpson @ Glasgow ABC, 13th July
Car Seat Headrest @ Broadcast, 23rd June
Ty Segall @ Glasgow Art School, 22nd June
FESTIVAL
Green Man
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