This playlist is 68% vinyl friendly. Poor, and the first show to hit that exact mark… though with a likely future vinyl release it should inch up at some point.

‘A German (Dieter Rams) design classic… that caused uproar in the ’60s as one of the first light-weight record players to eschew the heavy wooden cabinet design, the Braun Audio 1 was the company’s first fully transistorised combined hi-fi system. At just 67cm wide, it’s remarkably petite… ‘ – The Vinyl Factory, 2017

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Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms tweak/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here. 🙂

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Lyric of Playlist 144

‘I realized u were my demise… ‘ OK, so there’s little competition.

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00.00

(Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info.

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00.41

NEW ORDER – Crystal (Unpasteurized version by Ivan X) – Stream only – 2025

‘Crystal is a super song, but, to me, a lot of the “heys” and “oohs” are distracting, and conceal the excellent music underneath. I also don’t love the intro, or the repetitions of “keep it coming.” So I made this version that cuts out all of those, leaving a spare vocal and great music. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t. Here it is!‘ – Ivan X

The barely 400 yoootoob views at the time I clocked this mix suggests this Naked/Unpasteurized mix is from recent times rather than from when the band offered out Barney’s vocal for anyone to build a (re)mix around. If so, it’s maybe in the light of AI making track/stem separation, errr… ‘easier’, and whether you like your remixes to pay purist homage or go the ‘out there’ route that house music remixers have so often championed (both can have their winners)… this is gold star.

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06.38

CLOCK DVA – Consent – White Souls In Black Suits, LP – Italian Records – 1982

First released on vinyl in Italy in 1982 but now…

‘Available for first time in over 35 years, Clock DVA’s White Souls in Black Suits – originally released in 1980 as a limited-run cassette on Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Records – now returns newly remastered and reissued via The Grey Area of Mute and expanded with four bonus tracks from the same era‘. – Mute, October, 2025

It would have jelled better if the drumming had been higher in the mix. 🙂

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11.08

HULA – Walk On Stalks Of Shattered Glass – 12″ – Red Rhino – 1985

Only released as a 12″ but someone online recently grabbed a 7″ test pressing for all of about £3.50!

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15.38

THE SISTERS OF MERCY – Adrenochrome – 7″ b-side – CNT Productions/Merciful Release – 1982

Bought new but I don’t remember ever having the pic sleeve to this Body Electric single. If I did have it I lost it early on and very possibly during its many outings at our Winkles club nights when both sides rightly got played a lot. The photo below might suggest otherwise but the state my copy has been in since the mid ’80s is not good 🙁 and a long way off the €300 or so it might have attracted if I’d vaulted the bugger away the day I bought it. Of course no one did that sort of thing back then, even if they do now.

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18.33

STRETCHER – Mocktober – Unreleased – 2002’ish?

He’s known as Spud to me… and he’s given me as much info as when his other 2002’ish demo, Mousehold cropped up on 41 Rooms, back in 2021… which is diddly squat :)… so here’s a photo of a pink fairy armadillo!

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23.31

HOT LIZARD – 165 Drop (Love From San Francisco Mix) – 12″ – Pacific Records – 1996

‘Probably the strongest release yet on the label, 165 Drop is a superbly crafted atmospheric piece of deep house, though just to place it in this category doesn’t do it justice. The simple swishing hats provide a rhythmic background to a procession of interesting, arpeggiated synth lines that blend beautifully, all the time gradually building into quite a pacy groove. Love From San Francisco’s mix is slower, gentler and effective in a more easy listening manner but there are more mixes to follow on this track in the coming months so this package may get stronger still‘. **** Tim Jeffery, Record Mirror (Music Week), 1.3.97

Hey! Less of the ‘Easy Listening’!

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31.35

SOUND OF MUSIC – Feel The Music (Part One) – 12″ – Emotive Records – 1992

‘Feel the music’ indeed. There’s nothing profound in the lyrics but the beats and sounds of a handful of Emotive 12″s from around this period lifted the spirits. ‘Need the release‘? Both physically and mentally, at this time I did… and the £4 I paid for the 12″ in ’92 is about as much as a decent copy will cost now. 🙂

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38.09

SILICONE SOUL – Right On! (Original Instrumental Version) (Pitched down!) – 12″ – VC Recordings/Soma – 2001

Given the sampled narration included, to this day this ‘instrumental’ take sounds a shade too chirpy cheery for me… so to give it some extra ‘presence’ I pitched it down on the show. 🙂

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43.09

ISAAC HAYES – Theme From ‘Shaft’ – 7″ – Stax – 1971

Given its reason for being (a soundtrack) I’ve spun the full version rather than the subtly edited 7″ take. Arguably the most recognisable Blaxploitation sound(track)?

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47.34

PART TIME HEROES – All This Time – Realise, 12″ EP – Mums The Word – 2006

I remember these guys doing some great radio shows, possibly stepping in for I’m not sure who – Gilles P, Ross Allen? It’s a blur. As of right now, a UK-sourced VG+ vinyl copy of the Realise EP (with this the second 41 Rooms playlisted track) on Discogs… at £1! 🙂

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51.56

ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF – Stardust – Download only – 2025

‘Reverb’ setting to ‘huge empty church’ or the likes in the recording process – or it was actually recorded in a huge empty church, and an ‘interesting’ use of a family photo for the sleeve below. There’s something in the water in Sweden.

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58.29

HARMON BETHEA – Anonymous * – 7″ b-side – Creole – 1976

I spent a few years with only half of this track grabbed from somewhere online… and the wrong title! That never helps.

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01.02.42

TOM BROCK – I Love You More And More – I Love You More And More, LP – 20th Century Records – 1974

‘Lurv thang’ mid ’70s soul and from the only album Brock made… and one with two 21st century re-releases. Not that its version of ‘I Love… ‘ really goes anywhere different beyond the 2mins 46 edit used for the US 7″ but seeing as a 1975 Brazilian 7″ pressing was mastered at 33rpm (they often cut singles that way over there back then and it would have giving them ‘space’ for more music) I’d be interested to know whether they went with the full length version. Nice touch, if they did… but I bet they didn’t.

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01.06.32

MARVIN GAYE – That’s The Way Love Is – 7″ – Tamla (Motown) – 1969

Marv Top 10’ing in the US with a punchier, moodier version than the Isley Brothers’ uptempo take from two years earlier.

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01.10.01

STEELY DAN – Do It Again – 7″ – ABC Records – 1972

I playlisted the full version that lead off the band’s debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill but I should have edited out the keyboard doodling… so using a 41 Rooms ‘trick’ I did the next best thing. With show 144’s time again I would go for the 7″ version, as it was the one that did it for me back in the day… as No. ‘977’ on the 7″ shelves of this then teenager’s bedroom, the log of the time still tells me. 🙂

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01.15.16

(THE) PENTANGLE – Travellin’ Song – 7″ – Big T / Joc – 1968

Unless you lived in a folk music strong household, anyone nearing teenage years in the UK in the late ’60s most probably first heard Jacqui McShee’s signature vocals on the band’s Light Flight guesting as the theme to the BBC comedy drama, Take Three Girls but Travellin’ Song pre-dated that as their debut 7″. The copy below? To be picked up by me the next time I’m in Bedford.

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01.18.08

THE B-52’s – Roam – 7″ – WEA International – 1989

Don’t ya just smile when you hear their vocals? Oh, and the apostrophe. It would hang on in their name for a few years more.

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01.22.35

JAY B. SELLS (feat JOSHUA HAYES) – Pulling Strings (unreleased demo) – 1998’ish

I got given this demo by ‘Jay B. Sells’ maybe sometime soon after I left working at the Westminster Uni’s Commercial Music department but when on a return visit to see folks. Give this song and arrangement to some young soul(s) with pop stardom in their sites and a 2020s production mindset and I reckon this is a nailed on’ hands in the air’ winner. Indeed, after Rod Thomas gravitated to becoming Bright Light Bright Light (and maybe somewhere in between his first two BLBL albums) I did wing this track to him but he’s very much an ‘own song’ man… or maybe he just thought I was mad.

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01.26.05

JAZZ THE GLASS – Main Squeeze – Output2023, EP – Bandcamp, download only – 2023

The motif pulling it back wins out but the drive is there. Cinematic and classy!

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01.30.52

COMMON FACTOR (+ JOHN REDMOND) – World Is Mine – 12″ – Planet E – 2000

Every few years I seemed to latch on to a track on Carl Craig’s label and here Redmond’s on a mission. Building from half way through, it feels like madcap gospel on speed.

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01.36.35

LAYO & BUSHWACKA! – Deep South – 12″ – End Recordings – 1999

Rumbling sounds and some borrowed, rambling ‘Satan’s waiting for you all‘ snippets, making for a good groove and from back in the day when, in this case, a £4 purchase fairly quickly turned into an £18.50 sale. Music & Video Exchange’s many shops in Notting Hill, London were (certainly in the ’90s), a regular destination for mover and shaker DJs and journalists offloading their unwanted promo vinyl and the chain’s dance and beats shop/department just overflowed, so it wasn’t hard to pick up gems… and every little helped to buy some more vinyl. 🙂

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01.42.39

DEMOCUSTICO – Grito (Seiji Remix) – 12″ – Far Out – 2006

Brazilian at birth but musically they’re happy to move around a bit, even before Seijo’s remix takes this particular tune further afield. They’ve been here before and will be again.

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01.47.49

EMILY’S CHAIR – Just Before I Go (unreleased) – 1998’ish

Just the one single under this moniker and this was in the mix of tracks they were producing at the time. Their only subsequent release – as One Mile Per Hour – was a 2012 self-tilted album which included a couple of tracks I recognised from the above period.

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01.51.28

KUTIMAN (feat PRINCESS SHAW)- Give It Up * – Stream only – 2014

‘I would like to thank all the musicians that are in this project and to all of you out there for sharing your knowledge and talent on the internet‘. – Kutiman, Youtube

And search out the video below, as much for the info on Ophir Kutiel’s collaborators (unknowing at the time?) and the subsequent work involved in pulling this track together, and also elsewhere for the knock on effect his work has. 41 Rooms salutes the man.

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01.55.42

ALABAMA SHAKES – Another Life – Download only – 2025

In the age old ritual of lead-person-goes-solo-and-then-years-later-the-band-reconvene, judging by the live video of Another Life (filmed at Colorado’s Red Rocks) this time around main gal, Brittany Howard will be no less the focal point. Old skool soulful rock songwriting.

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Show 144 hopefully surfaces Nov 2.

Dec x