This playlist is 79% vinyl friendly. Not bad.

On the wall and not a table – the Trettitre TTT-LP3 Wireless Vinyl Player at nearly €500 and everything beyond (the tone arm, stylus, EP adapter, cassette and CD players, wall rack) is extra. The mood lighting (variable) is included.

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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 157

A few messages here – both light and not so light – but it’s wordsmith Antony by a whisker.

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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 – Ruined In A Day (Reunited In A Day Instrumental) (K-Klass Remix) * – promo 12″ only – Qwest – 1993

‘Just like the last single, this is more catchy, poppy and melodic that an outright dance track. K-Klass’s Reunited In A Day mix and instrumental bounce along gently while Sly & Robbie’s Bogle mix is a jerky, funky affair… ‘ – Brad Beatnik, Record Mirror (Music Week), 19.6.93

The Barney vocal Ruined is a fave of ‘modern’ New Order for me but this instrumental has its own majesty, stripping out some of the more mournful strings to skip along with enough turns.

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05.49

LUDVIQ & JULIAN RECA (feat LAS DEBLAS) – Alhelí – 12″ – Star Creature – 2026

Bubbling sounds and ‘a 12″ tribute to Andalusian roots, featuring Flamenco pop/rumba disco legends Las Deblas‘ – Bandcamp 

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11.24

NEGATIVLAND – Certain Men – True False, 2LP – Seeland – 2019

They have their world – snipped, snatched and hoovered from the world around them. Is there a club anywhere that dances to their tunes? I do hope so.

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16.11

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Capsules (Sheffield Uni Union Bar Two, 21.2 79) – Stream Only – 1979

The audio recently uploaded to uuuutuuube for all, I think I walked past Bar Two on the way in to the Cabs last ever UK gig at Sheffield’s Octagon Theatre last Sunday. Capsules didn’t make the set list this time around.

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21.09

GANZHEIT – Possessed – ‘Summer Of ’84’ demos cassette – 1984

Like early techno with an ethereal twist, Summer of ’84 just keeps on giving. I think it was band member, Paul Cullivan who gave me the cassette, either on one of our club nights at Winkles (Bedford) back in the day or more likely when I was looking to do a follow up to the Discreet Campaigns v/artists cassette. Though that never materialised I think I had Ganzheit down as a contender for the ‘harsher side’ Conductors and Miscreants (then intended for release in 1986) and when I find the initial stages paperwork I might print the details here. Bands who had said yes to giving us a track for C&M were The Fall, Severed Heads, Portion Control, Workforce, Hula and (unsurprisingly) Click Click so, looking back it’s a shame it didn’t surface but I’m guessing Rorschach Testing’s limited funds played a major part in the decision to not proceed.

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27.33

LOCUST (feat OMOTOLA) – Love Stays * – Spectral+, LP – Todo – 2026

At odds with just about every other track on the album these old skool shuffling beats rise above and are made good for me by the forlorn vocal melody – not that we’re too troubled by any great storyline.

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31.35

ANTONY SZMIEREK – The Heron – Decoding Birdsong, LP + bonus 7″ – Mushroom Music – 2026

Reminding me slightly of Ashley Beedle’s Love Bug Vocal mix of The Streets’ Weak Become Heroes, I accidentally bumped into this track for a second time recently, having dismissed it on a short listen the first time around. Time is of the essence when hunting tunes.

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34.47

D*NOTE (feat BETH HIRSCH) – Then Along Came You – Laguna, CD only – New World Music – 2006

D*Note’s Matt Winn and one of my favourite vocalists. Beth gliding… and it’s definitely ‘job done’.

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38.07

JAZZANOVA – Mwela Mwela (Here I Am) (Bugz In The Attic Remix) * – Jazzanova Remixed, 2×12″ – Jazzanova Compost Records – 2003

Bustling and blistering, the Bugz way. A Valerie Etienne-led tune I missed back at its release but it’s the landscape she seems to really flourish and shine in and one that reminds of some of her Two Banks Of Four work. There is though a superior, shorter edit of Bugz’s near ten minute full take than I managed here but that’s for another day, maybe.

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43.39

MANDRAKE HANDSHAKE – Hypersonic Super-Asterid – Earth-Sized Worlds, LP – Tip Top Recordings – 2025

A bit of a Stereolab feel in here, I reckon.

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51.54

THIS IS THE KIT – Skim A Stone – Ghost Coat, CD only – Memphis Industries – 2027

A trailer track for an early 2027 vinyl album release and gutsier than their previous 41 Rooms spins.

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53.49

FUJIMA & MIYAGI – No Green Light – New Shiny Object, LP – Impossible Objects Of Desire – 2026

With no Japanese band member in sight the Brighton band’s name came about because the two words (the first, from a Japanese record player and tape recorder manufacturer and the second, from a character in the film The Karate Kid) ‘looked really nice written down’ and the first 100 orders for the album (out in a week’s time) can expect a signed postcard. Back to the music and the first thing that comes to mind? That high synth motif has maybe been spun from the same ancient keyboard as used by Dominique Guiot on his 1978 track Les Pingouins S’amusent. Weird thinking… and possibly wrong.

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59.27

BERSERK IN A HAYFIELD – Tease – Cold Waves Of Color, v/artists LP – Color Disc – 2014

Speaking of ancient synths. The lead track from the first of a whole bunch of 1980s Color label v/artist cassette releases remastered and re-issued on vinyl from 2014 onwards, Tease could originally be found on the label’s 1984 v/artists An Hour Of Color cassette sampler and there’s a 50/50 chance I’d have swerved this back then, thinking it sounded a bit ‘cheesy’ but with the passage of time it sounds far less so. For some reason, a vinyl ‘Export Edition’ followed the 2014 re-issue a year later.

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01.03.34

CAOILFHIONN ROSE (feat SVANEBORG KARDYB) – Horizon – Draw Out Your World, LP – Lost Map & Into Sky Records – 2027

Some ‘spacial folk’ and another trailer track – this one for the album forthcoming in Feb, 2027 – and for me sometimes it can be the way a singer holds a note that drags me in. Also, as the madness in the world spreads, there’ll be more and more Caoilfhionns looking for refuge in/with their music. I see she combined with the Durutti Column on a 2020 single, Free From All The Chaos. No surprise, on a few levels.

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01.08.51

SAIRIE – The Gairdner – Lathe cut 7″ – Gardener’s Delight – 2019

The Gardnener to you and I but here we’re down the more traditional ‘English folk’ country lane with a song that maybe could have graced a Jacqui McShee-led Pentangle world back in the late ’60s? A hand numbered lathe cut edition of 53 and nope, I don’t have one.

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01.13.57

DON’T KILL THE COW – Ivresse * – Hier Brûle Encore, EP, download only – 2026

Not sure what’s going on here, lyrically but vocalist Lucie Herrmann means it. Cows? The band are out of Geneva, Switzerland, so if you’re gonna make a stand, cows are never far away.

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01.16.48

THEATRE – Gaudete – Incarnate, 12″ EP – Echo – 2026

Jangly guitars plus strident vocals and for those of a certain age, maybe a bit of an All About Eve feel? Gaudete? Haven’t heard that word since Steeleye Span championed a single of the same name fifty plus years ago. I didn’t buy it.

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01.20.44

EYELESS IN GAZA – Stay – Discreet Campaigns, v/artists cassette only – Rorschach Testing – 1985

I was smiling a lot when the band donated this track to us (Rorschach Testing) for the compilation below and it’s been a fave EIG track ever since. The more ‘pop’ end of Martyn Bates and Pete Becker’s work and only ever to crop up later on their Orange Ice & Wax Crayons 1992 compilation for Martin Patton’s Document label.

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01.24.51

THE SMITHS – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side – 7″ – Rough Trade – 1985

Morrissey will have a lyric and melody on the go right up to his last breath.

The Smiths – Westfield College, Hampstead, London, 17.11.83

Photo credit/copyright – Dec Hickey

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01.27.40

JUNK – Headache – Junkmail, EP. Download only – 2025

Maybe the ultra English sounding vocal has helped here but there’s got to be a Sundays album or two in a record collection of a Junk person.

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01.30.10

JOSEF K – Radio Drill Time – 7″ – Postcard Records – 1980

I certainly didn’t own the first pressing (below picture cover) of this back in the day and I’m not sure I had the follow up pressing, either. Maybe an oversight.

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01.34.08

MO-DETTES – Dark Park Creeping – 7″ – Deram – 1980

So 1980… to their credit!

A UK 10″ acetate out there somewhere.

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01.36.38

GNAG OF FOUR – Contract – Entertainment, LP – EMI – 1979

Yep, this album gets closer to all of its tracks having been spun on 41 Rooms.

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01.39.13

A CERTAIN RATIO – Faceless – The Graveyard And The Ballroom, cassette only – Factory – 1980

‘Released in February 1980, it contains 14 tracks: 7 demo songs from a session recorded at Graveyard Studios in September 1979 (side A) and 7 songs from a gig at the Electric Ballroom on 26th October 1979 (side B), together with Joy Division and The Distractions.
The pouches come in various colours and two designs:
Orange (first edition of 400), blue, green, grey (can appear as brown), and red: 1 button and two pockets.
A “new style plastic wallet” (Factory newsletter) with 2 buttons and 1 pocket was used since late May 1980 for blue, red and green reissues.

The cassettes are either black with light grey paper labels or white/light grey with dark grey paper labels.
The back photographs either show a band member with a trumpet or with a guitar or the four band members. – Discogs

The album first made it to a vinyl release in 2004 via Universal Sound and again more recently in 2017 courtesy of the band’s present day label, Mute.

And as for Faceless? Maybe it’s because Josef K appeared earlier but ACR here sounding more like the Scots crew than I’d have noted back at the time. Still, it’s a track that could easily have made a very early 41 Rooms show if the wind had been blowing…

And here’s my copy of the cassette, bought at the time, off the back of a tiny NME news item but sold twenty five years later to someone in Belgium.

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01.41.24

THE POP GROUP – Thief Of Fire – Y, LP – Radar – 1979

Mark Stewart’s venom just gettin’ goin’.

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01.45.45

PUBLIC ENEMY – You’re Gonna Get Yours – 7″ – Def Jam / CBS – 1987

Car talk from Chuck D, I first heard this on John Peel’s radio show.

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01.49.48

DAVY D – Keep Your Distance – 7″ b-side – Def Jam – 1987

And same year and same label, this was also first heard by me on John Peel’ show.

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01.53.46

YOUSSOU N’DOUR and NENEH CHERRY – 7 Seconds (R&B To The Hip Hop Drop Mix) – 12″ – Chaos – 1994

Not wildly different from the original but that there is a difference gives me the angle to 41 Rooms spin this gem (again). A worldwide hit that stayed at no. 1 in France for sixteen consecutive weeks.

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Show 158 arrives Dec 6.

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