Two hours of post punk and other newer/older beats and nonsense, uploaded first Sunday of every month

Episode 56 – Original Upload 3.6.18

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Uploaded June 3, 2018

41 Rooms’ Playlist 56 is 86% vinyl friendly. Impressive.

Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms ‘tweak’/edit/chop/etc.

Lyric of Playlist 56: 

Do you work at a job you despise? Do you live with cockroaches? Have you been mugged lately? Did your favourite jeans shrink in the wash? Everyone has problems.

Thankfully things pick up.

00.00

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

00.41

NEW ORDER – World In Motion – 7″- Factory / MCA – 1990

Let’s face it. Up until the last few years most football songs committed to vinyl have been absolute pants… and with England on the verge of hell knows what (and it’s been ‘hell’ for most of the last 50 plus years) in the upcoming World Cup, here’s to our heroes raising the tone of the genre. Off the sub’s bench and joint Man of the Match – Keith Allen and John Barnes.

04.28

URBAN FARMERS – Swingin’ It – 12″ – Afro Art – 1997

One hugely funky as f*** track and only half of it here. This far more in yer face ‘mix’ is a bastardised/corrupted take from a back in the day cassette recording that involved (I think) radio, a stereo broadcast caught on one mono channel then spread over two channels on tape… and unintended compression. A mess… but a wonderful mess that, apart from the slight hiss, somehow sounds better than the vinyl rip I then correctly took from the 12″. Weird.

10.02

SONNY J – Handsfree (If You Hold My Hand) – 7″ – Stateside – 2008

In the vein of the KLF’s Justified & Ancient hook up with Tammy Wynette. If Brenda Lee had been the vocalist on this, some clever marketing might have got this ‘outside the box’ pop excursion some way to matching the success of the former.

13.10

MR CHICAGO – Bad Dub – Midnight Riot! v/a 12″ EP – ISM Records – 2012

More echoes of the ’50s in the vocal department, I only realised recently this hadn’t been some Presley/Cochran/Vincent-type spoof but in fact that lover of the ’50s, Chris Isaak being taken to the cleaners… and all the better for it.

21.00

ESG – You Make No Sense At All – Come Away With ESG, LP – 99 Records – 1983

Not really taking to their You’re No Good single a couple of years earlier is maybe the reason this slipped past me.

23.14

AU PAIRS – Love Song – Playing With A Different Sex, LP – Human Records – 1981

One of the albums that just keeps on giving to 41 Rooms.

Au Pairs - We're So Cool - 41 Rooms - show 1

26.01

JAH WOBBLE (and JULIE CAMPBELL) – Tightrope – Psychic Life, CD only – Cherry Red – 2011

Lonelady, Julie on an away day with a boss bass man.

29.28

THE KILLS – The Good Ones – 7″ – Domino Records – 2005

A post punk’y sound that made the UK singles charts, the way it maybe wouldn’t have done twenty years earlier.

32.44

WRANGLER – Theme From Wrangler – LA Spark, LP – Memetune – 2014

Stephen ‘Mal’ Mallinder (ex-Cabaret Voltaire), Ben ‘Benge’ Edwards (John Foxx and The Maths) and Phil(l) Winter (Tunng) on their first excursion as Wrangler. Analogue synths akimbo!

37.58

EYELESS IN GAZA – Three Kittens – 7″ b-side – Cherry Red – 1981

Normally lead by Martyn Bates’ gorgeous voice, here EIG offer a beaut of a staccato-like instrumental.

42.25

GaBe (GIFTED & BLESSED) – My Not Self (Bitterness) – Soundcloud only – 2016

The English language stretched to its accepted parameters in the title. However…

Fresh from the studio of multi-monikered futurist Gabriel Reyes-Whitaker aka GB, comes this piece from his new project GaBe. In this form, GB sketches the blueprint of his human design, investigating every aspect of his being in relation to the larger universe. ‘My Not Self (Bitterness)’ has a molecular essence. Primal layers of raw drum machines give birth to synthesizer lines seeking a path to self-realization. The track premiered as part of GB’s guest appearance on LAndscape, RBMA Radio’s weekly exploration of Los Angeles hosted by Frosty – Soundcloud / Red Bull Music Academy

47.36

CABARET VOLTAIRE – Silent Command – 7″ – Rough Trade – 1979

A total revelation when first heard…

51.42

JAH MALI – I & I  – 7″ – Yahbell Entertainment – 199?

Highly probable there are more gems in this man’s catalogue that I’ve yet to find.

And here again, after he or someone else has messed around with his name…

55.43

JAHMALI – El Shadhi – 7″ – Penthouse Records – 1997

I took out my copy of this to photograph and half an hour later I couldn’t find it… and I haven’t found it since. Freakin’ weird. Post script: A year later I do find it.

Jahmali - El Shadhi - 41 Rooms - show 56

59.32

ELECTRIC WIRE HUSTLE – They Don’t Want – ‘EP003’, 7″ – Wonderful Noise Productions – 2010

A stellar track – with a bit of a Northern soul slow shuffle going on – and a Japanese label with the A&R savvy to release it on 7″.  300 copies only. A modern left-field ‘conscious’ soul gem.

Half time. Oranges? Naaah. Tea… and honey. Trying to kick white sugar with something healthy that doesn’t cost ten times that of the demon cancer craving white stuff.

01.02.19

PETULA CLARK – Downtown – 7″ – Pye Records – 1964

Japanese pop (see below), a naive Eurovision entry or maybe the French(!) might be the only areas to search out those still making records like this. In fact, it’s not a great leap to Christine and the Queens. Cheeriness from when the world had less to worry about.

01.05.17

CHOCOLAT & AKITO –扉 ep – Rallye Label, CD only – 2012

Twee? Kookie? Dunno.

01.08.29

WILL POWERS – Smile (12″ Version) – Island – 1983

Let’s hear it for former bag lady, Wilma Fox! – and hear it from the lady, Lynn ‘Will Powers’ Goldsmith herself.

01.14.33

WAS (NOT WAS) – Tell Me That I’m Dreaming – Self-Titled LP – ZE / Island – 1981

Once described by Detroit’s Metro Times’ Brian J Bowe as ‘an endearing mess… a sausage factory of funk, rock, jazz and electronic dance music, all providing a boogie-down backdrop for a radical (and witty) political message of unbridled personal freedom and skepticism of authority.‘ That’ll do. i spun three (and possibly four) of this album’s tracks at our Winkles club nights in the early 80s.

01.19.25

JOHNNY MATHIS – The Twelfth Of Never – 7″ – Columbia – 1957

The oldest record played to date on 41 Rooms, I think, and you can nearly picture a cavernous recording studio, with a huge orchestra in one part and Mathis and a Neumann mic cordoned off elsewhere. In all ways, epic.

01.21.52

JOY DIVISION – Atmosphere * – 7″ – Sordide Sentimental – 1979

It’s a subjective thing, but one side of the greatest 7″ singles ever pressed.

Extract from From Heaven to Heaven – New Order Live… and my efforts in acquiring a copy of the single.

‘I’m not exactly sure when John Peel first played the Joy Division, Sordide Sentimental 7″ but it’s very likely it would have been sometime around the single’s March ‘80 release. I do, though, remember him making a reference to the limited pressing of 1578 having some significant historical date connection. He then added that the single was pretty much sold out. Both ‘Dead Souls’ and ‘Atmosphere’ blew me away, so I was desperate to get a copy. A printers’ strike in late May/early June ‘80 meant that certain magazines weren’t on the news stands for a few weeks. With no other obvious route to try and get hold of the single, that might account for why it took until the June 21 edition of the NME before I managed to get something in the Records Wanted section of its personal ads. At 20p a word, Joy Division: “Atmosphere” (Sordid {sic} label), along with my name, address and phone number, was short and to the point. And on a warm evening, further along, I got a phone call. It was Yves Von Bontee of Sordide Sentimental. He’d seen the NME and sensing I might be a fan of some determination to have gone to the trouble of paying for an ad in the music press, he was offering me the last copy of the single they had in the office! Apart from having noted the efforts involved in his generosity, I weighed up that the call from France had likely cost him more than the single had been retailing for! I gushed thanks and had my money in the post the next day. Whatever happened it didn’t reach him first time around but got returned to me weeks later, at which point I must have panicked and maybe even possibly called the label, as I then received a letter from Yves. It included the calming words, “Don’t worry as I told you on the phone there is one Joy Division aside for you even if it’s now sold out” and he finished by saying, “Thanks for enjoying our productions. I hope you buy it just for the music and inside work and not for the rarities and collection…” The second time of asking, my money did reach him and although personal tragedy had, in the meantime, struck the Sordide Sentimental camp and laid the label low, when that very precious single did eventually arrive Yves still felt obliged to apologise for its delay.‘

Though, you can’t please everybody. Noted dance music reviewer, JH below, was maybe slightly outside his comfort zone when noting a subsequent re-release for Atmosphere…

‘Droning 0-59 3/4-60 1/2-0bpm moody throbber from 1979, with uncertainly pitched groaning vocal, strictly for fans‘ – James Hamilton, Jocks, 7.88

My #000309 copy, signed by the remaining Joy Division members at my New Order promoted gig in Bedford on March 21, 1981. Before the days of getting Sharpie’d up.

01.25.57

THE RAINCOATS – Animal Rhapsody – 12″ – Rough Trade – 1983

A particular high from them, I’d say.

01.30.17

THE PASSAGE – Devils & Angels – 7″ – Night & Day – 1981

I’ve never quite worked out who’s actually on vocals here.

01.33.47

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN – Never Stop * – 7″ – Korova – 1983

Their catalogue of stompingly good singles back then was hard to beat.

01.38.27

THE STYLE COUNCIL – Heavens Above – 7″ – Polydor – 1987

Weller in a particularly soulful mood, with Curtis Mayfield (Move On Up) and the Isley’s (Love Merry-Go-Round) somewhere close in the ether. Translucent (green) vinyl for the US promo only 7″.

01.44.22

SWITZERLAND – Inflight (The Correct Use Of Dope) – 12″ EP – ZTT – 1992

Original 808 State’er, Martin Price in the cockpit, and such was the ’90s cache of any vinyl related to his previous crew, I was picking up copies of both this and 2/Big Sur (on Eastern Bloc, their only other release) for £1-£2 and with the wind in the right direction, getting £16-£20 for them… so an old ‘spreadsheet’ tells me.

01.47.53

UNA MAS TRIO (feat. MALAIKA) – Move My Feet – Ritmo Del Futura, CD only – 2009

Summery sounds.

01.54.01

SANDOZ – Dark Continent – 12″ – Touch (Tone) – 1993

A particularly fab strain of Richard’s work outside of CV.

‘Six moody tracks from the mind of Cabaret Voltaire’s Richard Kirk. The title track is sophisticated techno at its best, driven on a liquid twang and delicate flanged snare patterns. Others, such as ‘Biosynthetic’ have more of a Detroit ‘techno soul’ flavour, or echoes of tribal trance, as an ‘Orgasmatron’, but the rest are fairly worthless doodling. Pick and mix.‘ – Matthew Cole, Record Mirror (Music Week), 4.9.93

Show 57 surfaces on July 1.

England’s standing with the World Cup on July 1?

Dec

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